Chapter 52: Sentence Variety
CHAPTER 52CONNECT: What about your sentences would you most like to improve? Chapter 52, 53a
CREATE: Write or record a brief memo to yourself in which you describe the improvements you would like to see in your sentences.
REFLECT: Choose an academic project you have written recently, and revise a passage by varying the length, openings, and types of sentences. Reflect on the differences; is the revision more or less effective than the original?
IN ONE COLLEGE CLASSROOM, a peer-response group worked on an essay for almost an hour, but its overall effect still seemed boring. Finally, one student exclaimed, “These sentences all look the same!”
And they were: every sentence in the essay was about the same length, and every sentence started with the subject. The group went to work again, shortening some sentences and revising others to create new rhythms. With the resulting sentence variety, the essay took on new life; it flowed.