Add a word to your sentence, and you’ll reduce comprehension. Add another once, reduce it even further. Add another one and reduce it even more.

There’s almost a one-to-one correlation between sentence length and understanding, according to research by the American Press Institute. The research, based on studies of 410 newspapers, correlated the average number of words in a sentence with reader comprehension.

The study found that:

• With average sentences of 8 words or less, readers understood 100% of the story. (Downside: Copy might sound as if it had been ripped from a Dick and Jane book.)
• At 14 words, they understood 90% of the information.
• At 43 words, they understood less than 10%.

And that 107-word sentence your subject-matter expert made you write? It actually subtracts from the sum of human knowledge. After reading that sentence, your readers not only don’t know what they’ve read, they also forget where they parked the car.

That’s a net loss of knowledge — not exactly our goal as communicators.

So how short should sentences be?

Write short sentences like the Times.

Take a tip from the pros at The New York Times, and keep sentences short.

Times sentences average 15 words, according to our analysis of all of the stories in a recent edition of the newspaper. (We skipped the sports pages to avoid skewing the results.)

So aim for an average sentence length of about 15 words, like these from the Times:

Some companies that do approve business-class travel do so only in one direction, however.

Its broadband package is also the home to the sports broadcaster ESPN in Britain.

They added that the plaintiffs’ side lacked actual people to say they were harmed.

Build drama, create rhythm and make points powerfully by sprinkling in some super-short sentences like these, from the Times, which range from 5 to 1 word:

Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented.

He was 84.

No.

“Times readers are sophisticated and don’t expect ‘Run, Spot, run’ syntax,” writes Philip B. Corbett, who’s in charge of revising the newsroom’s style manual. “But news is read in a hurry, and we should strive for clear, sharp prose that aids rapid comprehension. Long, complex sentences slow readers down and can lead our syntax astray.”

Amen.

How short should a sentence be?

Ask the experts:

A “53-word sentence feels like my junk drawer — too much information crammed into too small a space.”

— Daphne Gray-Grant, publication coach

 “For readable writing that doesn’t tax your readers, vary your sentence length, seek an average in the low 20s, and cut any sentence of 45 words or more.”

— Wayne Schiess, senior lecturer at The David J. Beck Center for Legal Research, Writing, and Appellate Advocacy

 “The 25-word rule isn’t bad as long as you don’t follow it. Don’t count words and stick religiously to the 25-word limit. A long row of sentences all 25 words long can be as dull as a collection of short sentences can be, unless you’re writing for 8-year-olds.”

— Authors of Writing Tips for Word Lovers

 “The ability to write clear, crisp sentences that never go beyond 20 words is a considerable achievement.”

— Joseph M. Williams, the author of Style: Toward Clarity and Grace

 “Writers who demand attention seldom average more than 17 words a sentence.”

— Jack Hart, author of A Writer’s Coach

 “Maximum sentence length: seventeen words. Minimum: one.

“No semicolons. Semicolons indicate relationships that only idiots need defined by punctuation. Besides, they are ugly.

“Make sure each sentence is at least four words longer or shorter than the one before it.”

— Poet Richard Hugo

“There are no absolute rules of good writing — generalizations are instantly riddled with exceptions — but the principle of the 16-word average sentence comes closest. No other single step you can take will show such quick results in clarity and vigor.”

— Jack Cappon, longtime Associated Press editor

 “This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous.

“Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety.

“Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony.”

— Gary Provost, author of 100 Ways to Improve Your Writing

 “Imagine a clock that starts ticking after the 10th word. With each additional word, the ticking gets louder.

“After the 20th word, the ticking is VERY loud. After the 40th, it’s stadium-crowd loud. After 45, deafening.”

— Tom Silvestri, president of Media General Community Newspapers

What’s your average sentence length? What sentence length do you aim for?

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Short sentences are best. But make every sentence simple and short, and your copy will read like “See Dick run” primers.

So vary the length of your sentences — for interest, for drama, for rhythm.

Fluctuating sentence lengths can help you:

1. Make a point more powerfully.

“People read long sentences quickly,” says Jacqui Banaszynski, associate managing editor at The Seattle Times. “They read short sentences more slowly. Short sentences are power points in your copy.”

Take these powerful passages from a Pulitzer Prize-winning series in the New York Daily News about the plight of Sept. 11 rescue workers. Notice how the lead’s staccato sentences hit you in the chest like machine gun fire:

A man’s life is at stake. His name is Vito Valenti. On Sept. 11 he was caught in the maelstrom and stayed at Ground Zero as a volunteer to help in the frantic rescue and recovery operation. And today he is dying.

The rest of the article moves along at a more leisurely cadence with an average sentence length of 16.5 words. But the ending returns to gunfire pace:

What power points are you making in your piece? How can you use short sentences to slow readers down and better make your point?

“Remember that two great masters of language, William Shakespeare and James Joyce, wrote sentences that were almost childlike when their subjects were most profound.”

— Kurt Vonnegut, novelist

2. Clarify complex concepts.

Shorter sentences increase understanding. So the harder your topic is to understand, the shorter your sentences should be.

“The oldest and best advice in the business is: The tougher it is to tell, the slower and simpler you tell it.”

— Bob Levey, “hometown columnist” for the Washington Post

3. Increase credibility.

In times of crisis, make your sentences, words and paragraphs shorter and simpler. That will show your organization to be transparent, rather than covering up the facts by obfuscating.

“If a writer wants the reader to think something is the absolute truth, the writer should render it in the shortest possible sentence. Trust me.”

— Roy Peter Clark, author of Writing Tools, paraphrasing Tom Wolfe

4. Create drama.

A series of short sentences slows the reader down, building suspense, Clark writes. They serve as cliff-hangers, propelling the reader through the copy.

Long sentences, on the other hand, can create a breathless, slow-motion, stream-of-consciousness scene. Take this beauty, from novelist Paul Harding’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Tinkers:

Notice how the two short sentences and medium-length sentence launch that 130-word one. The long sentence would be much less effective without the setup.

Want one more example? Check out the 250-word sentence in Clark’s “Tracking the Great Long Sentence.”

5. Convey information efficiently.

Most sentences shouldn’t turn literary cartwheels. If your sentences shout, “Look, Ma! I’m writing!” they’re probably distracting the reader from the main event — the message.

“You don’t have to go for a home run in every sentence. It will exhaust you and the reader. I always tell my students that every paragraph needs an ox-like sentence that does the work. It should be simple and short. Don’t hide or disguise what you need to say for the sake of cleverness. Just tell me what I need to know.”

— James Magnuson, novelist

6. Create rhythm.

What does your copy sound like? Create music with your writing.

“I think of writing as being musical. Punctuation is the rhythm and the words are the melody.”

— Alice Steinbach, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist

The short and long of varying sentence length

So make some sentences very short, others very long. One dramatic technique is to write a longer, more complex sentence, then follow it with a one- or two-word sentence or paragraph.

Enough said.

___

Sources: Arthur Browne, Beverly Weintraub and Heidi Evans, “Please Help Me Go On Living,” New York Daily News, Aug. 10, 2006. From the Pulitzer Prize-winning series

Roy Peter Clark, “Suspense … and the short sentence,” The Poynter Institute, Dec. 27, 2006

Roy Peter Clark, “Tracking the Great Long Sentence,” The Poynter Institute, Aug. 28, 2007

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