Are you someone who occasionally finds yourself in situations when you want to write something but don’t know how to structure it properly? You are at the right place. English is a dynamic language, and writing well is a big challenge. A sentence that sounds fine in your head may not be structurally correct or clear. There can be a lack of clarity, structure, meaning, content, and cohesion. When writing something, be it content, academic essays, emails, job resumes, or anything else, it is critical that the sentences are grammatically correct, well-structured, and written appropriately.

Writing better sentences requires proper knowledge of grammatical mistakes to avoid and sentence improvement techniques to ensure better writing. Better sentences not only give a clear message but also engage the audience, attract their interest, and create a positive impression of you or your brand. The words you choose, the structure you implement, the way you start your sentence, and the grammar all play an important role in crafting better sentences. In this blog, we will shed light on Ways to Write Better Sentences to help you level up your sentence structure and convey your message clearly.

What is a Good Sentence?

A good sentence is one that effectively communicates its intended meaning with clarity and impact, evokes imagery and emotions, and engages the reader in a positive manner. The sentence should be structured correctly, follow the language’s rules, and fit logically within the context of the surrounding text. For example:

Good sentence: The student immediately raised his hand to answer the teacher’s question.

Explanation:

This sentence is well-structured and grammatically sound because it reflects a specific action (“raised his hand”), the student’s attitude (“immediately”), and the context (“to answer the teacher’s question”).

Unclear sentence: The person went there quickly.

Explanation:

This sentence lacks both specificity and detail. The terms “person” and “there” are unclear, leaving the reader wondering who or what is being addressed to and where they are going.

Components of a Sentence

Before delving into sentence improvement techniques, it’s crucial to understand the components of a sentence to craft better sentences organically.

The two most common sentence components are a subject and a predicate. Simply put, every sentence requires a noun and a verb to establish its structure.

Subject: A subject is a person, place, or thing that performs the action in the sentence.

For example – A girl is walking down the street.

Here, the girl is the subject of the sentence.

Predicate: Predicate means the action done in the sentence by the subject. Let’s take the same example – the man is walking down the street.

In this context, “man” serves as the subject, while “is walking” functions as the predicate, denoting the action executed by the subject.

Besides subject and predicate, a sentence contains the following components:

  • Object – The nouns and pronouns that participate in the formation of a sentence. They directly receive the action done by the subject. For example – We watched an action movie.
  • Complement – a noun, pronoun, or an adjective that describes the subject. For example – The man is confident.
  • Adjunct – An adjunct, whether a word or a phrase, predominantly comprises adverbs and adverb clauses. It serves to enrich descriptions of actions, events, qualities, and more. For example – Yesterday, we met at the restaurant.

11 Best Sentence Improvement Techniques for Crafting Better Sentences

To make your sentences well structured, understandable, and creative, following some sentence improvement tips is essential. These techniques can help you write better sentences that effectively deliver the message and engage your audience.

Use Active Voice

One of the most crucial sentence improvement techniques is using active voice in the sentence as much as possible. Passive voice indicates unassertive writing, which can make a sentence confusing and difficult to understand. In contrast, active voice is direct, clear, and easier to understand. For example:

Passive Voice – The delicious cake was eaten by her.

Now, have a look at the same sentence written in active voice.

Active Voice – She ate the delicious cake.

It is very simple and straightforward. The active voice is not only straightforward but also succinct, dynamic, and direct, which creates more vigorous prose. Therefore, when writing a sentence, make sure to follow an active voice, i.e., the subject performing the action rather than receiving it.

Eliminate Redundancy

Redundancy refers to unnecessary repetition of words, phrases, and ideas that don’t add any meaning or value to the sentence except increasing its length. Such words and phrases can make your sentences less clear and obscure the intended message by cluttering sentences. It leads to difficulty in understanding, loss of reader’s interest, inefficient communication, and decreased impact. For example:

Original: They jointly collaborated on the project together.

After removing redundancy: They collaborated on the project.

In the first one, jointly and together are redundant words that do not provide any value to the context of the sentence. They are used to define that the people are working together, which is already depicted by the words “they and collaborated.” Therefore, removing redundancy is an important technique for writing better sentences.

Replace Weak Verbs and Adjectives

Weak verbs and adjectives are generic words that do not have specificity and lack clarity and descriptive power. Therefore, replacing such words with strong and precise verbs and descriptive and creative adjectives is important for crafting better sentences. Strong words can make your sentences more impactful, engaging, and dynamic, which conveys the meaning clearly. For example:

Weak Adjective: “The food tasted good.”

Strong Adjective: “The food was delicious.”

In the first sentence, “good” is a weak adjective that lacks specificity and does not provide specific details about the quality of food. However, in the second sentence, the strong adjective “delicious” is more evocative and descriptive, defining that the food is not only satisfactory but also exceptionally flavorful and tasty.

There are many such words like strolled instead of walked, pleasant/charming instead of nice, thrilled instead of very excited, captivating instead of interesting, etc. Make sure to use such strong adjectives and verbs in your sentences to convey the meaning effectively and create a vivid picture of the activity in the reader’s mind.

Maintain Consistent Verb Tense

Using a consistent verb tense is one of the most important strategies for writing better sentences. When you write lengthy sentences, there is a chance that you might lose track of the tense and mix past, present, and future tenses, which can create a confusing effect. Moreover, changing or shifting verb tense in between is also a common grammatical mistake to avoid. For example:

Original: She walks to the market yesterday and buys clothes.

Explanation:

In this statement, the verb “walks” is in the present tense, but “yesterday” denotes past time. The reader may become confused as a result of the tenses being mixed.

Correct: She walked to the market yesterday and bought clothes.

Explanation:

By changing “walks” to “walked” and “buys” to “bought,” the statement is now in a consistent past tense, making it easier to understand.

Use Transitional Words and Phrases

Transitional words and phrases help to establish a connection and relationship between the ideas in a sentence and improve the flow of writing. Using such words is crucial for writing better sentences and guiding a reader through the text, emphasizing important points and signaling shifts. Therefore, employ transitional words like however, furthermore, moreover, therefore, nevertheless, yet, although, finally, such as, thus, so, etc. For example:

Original: She enjoys writing. She also likes reading.

Revised: She enjoys writing. Additionally, she likes reading.

Maintain Subject-Verb Agreement

One of the most important techniques for writing better sentences is maintaining a subject-verb agreement. Start your sentence with a subject, then add a verb and an object for clarity and structure. This is the fundamental sentence structure you must adhere to. Subject-Verb agreement simply means using a singular verb with a singular subject, and a plural verb with a plural subject. For example:

Original: The team were going to the match.

Corrected: The team was going to the match.

In the original sentence, the word team is a singular subject, whereas were is a plural helping verb. To achieve subject-verb agreement, the helping verb “were” is replaced by “was.”

Don’t Use Words Unless you are Sure of their Meaning

Using words unsure of their meaning is the most common mistake people make while writing sentences. Using such words can lead to confusion, change the meaning, or lead to misinterpretation of the intended message. It’s important to use words only after knowing their actual meaning. For example:

Original: “The painting was very iridescent.”

Revised: “The painting was very vibrant.”

Explanation: In this case, the writer may not have understood the meaning of iridescent and used it incorrectly to indicate the liveliness and brightness of the painting. However, iridescent refers to colors that appear to shift depending on the angle of sight, like in bubbles. In this context, “vibrant” is the appropriate word that accurately describes the brightness or liveliness of the painting.

Evoke Emotions with Vivid Imagery

Another simple and creative sentence improvement technique is evoking emotions with vivid imagery. Don’t just state the facts; instead, show the reader what is happening by using descriptive language, sensory details, and vivid imagery. Mixing facts with vivid imagery and a language that is rich in emotions evokes the emotions, paints a picture to drive the narrative forward and engages the readers. For example:

Simple sentence: “Golden leaves rustle.”

Vivid Imagery: “Golden leaves dance on branches, rustling softly in the breeze.”

Use a Semicolon to Connect two Independent Clauses

While crafting sentences, it’s better to use a semicolon instead of a period or conjunction to join two independent clauses. It is the most effective and creative way to combine two sentences into one without making it too complex or vague. With this, you can ensure the flow of your sentences whose idea is closely related. For example:

Instead of writing – I enjoy reading books. My sister prefers watching movies. You can use a semicolon to join the sentences and write it as – I enjoy reading books; My sister prefers watching movies.

Check the Grammar

The last and most basic sentence improvement technique is to keep your grammar correct to make your sentences more effective and meaningful. By grammar, we don’t mean advanced grammar mistakes like run-on sentences, typos, dangling participles, misplaced modifiers, faulty parallelism, etc. It means the basic grammar mistakes like incomplete sentences, inadvertently forming fragments, wrong synonyms, lack of commas, wrong conjunction or preposition, etc. After writing the sentence, make sure to check it once, correct the mistakes, and make it more polished for the readers.

Conclusion

In conclusion, we can say that writing better sentences requires good grammar knowledge, sentence improvement techniques, and a creative mindset to use the right words in the right place. However, it’s impossible to become an expert at crafting better sentences overnight; it requires immense practice and dedication to become a great writer. We’ve covered some of the most successful sentence improvement techniques in this blog to help you craft better sentences that are grammatically correct and structurally sound.