Dear Geist,

,” March 2016) that short sentences are strongest. All my advice from mentors, teachers and on-the-job trainers is to keep sentences short and direct, for quick, clear comprehension by readers.

Dear Wannabe,

In many contexts, a short, simple, direct sentence is best. Certainly when you are giving information or instructions, or writing copy to be read by people you don’t know, or writing anything to be read mainly online, the long sentence or paragraph will cause readers to skip or ignore the text.

by Tracy Kidder and Richard Todd: a long sentence by Janet Malcolm, followed by Kidder and Todd’s notes on the effect of the passage:

” This sentence doesn’t have much urgency. In fact, it has a studied leisure, but one senses that the author is up to something.