How to improve your sentence syntax.

1. Sentence Fluency
How to rock by constructing flexible, innovative, effective
sentences

2. WRITING
IS LIKE

3. Sentence parts can
be mixed and
matched to adapt
to your audience

4. SENTENCE TYPES
Snapchat is insanely popular.SIMPLE
Because it appeals to teens,
Snapchat is insanely popular.
COMPLEX
COMPOUND Snapchat is insanely popular,
but most adults are mystified
by it.

5. SENTENCE TYPES
ITEMS IN A
SERIES
Because it appeals to teens,
Snapchat is insanely popular,
but most adults are mystified
by it.
COMPLEX
COMPOUND/
Snapchat is insanely popular
because it’s usually fun, slightly
dangerous, and completely
mystifying to adults.

6. HOW CAN I
IMPROVE
MY
SENTENCES?

7. HOW CAN I
IMPROVE
MY
SENTENCES?
Branching
Length Variance
Punctuation
Parallelism

8. Left
branching
On the surface, Snap might
look like your stereotypical
Silicon Valley get-rich-quick
story.

9. Left
branching
But ultimately, in a business
ruled by scale, network
effects, and growth metrics,
it’s that least common
denominator that decides
which company dominates
and which one goes poof.

10. Right
branching
The app opened not to a
content feed but directly to
your phone’s camera,
beckoning you to go ahead
and snap a selfie without
worrying about what other
people were saying first.

11. Right
branching
The rulebook for social
networks at the time said
that users were content
creators, that they wanted
to curate their own images
for a broad audience, that
they were motivated by
likes and shares, and that
everything they did was
data that could be mined for
the benefit of advertisers.

12. Middle
branching
One of Facebook’s Snapchat clones, Instagram Stories,
needed less than a year to surpass Snapchat in active
users.

13. Middle
branching
Even some venture capitalists, always on the alert for the
next big thing, admit now that they initially considered
Snapchat “trivial.”

14. Vary
your
branching
unless…

15. Punctuation
, . ; — () …

16. Comma Errors
COMMA SPLICES
Snapchat released a product called Spectacles,
the device can record circular video.

17. Comma Errors
COMMA SPLICES
Snapchat released a product called Spectacles,
the device can record circular video.

18. Comma Errors
COMMA SPLICES
Snapchat released a product called Spectacles,
which can record circular video.

19. Comma Errors
COMMA SPLICES
Snapchat released a product called Spectacles,
and that device can record circular video.

20. Comma Errors
COMMA SPLICES
Snapchat released a product called Spectacles;
the device can record circular video.

21. Comma Errors
COMMA SPLICES
Snapchat released a product called Spectacles;
the device can record circular video.

22. SEMICOLON ;
Both sides need to be
complete sentences
Three brash dudes in a dorm room hacked together a
seemingly frivolous app; it caught fire with the kids; six
years later, it’s a $20 billion company rewriting the rules of
media, publishing, privacy, and online interaction.

23. SEMICOLON ;
Both sides need to be
complete sentences
Three brash dudes in a dorm room hacked together a
seemingly frivolous app; it caught fire with the kids; six
years later, it’s a $20 billion company rewriting the rules of
media, publishing, privacy, and online interaction.

24. SEMICOLON ;
Complicated items
in a series
Social networks try to win over potential users by
ranking your popularity (Twitter); focusing on
privacy (Diaspora); or instantly translating your
chats (QQ).

25. SEMICOLON ;
Complicated items
in a series
Social networks try to win over potential users by
ranking your popularity (Twitter); focusing on
privacy (Diaspora); or instantly translating your
chats (QQ).

26. SEMICOLON ;
Connecting complete
sentences with therefore
I love to spend time on Snapchat; therefore, I have
to wait until after I get my homework done before I
pick up my phone.

27. SEMICOLON ;
Connecting complete
sentences with therefore
I love to spend time on Snapchat; therefore, I have
to wait until after I get my homework done before I
pick up my phone.

28. em-DASH —
Three Stanford frat brothers Spiegel, Bobby Murphy, and
Reggie Brown built the app they wanted to see in the
world—one that was more likely to appeal to a hard-
partying, time-wasting college kid than a number-
crunching software engineer, a data-driven venture
capitalist, or, let’s face it, a mature adult.
Big Right branch coming

29. em-DASH —
Three Stanford frat brothers Spiegel, Bobby Murphy, and
Reggie Brown built the app they wanted to see in the
world—one that was more likely to appeal to a hard-
partying, time-wasting college kid than a number-
crunching software engineer, a data-driven venture
capitalist, or, let’s face it, a mature adult.
Two hyphens
Big Right branch coming

30. em-DASH —
Three Stanford frat brothers Spiegel, Bobby Murphy, and
Reggie Brown built the app they wanted to see in the
world—one that was more likely to appeal to a hard-
partying, time-wasting college kid than a number-
crunching software engineer, a data-driven venture
capitalist, or, let’s face it, a mature adult.
Two hyphens
Big Right branch coming

31. em-Dash —
The name itself—“Snapchat”—was a breezy mashup of
two onomatopoetic colloquialisms, each connoting
casual spontaneity.
Emphasized Middle-Branch

32. em-Dash —
The name itself—“Snapchat”—was a breezy mashup of
two onomatopoetic colloquialisms, each connoting
casual spontaneity.
Two hyphens
Emphasized Middle-Branch

33. em-Dash —
The name itself—“Snapchat”—was a breezy mashup of
two onomatopoetic colloquialisms, each connoting
casual spontaneity.
Two hyphens
Emphasized Middle-Branch

34. em-Dash —
The name itself—“Snapchat”—was a breezy mashup of
two onomatopoetic colloquialisms, each connoting
casual spontaneity.
Two hyphens
Emphasized Middle-Branch

35. Parentheses ()
Only after Snapchat began using vertical videos did the
data exist to vindicate the move. (Other companies
have since followed.)
Supplemental information

36. Parentheses ()
Only after Snapchat began using vertical videos did the
data exist to vindicate the move. (Other companies
have since followed.)
Supplemental information

37. Parentheses ()
Only after Snapchat began using vertical videos did the
data exist to vindicate the move. (Other companies
have since followed.)
Supplemental information

38. Parentheses ()
It was not a social network but a camera app, a tool for
snapping and sending funny or flirtatious pictures to
your friends (or your romantic partners).
Supplemental information

39. Parentheses ()
It was not a social network but a camera app, a tool for
snapping and sending funny or flirtatious pictures to
your friends (or your romantic partners).
Supplemental information

40. Parentheses ()
It was not a social network but a camera app, a tool for
snapping and sending funny or flirtatious pictures to
your friends (or your romantic partners).
Supplemental information

41. Colon :
Evan Spiegel, Snap’s 27-year-old CEO, isn’t in the habit
of explaining himself to the public. Until recently, he
rarely had to: Snapchat’s wild popularity, especially with
teens, spoke for him.
2nd explains the 1st

42. Colon :
On earnings calls and in media interviews, he has
begun trying to tell his company’s story and
articulate its vision to an audience that has always
struggled to understand it: adults.
Emphasizing something short

43. Colon :
On earnings calls and in media interviews, he has
begun trying to tell his company’s story and
articulate its vision to an audience that has always
struggled to understand it: adults.
Emphasizing something short

44. Colon :
These companies saw what had worked for Mark
Zuckerberg, and they all wanted to build something
fundamentally similar, albeit with some sort of twist:
an emphasis on interest groups, a 140-character
limit, a mobile-first strategy, an open-source
architecture.
Introducing a list

45. Colon :
These companies saw what had worked for Mark
Zuckerberg, and they all wanted to build something
fundamentally similar, albeit with some sort of twist:
an emphasis on interest groups, a 140-character
limit, a mobile-first strategy, an open-source
architecture.
Introducing a list

46. Elipsis …
Maybe you should put down your phone and…never mind.
trailing off/indicating that
something was cut out

47. Length
Variance

48. Length
Variance
Avoid having too many
sentences begin with the word
I
or
beginning with the subjects of
your sentence.

49. Length
Variance

50. Length
Variance
This counterintuitive
approach doesn’t always
work. Spiegel announced that
the company was renaming
itself Snap and launching its
first hardware product. They
are making a pair of
sunglasses that can record 10
seconds of circular video.
Spectacles won effusive praise
from many in the tech press.

51. Length
Variance

52. Length
Variance
This counterintuitive
approach doesn’t always
work. In September 2016,
Spiegel used an exclusive Wall
Street Journal story to
announce that the company
was renaming itself Snap and
launching its first hardware
product, a pair of sunglasses
that could record 10 seconds
of circular video. Despite the
spectacular failure of Google
Glass the year before,
Spectacles won effusive praise
from many in the tech press.

53. Length
Variance

54. Length
Variance
Follow a long
sentence with a
short one.

55. Length
Variance

56. Length
Variance
As it turned out, the
company that posed the
greatest threat to
Facebook was one whose
product looked almost
nothing like it because
Snapchat wasn’t, at root,
a canny business idea or
an idealistic exercise in
social entrepreneurship.
It was a toy.

57. Length
Variance

58. Length
Variance
COMBINE sentences
when necessary to avoid
choppy writing.

59. Length
Variance

60. Length
Variance
My dog's name is George.
He is a Golden Retriever.
He loves to play Frisbee.
Loves to swim, too.

61. Parallelism

62. Parallelism
Use items-in-a-series
sentences with parallel
elements

63. Parallelism

64. Parallelism
1n a time of ubiquitous
rankings, ratings, and likes—
when Google ranks search
results; Facebook ranks
your friends’ posts; Uber
and Airbnb rate drivers,
riders, hosts, and guests;
Yelp rates businesses; and
Amazon rates products—
Snap’s success speaks to a
backlash against the
quantification of everything.

65. Parallelism

66. Parallelism
The coach told the
players that they should get a
lot of sleep, that they should
not eat too much, and that
they should do some warm-up
exercises before the game.

67. Parallelism

68. Parallelism
I love this phone because it
improves my grades,
________ my ______,
and ________ my ______,

69. Parallelism
I love this phone because it
improves my grades,
________ my ______,
and ________ my ______,
If you’re going to make one that’s longer,
choose the last one.

70. HOW CAN I
IMPROVE
MY
SENTENCES?
Branching
Length Variance
Punctuation
Parallelism

71. Final Note
We are all apprentices in a craft
where no one ever becomes a
master.”
—Ernest Hemingway

72. Final Note
We are all apprentices in a craft
where no one ever becomes a
master.”
—Ernest Hemingway