ClearTips: Stunning sentences

Series from short to long

Compound subjects and predicates and the elements of pairs or series usually appear as they come out of the writer's mind—haphazardly. Rearranging those elements from short to long and from simple to compound makes them easier for your reader to understand. Start by counting the syllables of each word—and the words of each phrase—and try arranging them from short to long. If there is another way to order the list (such as chronology or increasing importance), short to long may not apply.

They're smart, ambitious, and uncomplaining.

Compare this with the less orderly ambitious, smart, and uncomplaining—and with uncomplaining, ambitious, and smart, inverted for an emphatic, monosyllabic finish (which would be even more emphatic without the and).

Bill Gates and his empire command fear, respect and curiosity in the world he helped create.

When we say cliché, stereotype, trite pseudoelegant phrase, and so on, we imply, among other things, that when used the first time in literature the phrase was original and had a vivid meaning.

That the cancer doctor's three main tools—surgery, radiation and chemotherapy—are often of so little use is no surprise: a disease caused by genetic instability requires a genetic remedy.

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