How about a tool to hi-light overlong sentences?

[andygrunt]

Following the success of your recent overused and repeated words feature in Atlantis, I have a suggestion for another tool that would help improve writing.

Actually, I guess I mean MY writing as possibly my worst fault is to write long, meandering sentences that go on forever. In recent times I've certainly got better at checking over my stuff and cutting many of the worst examples into a more acceptable length. However, many bad examples still slip through. I think I've got the same kind of blindness to this fault as I do to not being able to see repeated words in close proximity which is what made your overused words tool so handy.

At its simplest, a function that goes through the text highlighting any sentences that are longer than a certain (definable) word count would be very useful. If you did create it, I'd also like to be able to add a button for this on my toolbar.

What do you think?

[admin]

Possibly this function will be added as a new (third) tab to the "Tools | Overused Words..." dialog of Atlantis. I cannot say anything definite yet. But this feature does not seem to be hard to implement. Thanks for your idea.

[andygrunt]

Great - Thanks!

[Eduardo]

Any plans soon to introduce this function? It would be very useful indeed.

Thanks.

Eduardo

[admin]

I can say that we are considering this feature for future versions of Atlantis. Sorry, nothing definite yet. But there are chances that it will be implemented this year.

[admin]

This feature will be included in any next release of Atlantis.
There will be a new tab in the "Tools | Overused Words..." dialog:



This feature should be available for betatesting in the next few days.

[andygrunt]

It can't come too soon for my writing

Looking forward to trying it out - thanks.


Anyone got any thoughts on what will be a good length to set it to? I see it's set to 25 in the screenshot but that feels a bit long to me. Looks like some experimentation is in order.

[Robert]

Hi Andy,
The following sentences from your first post in this thread contain 24, 26, and 36 words respectively:

In recent times I've certainly got better at checking over my stuff and cutting many of the worst examples into a more acceptable length.

At its simplest, a function that goes through the text highlighting any sentences that are longer than a certain (definable) word count would be very useful.

I think I've got the same kind of blindness to this fault as I do to not being able to see repeated words in close proximity which is what made your overused words tool so handy.

Now you might want to have a look at the following pages.

Here is from http://www.askoxford.com/betterwriting/ ... ncelength/

Plain English Guidelines: Keep sentences short
Over the whole document, make average sentence length 15 to 20 words. Muddle is more likely in a long sentence unless the construction is simple and well-organized. Learning to cut repetition and verbiage, using lists and headings properly, and shortening sentences can make the world of difference to your writing.

From http://www.unisanet.unisa.edu.au/Resour ... length.htm

Good sentence length
The most appropriate average English sentence length for most pieces of writing is about 15 to 20 words.
Here is an example of a text with good average sentence length. It comes from a textbook on computing.
The operating system is the core software of a computer. It performs two important functions. First, it provides a user interface so that the human user can interact with the machine. Second, the operating system manages computer resources such as the CPU and main memory. It determines when programs are allowed to run, where they are loaded into memory, and how hardware devices communicate. It is the job of the operating system to make the computer easy to use and ensure that it runs efficiently. (Lewis and Loftus, 2001, p. 3)
The average sentence length is 14.3 words.
Most professional editors and textbook writers try to maintain an average sentence length of 15 to 20 words. See here for more about this. This ideal size range is based on chunking and human memory principles, and some sentences will be longer than 20 words. In academic texts for example, you may have sentences of 30 or 35 words. Other sentences will be shorter than 15 words, and these may even be as short as 4 or 5 words.
To calculate the average sentence length of your text, count all the words in the text. Then divide this number by the number of sentences in your text. You can use the following formula.
ASL = W ÷ S
ASL = Average sentence length
W = number of words in the text
S = number of sentences in the text

From http://www.ehow.com/how_2071346_set-pac ... ength.html

How to Set a Pace With Sentence Length
By eHow Contributing Writer

Good writing includes sentences of varying lengths to control the pace of the story. Long sentences create a flow that carries the reader, while short sentences slow the pace. To control the pace of your writing, use sentence length to create the rhythm of the story as well as your own style. Read on to learn how to set a pace with sentence length.

Instructions
Step 1
Study writing that you find has an effective pace. Count the number words in each sentence. Take note of the placement of the commas and periods. Evaluate the number of sentences of varying length in each paragraph.
Step 2
Analyze your own writing. Mark off 20 sentences and count the total number of words. Divide by 20 to get the average number of words in a sentence. Adjust your pace to reflect a variety in use of sentences.
Step 3
Slow the story to simplify it. Longer sentences can complicate the story in places where simplicity is more effective.
Step 4
Create suspense by varying sentence length. The halting pace of shorter sentences makes the reader eager to move on and find out what happens next.
Step 5
Vary sentence length. Short choppy sentences are monotonous, while consistently long sentences tire the reader.
Step 6
Edit sentence length by combining shorter sentences, or by breaking longer sentences into shorter ones. Monitor the resulting pace of the story.
Step 7
Read some books written for very small children. Notice the sentence length and gauge the effect on the reader or listener.

From http://www.kristisiegel.com/variety.html

Varying Sentence Length
A subtle, but very effective way, to make your writing deadly and monotonous is by never varying sentence length. One short sentence after another makes your prose sound choppy, childish, or like a bad imitation of Hemingway. Conversely, all "long" sentences can make your writing hard to read. However, using all "medium"-length sentences doesn't work, either. Sentences that are all about the same length (and often follow the same grammatical pattern) create monotony. A longer sentence, such as the one I'm creating here, serves to offer more details, to focus in, to probe an idea more thoroughly, or--perhaps--to present a powerful description. A short sentence gets to the point.

To analyze your own writing, you first need to find out your ANW/S (average number of words per sentence; ... I just made that term up .
1)Take an essay that represents your normal writing (e.g., one with a great deal of dialogue or an unusual amount of description could skew the results) and mark off twenty sentences.
2) Count the number of words in each sentence and then add those totals to get a grandtotal.
3) Divide the grandtotal by 20. Your result will be the average number of words per sentence.

In general--and this type of analysis is very tenuous--an average sentence length below 14 words per sentence may indicate that you use too many short sentences and you need to learn how to combine and/or subordinate ideas. If your average sentence length is well above 22 words a sentence, you may be piling too much freight on your sentences and have a prose style that is dense and tangled. If your average word length falls between 14 and 22, you need to look at your sentences to see if there is some variety or if they are all about the same length.

Should you decide your sentences are just spiffy the way they are, don't get too smug. Hearing the "rhythm" of your sentences, knowing when to use a longer sentence or a shorter one, and knowing when to vary the pattern of a sentence is a "work-in-progress" for most of us. Effective sentence style doesn't just happen. It takes work.

HTH.
Cheers,
Robert

[andygrunt]

Thanks Robert.

Obviously, there's no hard and fast rule for sentence length and it'll change depending on what you're trying to say and how you're trying to say it. I think I'll try setting it to 20 and see how that works for me.

I wonder if it might be useful to add information on sentences to the 'Document Statistics' popup in Atlantis e.g. average sentence length, shortest sentence and longest sentence? Just a thought.

Another (more off the wall) thought... I wonder if it would be possible to somehow show the 'rhythm' of a piece of text based on sentence (and paragraph?) length?

[Robert]

Hi Andy,
Sentence rhythm is most certainly something that could not be analyzed automatically by Atlantis. It is much too subtle and elusive.

Now you might find food for thought on the following pages. Please follow the links to get the full articles. I am just quoting a few paragraphs from these pages.

http://palc.sd40.bc.ca/palc/bcassign/acmay25.htm

Sometimes, writing is mechanically correct, grammatically perfect, and still is difficult or tedious to read. Why is this? Often, the fault is poor sentence rhythm. Note that this introduction has used a variety of sentence lengths and types.

http://edittorrent.blogspot.com/2009/09 ... hythm.html

Sentence rhythm
I'm listening to a lecture by Prof. Brooks Landon on sentences (and you think I lead a boring life? No, it's one round of revelry after another!), and he mentions that often the most rhythmic sentences have: Main clause, longer modifier, shorter modifier (one word or so), and a long modifier, like:

Slowly she opened the door, uncertain if what waited within was a friend, an enemy, or worse yet, no one at all. (My example)

He said for some reason he couldn't explain this was the most seductive of sentence rhythms, and that the writers considered most melodic would use sentences like this frequently (not every sentence).

Anyway, look at your own work, or a book you love, and see if you can find a sentence like this (doesn't have to be exactly like this-- the point is to have one-word (or two- short, anyway) interspersed with longer modifiers, so you might start with one word, do that main clause, short, long, short. He said it's like a dot-dash of Morse code. Let's see what we come up with to prove or disprove him.

http://www.kerryr.net/webwriting/techni ... -rythm.htm

Syllables and Rhythm in Web Writing
Don't just count words, count the syllables in those words.
The number of syllables used in words - and the number of syllables used in consecutive words - affects the rhythm of sentences. An irregular rhythm and/or too many syllables can decrease reading speed and comprehension.
In printed material, the brain slows down to string multiple syllables together. On the Web, that comprehension is slowed down by another 25% - and with that slow down, we often lose the rhythms of sentences.
For example:
The benefits of external training:
Minimal inconvenience, other than rostering staff to accommodate the training.
…
Min-i-mal in-con-ve-ni-ence. Eight syllables in the first two words.
Our Web readers haven't lost the rhythm of that sentence, they tripped over it.

Turn it Around
We can get rid of two of those syllables by simply substituting less for minimal. We can dispose of another syllable by turning the phrase around to read more convenient.
If we change that phrase to more practical, we've cut the amount of syllables in half.
Even so, we're left with a single long sentence, with a lot of syllables and very little rhythm - and which concentrates on the inconvenience our readers will have.
If we change that entire sentence to read…
The benefits of external training:
More convenient. You only need to change your roster to suit the training.
…
… we have two short sentences of 5 and 14 syllables respectively, that maintain a steady rhythm and stress the positive (convenience) rather than the negative (inconvenience).

http://www.smarthinking.com/static/Docu ... n/4_10.cfm

Sentence Rhythm
Objective
As poets know, rhythm and feeling are connected in a primary way. Poets who write in metered verse do not impose a structure of beats on the language. Instead, they use the rhythm inherent in the language, which is a rhythm inherent in speech, to produce a pattern of beats. The English language counters, or places stressed syllables in opposition with, unstressed syllables in a way that seems to mimic the mother's heartbeat. Let's scan, or examine, this common children's prayer to see that inherent rhythm at work:
NOW (I) LAY me DOWN to SLEEP
(I) PRAY the LORD my SOUL to KEEP
IF (I) DIE beFORE (I) WAKE
(I) PRAY the LORD my SOUL to TAKE
Notice that the stressed syllables in these four lines are always countered by unstressed syllables. The first and third lines begin on stressed syllables, while the second and fourth lines begin on unstressed syllables. The countering of stressed syllables against unstressed syllables in this prayer produces a rhythm that is unmistakable--one a small child will recognize and to which she will respond. While prose writers do not often count syllables when they write and revise their sentences, having a basic understanding of the way rhythm works in English will help you with your style.
Organic Rhythm
It is often effective to write sentences that attempt in some way to mimic the action being described--if you're writing about a leaf floating down a river, you might want a long, floating sentence. If, on the other hand, you want to express an action or feeling that needs to stop and start, a short sentence might be more effective. While a series of short, choppy sentences will create a hesitant, uncertain rhythm, a series of long, meandering sentences will sometimes exhaust readers. The trick, again, is to use a variety of structures, keeping in mind the ways in which your rhythm might help you mimic your meaning.
In the essay "He and I," Natalia Ginzburg compares her husband to herself. She begins her essay this way:
He always feels hot, I always feel cold. In the summer when it is really hot he does nothing but complain about how hot he feels. He is irritated if he sees me put a jumper on in the evening.
The first sentence in this example establishes the writer's main rhetorical mode--the comparative. You'll notice that it's perfectly balanced. The sentences that follow are a bit longer, but not by much. They step away from the comparison at the heart of Ginzburg's essay by concentrating in more specific terms on the speaker's husband. The short sentences here produce a direct, matter-of-fact tone--one that seems uncertain that it wants to say what it's saying.
Toward the end of the essay, Ginsburg says:
Now and again he is ill with some mysterious ailment of his own; he can't explain what he feels and stays in bed for a day completely wrapped up in the sheets; nothing is visible except his beard and the tip of his red nose. Then he takes bicarbonate of soda and aspirins in doses suitable for a horse, and says that I cannot understand because I am always well, I am like those great fat strong friars who go out in the wind and in all weathers and come to no harm; he on the other hand is sensitive and delicate and suffers from mysterious ailments.
You'll notice that these sentences are much longer than the ones the essay began with. It's interesting that the semi-colons dividing independent clauses maintain the comparison that frames this essay, while the lengthier sentences imply that the writer has gained strength as she's gone along--the longer sentences communicate the sense that the writer has become more at ease with her subject.
Often sentences lack rhythm because a writer will write in too many multi-syllabic words. Since English naturally counters stressed syllables with unstressed syllables, it naturally produces a cadence--one that a pleasure to read. A series of multi-syllabic words can undermine this cadence.
Starting February 7th, technical support from the Imaging department will no longer be facilitated through telephone requests, but should be redirected to the technology help desk.
In addition to the multi-syllabic words, this example is written in the passive voice. This choice undermines the power of its rhythm, since the passive demands that long verbal phrase (will no longer be facilitated) and since such phrases cannot hit a stride.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/2465923/Three ... ing-Rhythm

Three Tips to Improve Your Writing Rhythm
by Michele PW
As a professional copywriter, not only do I do a lot of writing but I also look at a lot of writing. One of the things I've noticed that set the good/great writers from the so-so is rhythm.
What I mean by rhythm is how the writing sounds. The rhythm of the words and sentences. It's a subtle aspect of writing, one not normally talked about, but that doesn't lessen its importance.
Unfortunately, rhythm is also tough to teach (which is probably why it isn't talked about very much). It's something felt deep inside, like it is with music. It isn't as straight forward as pointing out a grammar error. What makes it tougher is that everyone has his/her own style and own unique rhythm. However, these three tips should get you started thinking about your own writing rhythm and how to improve it.
1. Watch out for long sentences. In fact, you might want to consider avoiding them altogether.
There's nothing inherently wrong with long sentences. And there are times where longer sentences are necessary (see next tip -- but note I said longer and not long). The problem is that long sentences have a tendency to turn into flabby sentences.
Think of a sentence as an eel. The longer it gets, the more slippery and elusive it becomes. Long sentences are sentences just waiting to slither far away and completely out of your control.
So what's going on with long sentences? One problem is they're tiring to read. By the time readers reach the end of a long sentence, they've most likely forgotten the subject/verb/point of the sentence. And they're probably too tired or too lazy or too busy to go back to the beginning of the sentence and sort the whole thing out.
Another problem is long sentences lack punctuation. Punctuation is a big part of rhythm. The start and stop of a period. The bated breath of an em-dash. Think of punctuation as your percussion section.
But when you write a long sentence, all you have to work with is the quiet sigh of the unobtrusive comma. Yes, they have their place. But it's a subtler instrument. (Think triangle rather than kettledrum.)
A good rule of thumb is to make sure a single sentence doesn’t go over 30 words. If it does, strongly consider breaking it in two. Or three.
2. Vary sentence length. In music, a steady beat is usually a good thing. In writing, it's considered one of the deadly sins. (Okay, not really. But it still isn't good writing.)
If every sentence is the same length, your writing is going to get pretty dull pretty quick. You need short sentences, longer sentences (but not too long) medium length sentences and very short sentences.
How do you know if your sentences are all the same? Does your piece sound monotonous? Are you getting a sing-song voice in your head when you read it? Better take a closer look at those sentence lengths. They're probably all pretty close to being the same.
3. Sentence fragments are a good thing. Forget your fourth-grade English teacher. Forget that obnoxious green line in Microsoft Word telling you your grammar is wrong. In copywriting, as well as in many other forms of writing, sentence fragments are a lifesaver. Those fragments allow you to quickly and easily vary your sentence length. Plus, they can help your writing sound conversational. People talk in sentence fragments. Therefore, reading sentence fragments gives people the impression you're talking to them -- in your own voice and your own style.
So what's a sentence fragment? A sentence that isn't complete. It's missing something -- noun, verb, both. It's not a complete sentence.
Rhythm in writing is much more than just what's going on with your sentences. (Not that we've covered everything that goes wrong with sentences.) But it's a good place to start.

http://senior.billings.k12.mt.us/6trait ... /index.htm

Sentence Fluency
In any piece of writing, there are many possible ways to write any sentence correctly, but usually, of those correct versions, one or two will sound better than others. A writer who can pick out those versions and can use them frequently will have a strong sense of sentence fluency. This does not mean creating longer sentences, but means using long sentences when they would be best and short sentences when they would suit better. It means creating a sense of rhythm with the sentences and a flow that the reader finds enjoyable to follow along. Good sentence fluency stands out when a piece of writing is read aloud.

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/573/01/

Sentence Variety
This resource was written by Purdue OWL.
Last full revision by Ryan Weber.
Last edited by Allen Brizee on April 29th 2009 at 2:36PM
Summary: This resource presents methods for adding sentence variety and complexity to writing that may sound repetitive or boring. Sections are divided into general tips for varying structure, a discussion of sentence types, and specific parts of speech which can aid in sentence variety.
Strategies for Variation
Adding sentence variety to prose can give it life and rhythm. Too many sentences with the same structure and length can grow monotonous for readers. Varying sentence style and structure can also reduce repetition and add emphasis. Long sentences work well for incorporating a lot of information, and short sentences can often maximize crucial points. These general tips may help add variety to similar sentences.
1. Vary the rhythm by alternating short and long sentences.
Several sentences of the same length can make for bland writing. To enliven paragraphs, write sentences of different lengths. This will also allow for effective emphasis.

Etc.

http://papyr.com/hypertextbooks/comp1/euphony.htm

Sentence Euphony
Good writing is writing that is also pleasing to the ear. That is, good writing is euphonic. Euphony in writing is a mixture of several processes in language, but the one process I want to share with you this term is establishing euphony by developing an effective rhythm in your writing. Establishing and maintaining effective rhythm in writing is a combination of using parallelism for balance and controlling sentence endings for emphasis. (See the page about Coherence for more on parallelism.)
Balance and Rhythm
Words like and, but, or, for, so, yet are used to join parts of a sentence or two or more parts of a sentence together in a process called coordination. Coordination will grace a sentence with a movement and rhythm more literate than a noncoordinated sentence. Compare:
Professional sports such as baseball and football alienate their fans by catering to athletes who seem more interested in contracts than performance. Owners alienate fans by caring only for profits.
Professional baseball and football have alienated fans by catering to owners who care only for profits and to athletes who care more for contracts than performance.
Although the second sentence is longer than first one, most readers find that it reads better — sounds better. Those examples illustrate that we can write longer sentences when necessary without sacrificing readability. (Often we have to: language is the best vehicle we have to carry our thoughts. Occasionally, we will need complicated, complex sentences to express our thoughts simply because there are no shorter sentences that can manage the job.) The goal however is to write those complex sentences with elegance. And we can do that through the process of coordination.
We can enhance the grace and rhythm of any sentence using coordination if we remember three simple principles:
place the shorter of the coordinated elements first,
use correlative conjunctions, and
balance the length of the coordinated parts.
First, a coordinated series will move more gracefully if each succeeding coordinated member is longer than the one before it. So if you coordinate within a conjunction, try compose the sentence so that the longest member of the series is the last. Compare these sentences, in which the first sentence violates this principle while the second sustains it:
Tobacco companies will continue to entice insecure teenagers who have been hypnotized by the glamor of smoking and need ego support and adults addicted by their habit.
Tobacco companies will continue to entice adults addicted by their habit and insecure teenagers who need ego support and have been hypnotized by the glamor of smoking.
Most readers find the first version of that sentence much harder to read and less "elegant" than the second version. The reason is coordination. Whenever two sentences components are joined by and in the first version, the longer component is placed before the shorter — violating our first rule of euphony above. The second version follows that rule, placing the shorter before the longer.

Etc.

You could also have a look at http://books.google.com/books?id=dbzvQI ... q=&f=false
HTH.
Cheers,
Robert

[andygrunt]

Sentence rhythm is most certainly something that could not be analyzed automatically by Atlantis. It is much too subtle and elusive.

I'm not so sure. Perhaps the problem is my use of the term 'Rhythm' which probably isn't simply a case of sentence and paragraph length but also how words flow together. Even so, just showing the rudimentary flow of sentence and paragraph length may be of use?

I would think it would be relatively straightforward to visually display the lengths of sentences (and paragraphs) over the course of some text. For example, a simple graph could do it (although I'm not saying it's the best way to display it). The 'X' axis represents the text, the start on the left and the end on the far right. The 'Y' axis shows the length of sentences, the higher the point, the more words there are. You could then plot a 'trend line' smoothing out the points to show the overall 'rhythm' or flow of the text.

Possibly a better way to display this (just off the top of my head) might be little horizontal bars to the left or right of the sentences - the longer the sentence, the longer the bar. This would make it pretty easy to show the 'flow' of the text I would think. I could mock these ideas up if they're not clear and it's of any use.


I really like the tools in Atlantis that help make the writing better (e.g. overused words) so I'm just thinking of other potentially useful tools of this sort. Whether this would be one of them is obviously debatable but it seems worth thinking about to me.