Make your essays and statements of purpose easy for the reader to understand by keeping sentences short! How to correct your writing into short sentences!

Last updated: 2025/09/18

This series, [Basics of Writing], introduces the fundamental elements of composition that I, Shimeno, an essay and composition instructor, teach during my regular correction and grading sessions.

※This article contains advertisements.

(You can see Shimeno's self-introduction here.)

Correcting sentence structure to shorten sentences.

Why must sentences be kept short?

It is not just me; every Japanese language teacher and every book on 'how to write' warns, 'Let's write short sentences.' This itself is not a rare piece of advice at all.

However, why is it bad for a sentence to be long?

It is because it leads to 'sentences where the structure tends to become messy and the meaning is difficult to convey.' As the sentence structure becomes complex, the correspondence between subjects and predicates, or modifiers and the words they modify, tends to break down, making the sentence hard to understand. Therefore, you should try to keep each sentence as short as possible.

Recall when you read literature from the Heian period, such as 'The Tale of Genji.' Wasn't it difficult to read? You might say, 'It's hard to read because the language and grammar are different from today's,' and that is true. However, the biggest reason why writing from that era is difficult to read is that 'the sentences are very long.' You can assume that anyone who writes long sentences is forcing the reader to experience that same 'difficulty in reading' and 'lack of clarity.'

Two types of people who tend to write long sentences

People who tend to write long sentences can be broadly divided into two types: those who 'overthink' and those who 'don't think at all.'

People who 'overthink' start thinking, 'I want to say this too,' 'I want to write that too,' and 'I have to mention this as well' while they are writing. The things they want to write about come pouring out one after another. And they continue writing in that vein. As a result, they end up piling too many topics into a single sentence, creating a sentence that is like a 'Jiro-style ramen' bowl overflowing with toppings.

What I want to say to these people is, 'Thoroughly stick to handling only one topic per sentence.' Do not 'greedily' cram this and that topic into one sentence. Keep it to one topic per sentence, and make an effort to move to the next sentence when you move on to the next topic.

Furthermore, a characteristic of this type of person's writing is that it contains many connecting words. Be careful if you start connecting with conjunctive particles like '...but,' '...and,' or '...because.' You have already changed the topic. Do not continue writing; cut the sentence at that point and move on to the next one.

Conversely, people who 'don't think at all' also tend to write long sentences. I feel this is common among middle and high school students. This 'symptom' appears when you have to write a book report you don't want to write, or a composition without a decided topic, but you think, 'I have to submit this homework tomorrow' or 'I have to finish writing by the end of the test period,' so you just start writing anyway. This is a situation where you are searching for a 'landing point' while writing, or you don't even know where the writing is headed yourself, but you write anyway.

To such people, I want to say, 'First, decide what you are going to write, organize it, and then start writing.' Starting to write without deciding what to write is like starting to cook without even deciding on a recipe or what you are making. 'I'll just throw whatever is edible into the pot and turn on the heat (even though I don't know what it will turn out to be)!' There is no such way to cook. Things have a process. I want you to decide what to write, organize the content, and then start writing.

Also, the sentences of such people often contain many 'extra words.' There are various types of 'extra words,' but to give an example, they include 'adverbs, adjectives, and adjectival verbs related to emotions or emphasis.' Words like 'very,' 'greatly,' 'unfortunately,' 'super,' or 'amazing.' In the writing of such people, these 'decorative words' tend to be overused. They are likely struggling because they cannot find what to write, so these words come out as a last resort. However, even if you delete these words, it will not affect the meaning of the sentence at all. Let's cut these words as much as possible and shorten the sentences.

That said, some people might be wondering, 'Even if I'm told to shorten my sentences, what should I do and how should I write?' or 'What is an appropriate sentence length anyway?' If you are someone who is already used to writing and can write well, you wouldn't have trouble with these things, would you?

Therefore, I would like to present here some 'correction techniques for condensing sentences into short ones.'

Correction techniques for keeping sentences short

How can you keep sentences short—in other words, limit each sentence to one topic (one sentence, one message)? The best strategy is to consciously build your writing primarily using simple and compound sentences. Furthermore, you should aim to keep each sentence to around 60 characters and avoid complex sentences as much as possible.

Let's briefly define simple, compound, and complex sentences here. These are types of sentences categorized by focusing on the subject-predicate relationship in sentence structure. This is content learned in elementary school, but you have probably all forgotten it (especially you "adults").

A simple sentence is one that has only one set of subject and predicate.

Example: I threw the ball.

This is simple and clear. The subject is "I" and the predicate is "threw." There is only this one set of subject and predicate. By the way, "the ball" is the object, so you can ignore it in this case.

A compound sentence is one that has multiple sets of subject and predicate (clauses), where those sets (clauses) are in an equal relationship. You can think of it as simple sentences connected with equal status.

Example: The old man went to the mountain to cut grass, and the old woman went to the river to do laundry.

This is a compound sentence formed by two simple sentences following each other. "The old man" and "went" form the first subject-predicate pair, and "the old woman" and "went" form the second. These two sentences are arranged in an equal, parallel relationship.

A complex sentence is one that has multiple sets of subject and predicate (clauses), where one set (clause) is subordinate to the other. It is a pattern where one simple sentence becomes a subordinate modifying clause for the other simple sentence.

Example: I live in an era where world peace is threatened.

"Peace" and "is threatened" form the first pair, and "I" and "live" form the second. Among them, the clause "in an era where world peace is threatened" is a subordinate clause that modifies the predicate "live." Therefore, it can be said that these two are not in an equal relationship.

It is easier to understand if you use "brackets" like in a mathematical formula.

Example 1:
(The old man went to the mountain to cut grass) (the old woman went to the river to do laundry)

This is a compound sentence.

Example 2:
{(In an era where world peace is threatened) I live}

This is a complex sentence.

With this as a premise, please listen to the main topic.

Now, by consciously "building your writing primarily using simple and compound sentences" and "avoiding complex sentences as much as possible," you can achieve "one sentence, one message" almost automatically. This is because if it is a simple sentence, there is only one subject-predicate set (= the topic is limited to one), so it must be one message.

Also, since compound sentences are just simple sentences following each other, the sentence structure does not become very complicated, and you can avoid disorder in the sentence structure, so "one sentence, one message" is effectively maintained.(However, be careful, as continuing them for too long will result in a wordy sentence.)

However, you should avoid complex sentences as much as possible. Because they create a "nested structure" in the sentence composition, not only is "one sentence, one message" not maintained, but the sentence structure becomes complex. Therefore, there is a high possibility that it will induce disorder in the sentence structure.(Of course, this will also make the content of the writing strange.)

Let's take another look at the previous example.

Example 1:
(The old man went to the mountain to cut grass) (and the old woman went to the river to do laundry)

Example 2:
{I am living (in an era where world peace is threatened)}

The complex sentence in Example 2 has a structure where parentheses are inside curly brackets. This results in a complex 'nested structure.' (While it is not that complex here because the sentence is not very long, if it were longer, it would become more complicated, like a philosophy book or an insurance contract.)

Furthermore, if you 'improve' Example 2 by breaking it into simple sentences, it looks like this.

Improved version of Example 2:
World peace is threatened. I am living in such an era.

When you break sentences into simple ones and connect them using demonstratives, the structure becomes simplified. By developing your writing mainly with simple or compound sentences and avoiding complex sentences as much as possible, you will almost automatically achieve 'one sentence, one message,' and your sentences will become shorter without causing stress.

Summary: Be conscious of sentence structure and keep your sentences short

To prevent your sentences from dragging on, try to be conscious of sentence structure and keep your sentences concise in your daily writing.Start by organizing what you want to say before you begin writing.

(A 'sentence' is the smallest structural unit for conveying a person's thoughts or ideas. By organizing the structure of those 'sentences' and keeping them as short as possible, you create 'writing that is easy for the reader to understand.' This is a book that makes you think about 'what a sentence is.')

('About 60 characters per sentence' is a fundamental rule for 'writing easy-to-understand text,' written in newspaper reporter handbooks and many books on writing techniques. If you tend to write long, rambling sentences, you might want to try setting a constraint to 'keep it to around 60 characters.')

For those struggling with 'how to write a statement of purpose,' I recommend this 'Shimeno-style template for creating a statement of purpose'!