Avoid Writing Long and Complicated Sentences

Author : Dr Albert P’ Rayan

A friend of mine, an established writer, asked me to have a look at a letter he had published in a newspaper and give my comments on it. Almost every day he shoots a letter to a newspaper/magazine and has published over 10,000 letters in the past four decades. His articles have also been published by leading newspapers.

This was my comment on the 254-word letter: “Good letter. Congrats! You have commented on a burning issue. You have conveyed your views on the issue in a very powerful manner. It shows your clarity of thought. The tone of the letter is good. Your ideas and diction are superb.  Here is an important observation. Quite unusually, the sentences in this particular letter are very long.  The 254-word letter has only four sentences and they are long-winded with 56, 65, 47 and 86 words in the first, second, third and fourth sentence respectively. As the letter affects readability, it is good to write simple sentences.” As soon as he read my feedback, he appreciated my advice.

Language is for communication. Plain English is the key to clear communication. Pompous words, long sentences and lengthy paragraphs are hurdles for clear communication. A good writer has clarity of thought and clarity of expression. Gone are the days of long-winded sentences. Look at this extract from the BBC website:

So says Govan, a thin, bearded French jazz musician from Lyon whom I meet in a German language class for people recently arrived in Berlin. “In one month,” he says, “I met lot of people from everywhere.” The faces around the table are young, the accents mainly European. They tell a story about how the demography of this country is changing fast. Germany is now the world’s second most popular destination — after the US — for immigrants. And they are arriving in the hundreds of thousands.

The 87-word text has six sentences varied in length. The first sentence has 25 words whereas the last sentence has just nine words. The average number of words in a sentence is 14.5. The passage is easy to read and understand. Here are some tips for writing in plain English:

1. Know that communication is the main purpose of writing. Communicate, don’t complicate.

2. Know your readers. Be reader-friendly. Ask yourself whether your writing can be understood by your readers.

3. Use simple English.

4. Use verbs instead of nouns and noun phrases wherever possible. Verbs are called action words. They make your writing come alive. Instead of the noun phrase “give consideration to” use the verb “consider” and instead of “make an application to” use the verb “apply”.

5. Avoid wordy phrases. Use ‘to’ instead of ‘in order to’, ‘thrice’ instead of ‘on three different occasions’.

6. Write short and clear sentences. The average sentence length is 15-18 words.

7. Use a variety of sentence structures. Variety breaks monotony.

 — rayanal@yahoo.co.uk

Manage Your Time Wisely; It Waits For None

The popular age old proverb says, “Time and tide wait for none”. Very often we find ourselves saying, “Wish I had few more hours”. This pining for extra hours displays our inefficiency to make the best use of the given time. The fact that cannot be denied is that the number of seconds, minutes and hours we have in a day is fixed. We can choose to spend time on our thoughts, conversations or actions. Time management is the act or process of planning and exercising conscious control over the amount of time spent on specific activities, especially to increase our effectiveness, efficiency and productivity. By following a set of guidelines, our modest endeavour to make the best use of time may be fulfilled.

• Carry a schedule to record your thoughts, conversations and actions for a week. This will help you understand the course of your time and to keep a track of the time that is productively used and the time that gets wasted.

• Begin your day only after having set your day’s work schedule. Plan the day’s work either on the previous night or early next morning. The list of work for the day should be categorised as (a) important but not urgent (b) urgent and important (c) not important and not urgent (d) urgent but not important.

• You need to decide when to accomplish the important but not urgent work; urgent and important is to be done immediately; not important and urgent can be done later, and urgent but not important can be delegated to somebody else. This will lessen the burden of doing multiple tasks in a stipulated time frame.

• You should assign time to complete urgent and important work, and the time frame must be strictly adhered to, with discipline, or else the delay will lead to unsatisfactory output. Every work should have its own time limit, thus preventing one task from eating into time set apart for another task.

• While on an important assignment, refrain from getting disturbed by phone calls, messages and chats. Block all sources of distractions, especially mobiles and social networking sites.

• Set a reminder for every task’s deadline well ahead of time. Trying to meet deadlines at the eleventh hour only causes stress and strain.

• Avoid procrastination, as it is a thief of time. Embrace punctuality, which is the soul of business.

• Similar tasks can be grouped to save time. Multitasking saves time.

• Evaluate your progress at the end of the week. In case of failure to accomplish a task, analyse the reasons and attempt to change strategy. Avoid being a prisoner of your habits; change in approach is a welcome step.

• Avoid being a slave of perfection and commitment. Maintaining deadlines is a good habit, but not at the cost of stressing yourself out. Accept reasonable tasks that can be completed within time.