How to write an
effective sentence
Find the sentence’s core.
Choose a structure for your reader and your purpose. Use each choice to make the intended meaning explicit.
By Adam Frick · First draft
A sentence has a job to do. The sentence might explain a result, make a claim, describe a person or leave the reader with a particular feeling. An effective sentence fulfils that purpose.
Effective writing depends on grammar, precise wording, rhythm and the order of information. The useful question is what happens when another person reads the words you have put on the page. The 2022 speaker figures reported by LemonGrad imply that about 74.3% of English speakers are non-native. I want sentence structure to help that shared audience follow the meaning.
When I teach academic writing, I often begin with something very simple: find the subject and the verb. The exercise has surprisingly useful consequences. Before we talk about elegance, we can establish what the sentence actually says.
1. Find the sentence’s core.
Start by identifying the main action in a sentence. The following sentence map separates the subject from the verb and object so the core becomes visible. Use that core as a starting point before considering any extra information.
The sentence has a subject, a verb and an object. We know who did what to what. This structure follows the subject–verb–object pattern or SVO. Now add some detail:
The dog ate the pizza that I had left on the kitchen table.
The sentence’s core is still easy to find. The extra information identifies the pizza without obscuring the main action. Other sentence patterns work perfectly well. In “The dog is hungry,” hungry describes the subject and functions as a complement. The sentence “The dog slept” has no object. SVO gives us a useful starting point for examining a sentence. We still need to look at the sentence we actually have.
2. Keep the subject and verb close.
A reader who meets a subject expects an action or a description concerning that subject. The work of George Gopen and Judith Swan discusses this expectation in The Science of Scientific Writing (1990), including the difficulty caused by lengthy separation of subjects and verbs. Give the reader that information reasonably soon.
The committee, after reviewing the applications and discussing the criteria at two lengthy meetings, approved the proposal.
The committee approved the proposal after reviewing the applications and discussing the criteria at two lengthy meetings.
Both versions are grammatical. In the first, the reader has to hold the committee in mind while working through the intervening detail. In the second, the committee approved establishes the action immediately.
As a working guide, try to get the main subject and verb into the first third of the sentence. Put background details and qualifications where they are easiest to follow. An opening phrase may be useful, but ask whether the opening prepares the reader for the main idea or delays the main action.
A short sentence core also has a psycholinguistic explanation. Edward Gibson’s 1998 account of syntactic locality proposes that maintaining an unfinished grammatical dependency creates a memory cost. Distance can also increase the work required to connect related words. The account supports checking unnecessary subject–verb separation without making sentence length alone a measure of difficulty.
3. Let the verb do some work.
Writers sometimes turn an action into a noun and use a general verb to introduce the action. A more precise verb can express the same meaning directly, especially when the sentence’s purpose is to describe what a person or team did. Compare the two examples below to see where the action is carried in each structure.
The team conducted an analysis of the samples.
The team analysed the samples.
Conducted tells us very little here. Analysed gives us the action directly. Similar opportunities appear in phrases such as made a decision, carried out an investigation and provided an explanation.
Writers may have good reasons to discuss a decision, an investigation or an explanation as a distinct subject. Keep the noun when the named action deserves attention as a distinct subject. When you mean to describe an action, see whether a precise verb does the job more effectively. Academic writing benefits from precise words and visible reasoning. Complicated wording earns a place when the meaning requires complexity.
4. Give your ideas room.
Find each subject–verb combination in a long sentence. Then ask what relationship connects the different parts. Are you showing a cause, making a contrast or introducing another observation?
The response rate was low, the survey was sent during the holidays, however, the responses contained useful detail.
The survey was sent during the holidays, which may explain the low response rate. In spite of the limited participation, the responses contained useful detail.
The first version joins independent clauses with commas where stronger boundaries are needed. A contrastive linking word cannot repair a comma splice without appropriate punctuation. The revision separates the possible explanation from the concession and names limited participation as the obstacle that the useful detail overcomes.
Notice may explain. Sending a survey during the holidays does not, by itself, establish why people failed to respond. An effective revision should preserve the distinction between an observation and an explanation.
A full stop marks the end of a complete sentence. A joining word shows how ideas belong together. Choose the one that expresses the relationship you intend.
5. Treat word counts as guidance.
In academic writing, I suggest aiming for an average of about 20–25 words per sentence. That average gives you a practical reason to inspect sentences that have grown crowded. The suggested range also leaves room to develop an idea.
The word average matters. A short sentence can establish a point. A longer sentence can qualify the point, describe a relationship or carry a carefully organised sequence. Variation gives the writing movement.
Count the words when the count helps you notice a problem. Then look at the structure. A sentence becomes difficult when its reader must keep too many unfinished ideas in mind, untangle competing clauses or search for the main action.
If dividing the sentence helps, write two sentences. If the longer sentence works effectively, retain the longer structure. You are writing for a reader, not filling a quota.
6. Choose what deserves emphasis.
An active sentence can identify the actor before stating the action. That order is useful when the paragraph concerns what a person or team did. The following example gives the research team a clear grammatical role in the measurement procedure.
The researchers measured the temperature every hour.
A passive sentence gives the measurement the subject position. The change can help when the paragraph concerns the procedure rather than the people performing the procedure. Compare that emphasis with the active version before deciding which sentence belongs in the paragraph.
The temperature was measured every hour.
If the paragraph concerns what the researchers did, the active version may fit well. If the paragraph concerns the temperature and the measurement procedure, the passive version may give the reader the more useful emphasis. Sometimes the identity of the person performing an action matters a great deal. “The application was rejected” leaves that person or institution unnamed. “The review panel rejected the application” tells the reader who was responsible. Decide whether leaving the actor out serves the purpose or conceals something the reader needs. Use active and passive constructions deliberately. Their effectiveness depends on what you want the reader to notice.
7. Connect consecutive sentences.
A sentence also has a place in a paragraph. Its opening should help the reader follow the connection with what came before, particularly when an earlier sentence contains more than one possible referent. A named connection makes the next sentence’s contribution easier to identify.
The survey found a sharp decline in attendance. This was unexpected.
The survey found a sharp decline in attendance. This decline was unexpected.
This decline tells us what the second sentence refers to. That small addition can be especially useful when the previous sentence contains several possible referents. Repeat a key term when the repetition keeps the idea visible. Replacing every repeated word with a synonym may make the language more varied while making the argument harder to follow. Consistent terminology helps your reader recognise that you are still discussing the same thing.
Let the content lead instead of performing expertise.
A writer may make the language more elaborate in response to concern about how an audience will judge the writer. The researchers examined this mechanism in their 2020 study of status and jargon, which combined nine studies with archival analysis of about 64,000 dissertation titles. The experimental findings linked lower status with increased jargon through concern about audience evaluation. That mechanism supports my concern that a writer’s wish to gain acceptance can displace attention from the meaning the reader needs.
Unnecessary elaboration can also undermine the impression the writer wants to create. In Oppenheimer’s 2006 experiments, greater unnecessary vocabulary complexity reduced readers’ judgements of the author’s intelligence. The study examines vocabulary and processing fluency, so the finding must not be extended automatically to every complex grammatical structure. In relation to writing practice, the result gives a writer a reason to question words chosen mainly to display sophistication.
Research on legal prose provides a direct test of structure as well as vocabulary. Martínez, Mollica and Gibson’s 2022 study combined corpus analysis with two experiments involving 184 participants. Readers recalled and understood legal excerpts less well when the excerpts retained difficult linguistic features rather than simpler wording. Clauses embedded within other clauses were particularly damaging to recall. The finding gives my objection to needless grammatical elaboration a basis in measured reader performance within that legal context.
Complexity can also become a signal of authority before the writer has considered the reader’s needs. In the same researchers’ 2024 study, 286 participants across two preregistered experiments produced more embedded syntax when writing official laws than when writing comparison texts. The second experiment compared laws with unofficial descriptions of equivalent conceptual complexity. The authors interpreted the results as support for the “magic spell” hypothesis, in which unusual language helps a text signal legal authority. That interpretation concerns the legal register, but the experiment shows why complicated syntax cannot automatically be defended as a necessary consequence of complicated content.
An honest account must also consider evidence against treating peer approval as the explanation for every elaborate sentence. In the researchers’ 2023 experiments with lawyers, lawyers understood and recalled simpler contracts more successfully and rated the simpler versions as better writing. The lawyers also judged the simpler versions no less enforceable. Those findings weakened an explanation based on professional insiders preferring legalese and were more consistent with convenience and inherited drafting practices. My argument gains precision from that distinction: fear of judgement is one supported mechanism, while habit and convention can preserve difficult prose without a conscious wish to impress.
I want the content to carry the interest while the grammar makes the meaning available. A relatively simple sentence can name the actor, establish the action and give the important detail an identifiable role without competing for the reader’s attention. A longer sentence may still be needed to express a qualification or a relationship accurately. Vary the structure as the argument develops, but let the need for that variation come from the content. A sentence earns complexity when the intended meaning requires the complexity, rather than when the writer wants to appear more accomplished.
Apply the principles to your own writing.
Take one paragraph you have written and read the paragraph aloud. Identify the point the opening establishes and the development that follows. Use the questions below to check whether each sentence contributes to that development and preserves the intended meaning.
- What is the subject and what is the main verb?
- How far apart are the subject and the main verb?
- Does the verb name the action precisely?
- If the sentence contains several clauses, is the relationship between the clauses clear?
- Does the wording say exactly what the evidence allows?
- How does this sentence connect to the previous sentence?
- What do I want my reader to understand, feel or do?
Make a revision. Compare the two versions. Check that the meaning has survived and ask what has become more effective.
These principles give you something to look for. The decisions are still yours. A useful sentence serves the idea, the reader and the purpose you brought to the page.
Editor, writer and educator · Effective English