2. Warning Signs of an Overly Long Sentence
• More than 30 words long
• More than one colon, semicolon, pair of em dashes, or pair of
parentheses.
• Multiple side thoughts (although, because, since, which, who, that)
• Two long sentences joined with and or but
3. Read the sentence on the next slide: how well do
you understand its ideas? How would you describe
your experience reading it?
4. About 6 in 10 of us believe that the tax system
is unfair — and they’re right: put simply, the very rich
don’t pay their fair share; the richest 400 individual
taxpayers, with an average income of more than $200
million, pay less than 20 percent of their income in
taxes — far lower than mere millionaires, who pay
about 25 percent of their income in taxes, and about
the same as those earning a mere $200,000 to
$500,000, and in 2009, 116 of the top 400 earners —
almost a third — paid less than 15 percent of their
income in taxes.
5. This sentence contains:
• 99 words
• 4 em dashes
• 1 colon
• 1 semicolon
• 4 who/that/which clauses
• 2 long clauses joined by and
6. Now, try reading the next sentence. How
easily are you able to understand its ideas?
7. About 6 in 10 of us believe that the tax system
is unfair — and they’re right. Put simply, the very rich
don’t pay their fair share. The richest 400 individual
taxpayers have an average income of more than $200
million, and they pay less than 20 percent of their
income in taxes. This is far lower than mere
millionaires. They pay about 25 percent of their income
in taxes, and about the same as those earning a mere
$200,000 to $500,000. And in 2009, 116 of the top 400
earners (almost a third) paid less than 15 percent of
their income in taxes.
8. This revision:
• Split the original sentence into 6 smaller sentences
• Eliminated most of the side thoughts by making them their own
sentences.
• Its longest sentence is now 24 words
• It’s down to 1 em dash and 1 pair of parentheses
9. Solutions for Overly Long Sentences
• Break the sentence into 2 where it is joined with and or but.
• Find the sentence’s main idea: write that as 1 sentence. Write the
side thoughts as additional sentences.
• Remove the material between parentheses or em dashes and write it
as a new sentence.
10. References
• Slides 4 and 5: Adapted from Joseph Stiglitz’s “A Tax System Stacked
Against the 99 Percent.” The New York Times, 14 April 2013,
https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/14/a-tax-system-
stacked-against-the-99-percent/.
