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Writing one sentence per line

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Re: Writing one sentence per line

#131

Post by SamBam »

MrDunham wrote: post #75
rpastuszak wrote: post #20

I approach this by separating writing from editing. Just keep writing, ignore the typos, self-censorship or formatting and keep moving. So, I've build myself an app to make that easier. Essentially, it's just a more stupid version of a text box. It's free, it's private, and it's meant to put you in the state of flow. I've been using it every day for the past 3 years or so and I know that some people find it useful to…

Here’s my biggest critique of Enso: It’s not very easy to send myself a reminder when I’m back at my computer to use it. Content: i’m currently on my mobile phone and I absolutely adore the idea of Enso (funny enough I’m currently holding & feeding my infant named Enzo). I would like to write with it and try it when I don’t have an infant on my lap but that requires me remembering it and looking it up when back on my…

You want a sign-up on the site that just sends you an email and tells you to use it?

You could also just send yourself an email, you know.

Or, if you're fancy, use a to-do list that you can access both on your mobile and your computer.

(To be fair, I recall the brain-fog that comes with having an infant.)

Re: Writing one sentence per line

#132

Post by eesmith »

erellsworth wrote: post #87

Tangentially related: "Omit needless words." -William Strunk, The Elements of Style Highly recommended book for anyone who wants to be a more effective writer.

Have you read any of the criticism of the book? Its Wikipedia entry quotes Pullum:

> The book's toxic mix of purism, atavism, and personal eccentricity is not underpinned by a proper grounding in English grammar. It is often so misguided that the authors appear not to notice their own egregious flouting of its own rules ... It's sad. Several generations of college students learned their grammar from the uninformed bossiness of Strunk and White, and the result is a nation of educated people who know they feel vaguely anxious and insecure whenever they write however or than me or was or which, but can't tell you why.

(See also "50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice" at, eg, https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-file-manager/fil... . Language Log recommends https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Strunk+site%3Ahttp%3A%... as a way to find further criticism from them.)

For "Omit needless words", a problem is identifying what "needless" means. Quoting http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004552.h...:

> Whenever you see an appeal to ONW, you should wonder what people are doing with those "needless" words. Most of the time, those extra words are serving some function that conflicts with brevity; they're doing some work.

There are also examples how that phrase (likely) caused people to believe that if a word can be omitted then in must be ommitted, like http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004176.h... and http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000994.h... .

Or how in White's own writings he "sometimes throws in a few extra words just for the sheer resonant fun of it" - http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001904.h... .

FWIW, I think "don't be too wordy" is more accurate and less likely to be misunderstood than "omit needless words", and one character shorter.

(Personally, I still recall my utter confusion in 11th grade English trying to figure what "passive" meant when told to avoid it. Turns out three of the four examples of passive in "The Elements of Style" ... aren't passive! And yes, I got marked off for using what may- or may-not have been the passive.)

Re: Writing one sentence per line

#133

Post by thejohnconway »

Hendrikto wrote: post #121

This reads like it was written by a third-grader. Accessible? Maybe. Enjoyable? Not in my book. As a German speaker, I feel like English prose is already extremely biased towards short sentences. This makes some sense, as German has much more grammar to make these sentences readable and unambiguous. At some point, I feel like making sentences even shorter does not aid the readability, but rather stands in its way.

The article isn't advocating making sentences shorter. It is using short sentences, but that is not what is being said.

Re: Writing one sentence per line

#134

Post by avgcorrection »

michaelmior wrote: post #126
avgcorrection wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, I’m happy that this was not a yet another sysadmin/programmer-as-writer justification (adjusting one’s whole workflow based on the handful of terminal programs that one uses). EDIT: Meaning that I think this kind of justification is more interesting since it is meant to affect the process of writing itself.

I won't say I'm not guilty of that too sometimes. Although I don't think it's so bad. If there's a tool that you really like using that can be adapted to work in a variety of scenarios, I can understand the justification. For some of the things I do, there probably are better tools for the job, but if I can make use of existing tools I already know how to use well, even if in a suboptimal way, that might be more wort…

Yep, indeed. Whatever works.

Re: Writing one sentence per line

#135

Post by Disruptive_Dave »

t-3 wrote: post #113
SkeuomorphicBee wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading this makes me angry at all my school teachers for the subjects of [my-native-language] and writing. It is such a simple technique, that makes such a huge impact on ones writing, and yet no teacher bothered to teach it. I spent all my school years writing monotonous essays of five-word sentences. Week after week I would make another one, and I could clearly see for myself that they were bad, I just couldn't te…

Reading more is the best way to learn though. Having good examples to imitate and build off of make writing clear, engaging prose much easier. When my math teachers told me "just do the practice problems", I also thought they were idiots, but they were actually right...

Reading as a reader is kinda different than reading as a writer. Different mind states. As a reader I'm getting lost in a story, not picking up on writing styles and patterns. You're not wrong. Just need the caveat of reading with the intention (or partial intention) to pull yourself out of the story and check out the architecture.

Re: Writing one sentence per line

#136

Post by avgcorrection »

Hendrikto wrote: post #121

This reads like it was written by a third-grader. Accessible? Maybe. Enjoyable? Not in my book. As a German speaker, I feel like English prose is already extremely biased towards short sentences. This makes some sense, as German has much more grammar to make these sentences readable and unambiguous. At some point, I feel like making sentences even shorter does not aid the readability, but rather stands in its way.

If you want five-line sentences with plenty of dashes and semicolons then the American Humanities still has got you covered.

Re: Writing one sentence per line

#137

Post by strgcmc »

awestroke wrote: post #119
t-3 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading more is the best way to learn though. Having good examples to imitate and build off of make writing clear, engaging prose much easier. When my math teachers told me "just do the practice problems", I also thought they were idiots, but they were actually right...

Reading more is good, but what if the teacher had pointed out the sentence length and told the student to start reflecting on sentence length while reading?

Outside of classroom-style dedicated instruction, this really does seem to be the best form of learning, i.e. a semi-active/not-fully-passive approach.

There is generally no "hack" that the student can use to avoid having to read a lot of stuff, in order to learn and especially to become an expert. What a student needs to read, isn't necessarily textbooks or the traditional orthodoxy of materials, but still there is undoubtedly a lot of reading that must be done, to "get good" as they say.

That being said, for a teacher to GUIDE that reading, to give some hints, pointers, themes, interconnections, sequencing (start with X, then read Y to deepen your knowledge of X), etc., is absolutely invaluable.

To me, this seems like the Pareto-optimal 80/20 breakdown, where 20% of the teacher's investment in time and energy can get you 80% of the benefit of having teaching at all (i.e. don't need a full curriculum or full-time commitment to dedicated instruction, but do need to spend some time/energy pointing the student in various directions and giving them some ideas to think about while reading).

Re: Writing one sentence per line

#138

Post by andai »

wongarsu wrote: post #111
gnulinux wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember reading this as a child (maybe in elementary school) and it affecting my writing. I have to admit, especially when writing something technical, forgetting about this and focusing on making small, easily-understandable sentences can help the reader. (even though it's more boring)

A paragraph with just one 50-word sentence doesn't have varied sentence length either ;) For technical writing, "no more than one thought per sentence" works quite well in my opinion. Or at least it's a good guideline to apply in the first pass of proofreading.

I agree with no more than one thought per sentence in general, though I have the opposite problem: it often takes me several paragraphs to get a single thought across. So the end result ends up being something like 0.1 thoughts per sentence.

I guess what I'm trying to get across is not a single thought but a perspective which requires some background and context to appreciate, and I struggle with separating out the essential from the incidental, and structuring it for maximum engagement.

Re: Writing one sentence per line

#139

Post by rsfern »

exysle wrote: post #101
Disruptive_Dave wrote: post #8

This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences.…

He is not saying short sentences are necessary, he is saying that each sentence stands out with a newline, which means they can be judged at an individual level.

The authors second point is that the length of each sentence also stands out. This helps you assess the flow of the writing.

I thought it was a useful point because I write with one line per sentence, but had only considered the first advantage.

Re: Writing one sentence per line

#140

Post by stewfortier »

I think the spirit of this advice translates well to publishing style, too.

I get intimidated when I see big blocks of text.

But take that same, intimidating block and thoughtfully break it into short, punchier paragraphs and I'm in.

Shorter paragraphs make it easier for me to skim and get a sense of where something is going. They also give me more chances to pause, catch my breath, and internalize what I'm reading.

This is harder for me to do in a big block of text where I'm afraid I'll lose my place if I divert my attention.

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