long essay sentences

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40 Useful Words and Phrases for Top-Notch Essays

To be truly brilliant, an essay needs to utilise the right language. You could make a great point, but if it’s not intelligently articulated, you almost needn’t have bothered.

Developing the language skills to build an argument and to write persuasively is crucial if you’re to write outstanding essays every time. In this article, we’re going to equip you with the words and phrases you need to write a top-notch essay, along with examples of how to utilise them.

It’s by no means an exhaustive list, and there will often be other ways of using the words and phrases we describe that we won’t have room to include, but there should be more than enough below to help you make an instant improvement to your essay-writing skills.

If you’re interested in developing your language and persuasive skills, Oxford Royale offers summer courses at its Oxford Summer School , Cambridge Summer School , London Summer School , San Francisco Summer School and Yale Summer School . You can study courses to learn english , prepare for careers in law , medicine , business , engineering and leadership.

General explaining

Let’s start by looking at language for general explanations of complex points.

1. In order to

Usage: “In order to” can be used to introduce an explanation for the purpose of an argument. Example: “In order to understand X, we need first to understand Y.”

2. In other words

Usage: Use “in other words” when you want to express something in a different way (more simply), to make it easier to understand, or to emphasise or expand on a point. Example: “Frogs are amphibians. In other words, they live on the land and in the water.”

3. To put it another way

Usage: This phrase is another way of saying “in other words”, and can be used in particularly complex points, when you feel that an alternative way of wording a problem may help the reader achieve a better understanding of its significance. Example: “Plants rely on photosynthesis. To put it another way, they will die without the sun.”

4. That is to say

Usage: “That is” and “that is to say” can be used to add further detail to your explanation, or to be more precise. Example: “Whales are mammals. That is to say, they must breathe air.”

5. To that end

Usage: Use “to that end” or “to this end” in a similar way to “in order to” or “so”. Example: “Zoologists have long sought to understand how animals communicate with each other. To that end, a new study has been launched that looks at elephant sounds and their possible meanings.”

Adding additional information to support a point

Students often make the mistake of using synonyms of “and” each time they want to add further information in support of a point they’re making, or to build an argument . Here are some cleverer ways of doing this.

6. Moreover

Usage: Employ “moreover” at the start of a sentence to add extra information in support of a point you’re making. Example: “Moreover, the results of a recent piece of research provide compelling evidence in support of…”

7. Furthermore

Usage:This is also generally used at the start of a sentence, to add extra information. Example: “Furthermore, there is evidence to suggest that…”

8. What’s more

Usage: This is used in the same way as “moreover” and “furthermore”. Example: “What’s more, this isn’t the only evidence that supports this hypothesis.”

9. Likewise

Usage: Use “likewise” when you want to talk about something that agrees with what you’ve just mentioned. Example: “Scholar A believes X. Likewise, Scholar B argues compellingly in favour of this point of view.”

10. Similarly

Usage: Use “similarly” in the same way as “likewise”. Example: “Audiences at the time reacted with shock to Beethoven’s new work, because it was very different to what they were used to. Similarly, we have a tendency to react with surprise to the unfamiliar.”

11. Another key thing to remember

Usage: Use the phrase “another key point to remember” or “another key fact to remember” to introduce additional facts without using the word “also”. Example: “As a Romantic, Blake was a proponent of a closer relationship between humans and nature. Another key point to remember is that Blake was writing during the Industrial Revolution, which had a major impact on the world around him.”

12. As well as

Usage: Use “as well as” instead of “also” or “and”. Example: “Scholar A argued that this was due to X, as well as Y.”

13. Not only… but also

Usage: This wording is used to add an extra piece of information, often something that’s in some way more surprising or unexpected than the first piece of information. Example: “Not only did Edmund Hillary have the honour of being the first to reach the summit of Everest, but he was also appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire.”

14. Coupled with

Usage: Used when considering two or more arguments at a time. Example: “Coupled with the literary evidence, the statistics paint a compelling view of…”

15. Firstly, secondly, thirdly…

Usage: This can be used to structure an argument, presenting facts clearly one after the other. Example: “There are many points in support of this view. Firstly, X. Secondly, Y. And thirdly, Z.

16. Not to mention/to say nothing of

Usage: “Not to mention” and “to say nothing of” can be used to add extra information with a bit of emphasis. Example: “The war caused unprecedented suffering to millions of people, not to mention its impact on the country’s economy.”

Words and phrases for demonstrating contrast

When you’re developing an argument, you will often need to present contrasting or opposing opinions or evidence – “it could show this, but it could also show this”, or “X says this, but Y disagrees”. This section covers words you can use instead of the “but” in these examples, to make your writing sound more intelligent and interesting.

17. However

Usage: Use “however” to introduce a point that disagrees with what you’ve just said. Example: “Scholar A thinks this. However, Scholar B reached a different conclusion.”

18. On the other hand

Usage: Usage of this phrase includes introducing a contrasting interpretation of the same piece of evidence, a different piece of evidence that suggests something else, or an opposing opinion. Example: “The historical evidence appears to suggest a clear-cut situation. On the other hand, the archaeological evidence presents a somewhat less straightforward picture of what happened that day.”

19. Having said that

Usage: Used in a similar manner to “on the other hand” or “but”. Example: “The historians are unanimous in telling us X, an agreement that suggests that this version of events must be an accurate account. Having said that, the archaeology tells a different story.”

20. By contrast/in comparison

Usage: Use “by contrast” or “in comparison” when you’re comparing and contrasting pieces of evidence. Example: “Scholar A’s opinion, then, is based on insufficient evidence. By contrast, Scholar B’s opinion seems more plausible.”

21. Then again

Usage: Use this to cast doubt on an assertion. Example: “Writer A asserts that this was the reason for what happened. Then again, it’s possible that he was being paid to say this.”

22. That said

Usage: This is used in the same way as “then again”. Example: “The evidence ostensibly appears to point to this conclusion. That said, much of the evidence is unreliable at best.”

Usage: Use this when you want to introduce a contrasting idea. Example: “Much of scholarship has focused on this evidence. Yet not everyone agrees that this is the most important aspect of the situation.”

Adding a proviso or acknowledging reservations

Sometimes, you may need to acknowledge a shortfalling in a piece of evidence, or add a proviso. Here are some ways of doing so.

24. Despite this

Usage: Use “despite this” or “in spite of this” when you want to outline a point that stands regardless of a shortfalling in the evidence. Example: “The sample size was small, but the results were important despite this.”

25. With this in mind

Usage: Use this when you want your reader to consider a point in the knowledge of something else. Example: “We’ve seen that the methods used in the 19th century study did not always live up to the rigorous standards expected in scientific research today, which makes it difficult to draw definite conclusions. With this in mind, let’s look at a more recent study to see how the results compare.”

26. Provided that

Usage: This means “on condition that”. You can also say “providing that” or just “providing” to mean the same thing. Example: “We may use this as evidence to support our argument, provided that we bear in mind the limitations of the methods used to obtain it.”

27. In view of/in light of

Usage: These phrases are used when something has shed light on something else. Example: “In light of the evidence from the 2013 study, we have a better understanding of…”

28. Nonetheless

Usage: This is similar to “despite this”. Example: “The study had its limitations, but it was nonetheless groundbreaking for its day.”

29. Nevertheless

Usage: This is the same as “nonetheless”. Example: “The study was flawed, but it was important nevertheless.”

30. Notwithstanding

Usage: This is another way of saying “nonetheless”. Example: “Notwithstanding the limitations of the methodology used, it was an important study in the development of how we view the workings of the human mind.”

Giving examples

Good essays always back up points with examples, but it’s going to get boring if you use the expression “for example” every time. Here are a couple of other ways of saying the same thing.

31. For instance

Example: “Some birds migrate to avoid harsher winter climates. Swallows, for instance, leave the UK in early winter and fly south…”

32. To give an illustration

Example: “To give an illustration of what I mean, let’s look at the case of…”

Signifying importance

When you want to demonstrate that a point is particularly important, there are several ways of highlighting it as such.

33. Significantly

Usage: Used to introduce a point that is loaded with meaning that might not be immediately apparent. Example: “Significantly, Tacitus omits to tell us the kind of gossip prevalent in Suetonius’ accounts of the same period.”

34. Notably

Usage: This can be used to mean “significantly” (as above), and it can also be used interchangeably with “in particular” (the example below demonstrates the first of these ways of using it). Example: “Actual figures are notably absent from Scholar A’s analysis.”

35. Importantly

Usage: Use “importantly” interchangeably with “significantly”. Example: “Importantly, Scholar A was being employed by X when he wrote this work, and was presumably therefore under pressure to portray the situation more favourably than he perhaps might otherwise have done.”

Summarising

You’ve almost made it to the end of the essay, but your work isn’t over yet. You need to end by wrapping up everything you’ve talked about, showing that you’ve considered the arguments on both sides and reached the most likely conclusion. Here are some words and phrases to help you.

36. In conclusion

Usage: Typically used to introduce the concluding paragraph or sentence of an essay, summarising what you’ve discussed in a broad overview. Example: “In conclusion, the evidence points almost exclusively to Argument A.”

37. Above all

Usage: Used to signify what you believe to be the most significant point, and the main takeaway from the essay. Example: “Above all, it seems pertinent to remember that…”

38. Persuasive

Usage: This is a useful word to use when summarising which argument you find most convincing. Example: “Scholar A’s point – that Constanze Mozart was motivated by financial gain – seems to me to be the most persuasive argument for her actions following Mozart’s death.”

39. Compelling

Usage: Use in the same way as “persuasive” above. Example: “The most compelling argument is presented by Scholar A.”

40. All things considered

Usage: This means “taking everything into account”. Example: “All things considered, it seems reasonable to assume that…”

How many of these words and phrases will you get into your next essay? And are any of your favourite essay terms missing from our list? Let us know in the comments below, or get in touch here to find out more about courses that can help you with your essays.

At Oxford Royale Academy, we offer a number of summer school courses for young people who are keen to improve their essay writing skills. Click here to apply for one of our courses today, including law , business , medicine and engineering .

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Enchanting Marketing

Writing advice for small business

How to Captivate Readers With a Dazzling Loooong Sentence

by Henneke | 86 enchanting opinions, add yours? :)

L ong sentences take readers on a journey. A well-written long sentence expresses its meaning with flair and rhythm, reinvigorating readers.

This article discusses how to write a long sentence:

How to write a long sentence

Yes, long sentences can add poetic power and rhythm to your writing —as long as you know how to write a good one, without running out of breath.

Of course, shorter sentences are easier to gobble up for readers.

But that doesn’t mean long sentences should be banned.

Readability research suggests long sentences are fine, as long as you mix them with shorter ones.

An example of a beautiful long sentence

Long sentences get a bad rap.

Because many writers abuse long sentences, cramming too many thoughts into each sentence, muddling up their message and leaving readers confused.

So, the main trick to composing a beautiful long sentence is to communicate only one idea with clarity.

A couple of weeks ago, I read There There by Tommy Orange. The New York Times named it as one of the 10 best novels of 2018 . It’s an ambitious novel about identity and about urban life of Native Americans.

Tommy Orange is a master of poetic sentences:

It’s important that he dress like an Indian, dance like an Indian, even if it is an act, even if he feels like a fraud the whole time, because the only way to be Indian in this world is to look and act like an Indian.

The sentence above contains 46 words. Despite this high word count, it’s easy to read because the sentence kicks off with the core of the sentence:

It’s important that he dress like an Indian

Then, the sentence branches out towards the end, but always staying on topic.

How to start a beautiful long sentence

Each sentence has a core. This core gives readers a quick sense of who and what a sentence is about, such as:

The writer struggles
The girl screams
The train emerges
The sentence becomes difficult

To make a long sentence easy to read, put the whole core of your sentence at the start, or close to the start.

Note how this sentence is difficult to read because the core is broken up:

A long sentence, in which the writer delays the core to the middle of the sentence or in which the core is broken up so readers have to remember how the sentence started, is more difficult to read.

This version highlights the core:

And here’s the easier variant with the whole core at the start:

A long sentence becomes difficult to read when you delay the core until the middle of the sentence or when you break up the core. A broken core forces readers to remember how the sentence started, making it hard to figure out the structure.

Putting the core at the front is a simple trick to structure a long sentence and help readers devour your writing without running out of breath.

Left vs. right-branching sentences

A long sentence that starts with its core is called a right-branching sentence.

Imagine the whole sentence on one line. The core of the sentence is at the start and it branches out towards the right.

As Roy Peter Clark mentions in his excellent book Murder Your Darlings a right-branching sentence sounds more natural and conversational than a left-branching sentence. In a left-branching sentence, the core is at the end. Here’s an example of a left-branching sentence:

After reading a blog post on writing long sentences, when she finally understood the difference between left branching and right branching sentences, and after she had learned how complicated it is to read a sentence where the core is broken up, and after she appreciated the rhythm of good writing, Henrietta started writing dazzling sentences and her words began to sing.

The core of the above sentence is: Henrietta started writing dazzling sentences and her words began to sing. This core is at the end of the sentence, so it’s a left-branching sentence.

A left-branching sentence is harder to comprehend. Its structure feels a little artificial and cumbersome—as if a writer wants to impress their readers with their writing ability.

So, if you want to delight readers with a natural writing style, don’t break up the core of your sentence and stick to right-branching long sentences—start with the core.

Savor the rhythm of a long sentence

Like a poem, a long sentence takes readers on a tiny journey, describing one thought, one feeling, one evocative scene.

You’ll appreciate a long sentence more when you read it aloud, savoring its rhythm. Here’s another example from There There —I’ve written it as a verse:

The train emerges, rises out of the underground tube in the Fruitvale district, over by that Burger King and the terrible pho place, where East Twelfth and International almost merge, where the graffitied apartment walls and abandoned houses, warehouses, and auto body shops appear, loom in the train window, stubbornly resist like deadweight all of Oakland’s new development.

The sentence above describes one scene: how a train emerges in a rough, impoverished city district. The summing up of the graffitied apartment walls, abandoned houses, warehouses, and auto body shops gives you a feel of the overcrowded city life.

Note how the sentence starts with its core ( the train emerges ), then meanders through the rough buildings, and ends with a bang: stubbornly resist like deadweight all of Oakland’s new development.

Just like poetry, the start and the end lines of a long sentence are the most important. Here’s an even better example, showing the chaos and power of memories:

We are the memories we don’t remember, which live in us, which we feel, which make us sing and dance and pray the way we do, feelings from memories that flare and bloom unexpectedly in our lives like blood through a blanket from a wound made by a bullet fired by a man shooting us in the back for our hair, for our heads, for a bounty, or just to get rid of us.

Badly written long sentences drag on, but beautiful long sentences have energy, propelling readers from the start towards the end. As a reader, you feel a sense of anticipation wanting to know what comes next.

Long sentences can help define your voice

The rhythm of your sentences helps define your writing voice , and long sentences can play a strong role in creating that rhythm.

Tommy Orange’s long sentences create a slightly breathless rhythm. The sentences hurtle forward, creating a speedy reading experience.

But long sentences can also slow readers down.

Below follows an example from All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy:

They rode the horses at a gallop and they rode them at a trot and the horses were hot and lathered and squatted and stamped in the road and the campesinos afoot in the road with baskets of gardenstuff or pails covered with cheesecloth would press to the edge of the road or climb through the roadside brush and cactus to watch wide eyed the young horsemen on their horses passing and the horses mouthing froth and champing and the riders calling to one another in their alien tongue and passing in a muted fury that seemed scarcely to be contained in the space allotted them and yet leaving all unchanged where they had been: dust, sunlight, a singing bird.

As before, the sentence also starts with the core: They rode the horses ; and then the sentence branches out towards the right.

But the rhythm is different. Read a sentence from Tommy Orange aloud, and then read one from Cormac McCarthy. McCarthy’s sentences are slower. There are no commas, but the word and makes you pause almost as much as when you start reading a new sentence.

Here’s another example from the same book by Cormac McCarthy:

Going back they’d walk the horses into the lake and the horses would stand and drink with the water at their chests and the stars in the lake bobbed and tilted where they drank and if it rained in the mountains the air would be close and the night more warm and one night he left her and rode down along the edge of the lake through the sedge and willow and slid from the horse’s back and pulled off his boots and his clothes and walked out into the lake where the moon slid away before him and ducks gabbled out there in the dark.

It’s often said that a long sentence is just two or more sentences merged together using a conjunction like and, or, or but . This isn’t always true. You can’t easily cut up Tommy Orange’s sentences. But it does work for McCarthy’s sentences. For instance:

Going back they’d walk the horses into the lake. The horses would stand and drink with the water at their chests. And the stars in the lake bobbed and tilted where they drank. And if it rained in the mountains the air would be close and the night more warm. One night he left her. He rode down along the edge of the lake through the sedge and willow. And he slid from the horse’s back. And he pulled off his boots and his clothes. And he walked out into the lake where the moon slid away before him. Ducks gabbled out there in the dark.

I’ve just cut one long sentence into 10 short sentences. It changes the rhythm but you may find it easier to read, especially online.

Here’s one more example to savor the rhythm of McCarthy’s long sentences:

The following night she came to his bed and she came every night for nine nights running, pushing the door shut and latching it and turning in the slatted light at God knew what hour and stepping out of her clothes and sliding cool and naked against him in the narrow bunk all softness and perfume and the lushness of her black hair falling over him and no caution to her at all.

Like with everything in writing, there’s no one correct way to write a long sentence. But you’ll help your readers if you put the core at the start, and then expand the sentence.

Next, read your sentences aloud to appreciate the rhythm, and find your own voice .

When to use a long sentence

Tools like the Hemingway app encourage users to chop up all long sentences.

But an app doesn’t hear the rhythm of a sentence , like humans do.

And an app doesn’t understand the intense emotion of a long sentence. It doesn’t understand how a long sentence spurs readers on towards the last word, and then on to the next sentence. It doesn’t even understand how varying sentence length creates a pleasant rhythm.

Of course, there’s a difference between being engrossed in a novel, like There There , and reading online.

Online readers are often in a hurry, and they’re easily distracted. So, choose where to place long sentences carefully. Especially at the start of a blog post, keep your sentences short.

Once you’ve captivated readers, experiment with a couple of longer sentences. Read aloud to hear the rhythm and pay attention to how the sentence looks on screen—large blocks of texts can put readers off. So, don’t overdo it.

You’re the writer, you’re in charge

Don’t write a long sentence to show off your grasp of grammar.

Don’t write a long sentence to impress your readers.

Instead, write a long sentence to express an idea with power and rhythm.

Be enchanting.

A long sentence (…) can put the reader on edge a little, so long as this does not feel like its main point, so long as it feels as if the sentence has no ulterior motive other than the giving of its own life-delighting self. This is what readability scores will never tell you. They deal only with reading ease, not the knottier, exacting pleasures of expectancy and surprise, the teasing way that long sentences suspend the moment of closure. ~ Joe Moran

8 more examples of long sentences

1. a long sentence by james mcbride.

Note how this long sentence from Deacon King Kong by James McBride describes chaos:

He landed on his back on the concrete, coughed a few times, then rolled onto his stomach and began choking, desperately trying to rise to his hands and knees as the stunned boys around him scattered and the plaza collapsed into chaos, flyers dropping to the ground, mothers pushing baby carriages at a sprint, a man in a wheelchair spinning past, people running with shopping carts and dropping their grocery bags in panic, a mob of pedestrians fleeing in terror through the fluttering flyers that seemed to be everywhere.

The core of the sentence above is: He landed on his back , then the sentence branches out to the right, first describing what happens to the “he,” then describing the chaos around him.

2. Another long sentence by James McBride

This is another sentence from Deacon King Kong :

You lived a life of disappointment and suffering, of too-hot summers and too-cold winters, surviving in apartments with crummy stoves that didn’t work and windows that didn’t open and toilets that didn’t flush and lead paint that flecked off the walls and poisoned your children, living in awful, dreary apartments built to house Italians who came to America to work the docks, which had emptied of boats, ships, tankers, dreams, money, and opportunity the moment the colored and the Latinos arrived.

The long sentence above also starts with its core: You lived a life of disappointment and suffering , and then the sentence branches out, describing the circumstances of that life. Note how the repetition of the phrase didn’t adds rhythm in the middle of the sentence.

3. An example by Elif Shafak

The sentence below is from Elif Shafak’s 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World . Note how it uses vivid imagery to describe a busy market place:

Young women in miniskirts walked arm in arm; drivers catcalled out of car windows; apprentices from coffeehouses scurried back and forth, carrying tea trays loaded with small glasses; tourists bent under the weight of their backpacks gazed around as if newly awake; shoe-shine boys rattled their brushes against their brass boxes, decorated with photos of actresses – modest ones on the front, nudes on the back.

Thanks to the semicolons (;), this sentence feels less hurried than the sentences written above by James McBride. Semicolons create slightly longer pauses than commas. The semicolons connect sentence parts that could have been complete sentences such as: “Young women in miniskirts walked arm in arm.” And: “Drivers catcalled out of car windows.” This makes it easier to read this sentence; it doesn’t feel that long.

4. A long sentence by Nick Cave

This long sentence is from The Red Hand Files #3 :

But still you write, because over the years you have learned—midst the nonsensical hieroglyphics you compulsively scrawl in your notebooks, the dumb single lines that stare contemptuously back at you, the song titles that excite you then lose their magic the next time you look at them, the half-baked and derivative ideas, the stolen lines, the Freudian doodles, the desperate over-egged metaphors and lunatic, pencil-snapping, last-ditch attempts at something, my God, anything—you have learned to hold fast and trust.

The above sentence starts with its core: But still you write . But the next part is broken up: Because over the years you have learned—…—you have learned to hold fast and trust. Cave helps the reader not to get lost by repeating you have learned .

This sentence may be slightly more difficult to read but it also communicates just one core message: Despite all the hardship, you still write because you have learned to hold fast and trust. The summing up of all the details on the hardship make an emotional, chaotic impact, giving a vivid impression of a writer’s life.

5. A long sentence by James Rebanks

The following sentence is from English Pastoral by James Rebanks:

With hindsight, I can see that our farm was full of animals and places that defied my father’s and grandfather’s best efforts to tame them: the stack-yard full of old machinery, chest-deep in nettles; forests of tangled thorns, like those that grew around the castles in fairy tales, in the abandoned quarry by the road, where bullfinches sang from the thickets, their barrel chests a bright plum colour; rotting tree trunks at the top of the yard that had never been ripped out, and were now crumbling and full of red ant nests; the edges of the common land where the cows grazed, scruffy and half-wild; and even the fields of barley and oats were speckled with poppies and weeds, the pastures were full of thistles, and the hay meadows, by late June, were full of wild flowers.

The core of the sentence above is almost at the start: I can see , making it easy to understand the sentence. After the colon (:) the sentence describes the messiness and beauty of the farm.

6. An example by Benjamin Myers

In his book The Offing , Benjamin Myers writes about observing young women at the beach in Northern England, just after the Second World War:

In time they would leave their various states of repose to return home – to factory jobs, perhaps, or secretarial college; to overbearing fathers, to errant boyfriends or fast-talking fiancés, and then, perhaps, to dreary husbands; to sunless shifts behind desks or on factory floors; to shortening autumn days and long winter nights in dance halls and cafes with steamed-up windows and the stale lingering stink of tobacco smoke, hair oil, decaying English teeth and damp woollen coats.

The sentence above ends with the strong sensory impression of the smells of tobacco, hair oil, decaying teeth, and damp woollen coats.

7. A long sentence by James McBride

In The Color of Water , James McBride describes how his mother, who’s never given a speech in her life before, begins her speech, stops, clears her throat, and then starts again:

And this time she plows forward, reckless, fast, like a motorized car going through snowdrifts, spinning, peeling out, traveling in circles, going nowhere, her words nearly indecipherable as she flies through the stilted speech in that high-pitched, nervous voice.

This sentence has no semicolons (;) and no colons (:), just commas (,). Its rhythm feels fast, hurtling readers towards the end. This sense of things running out of control is amplified by the strong verbs ( plows, spinning, peeling ).

8. A long sentence by Niall Williams

In his book This Is Happiness , Niall Williams describes a drunk bicycle trip that ends in a crash landing:

‘O ho now!’ I shouted, both of us happy as heathens beneath the warm breath of the night sky and pedalling now in the boy hectic of blind momentum and nocturnal velocity so we missed the turn at Crossan’s went straight and straight on and straight in through Crossan’s open gate and across the wild bump-bump-bump and sudden su-su-su suck of their bog meadow where my front wheel sank in a rushy rut and I and a cry and a jet of brown vomit were projected out over the handlebars and flew glorious for one long and sublime instant before landing face-first in the cold puddle and muck of reality.

Just like the bicycle trip ends in a crash landing, sentence itself seems to crash towards its ending—there are almost no punctuation marks!

This sense of acceleration and crashing is increased by the repetition of the word straight in the middle of the sentence ( straight and straight on and straight in ), and also by the onomatopoeic phrases ( the wild bump-bump-bump and sudden su-su-su suck ) that make you feel like you’re hearing, witnessing, even experiencing this mad bicycle ride.

The form of the sentence, its rhythm, and the sounds of the words, help express its meaning.

Books mentioned in this post:

All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy—highly recommended

Murder Your Darlings and Other Gentle Writing Advice from Aristotle to Zinsser by Roy Peter Clark—highly recommended
Deacon King Kong by James McBride—highly recommended
English Pastoral by James Rebanks—recommended
The Offing by Benjamin Myers—highly recommended
This Is Happiness by Niall Williams—recommended

Reader Interactions

Leave a comment and join the conversation cancel reply.

February 16, 2023 at 2:29 pm

I loved this article! I have argued for years that well placed longer sentences can help drive home points and break up the monotony of many short sentences. Of course, the writing purists, argued otherwise.

I’ve found that by strategically inserting meaningful long sentences into text surrounded by a bunch of brief sentences, the paragraph, and ultimately the article or chapter flow better. I use those longer sentences to transition or bridge thoughts that are critical…to drive points home.

Thank you for sharing your article. We long sentence advocates appreciate you sharing your thoughts!

February 16, 2023 at 5:44 pm

Thank you, Dave. Nice to meet a fellow fan of long sentences 🙂

I like what Roy Peter Clarke said about long vs. short sentences: “Long sentences take readers on a journey. Short ones tell the gospel truth.”

September 23, 2022 at 7:45 am

hello Henneke This one is great! You make a lot of sense to have certain lengthy lines for special effects even if I always shorten sentences for SEO. (Yoast SEO will alert you if there are too many lengthy sentences.) This effectively demonstrates how to use lengthier sentences. When telling tales, you must employ them, and that is essentially what content marketing is all about. I appreciate you elucidating this for me today.

September 23, 2022 at 12:54 pm

I’m glad you found it useful! Too many long sentences make writing harder to read but the occasional long sentence can help create a more pleasant rhythm. Happy writing!

August 22, 2022 at 5:00 pm

For the past half hour I’ve been analysing the longest sentence I’ve ever written because of Reasons. I found this tip incredibly helpful generally but also rather unhelpful to my particular sentence? And you still seem to be responding to comments, so here’s my sentence (and the one before and after); tell me what you think! – He made to move out the doorway into the corridor. Harry put down his sandwich, regretfully, scrambling up, calling, “Oh, no, wait!” but then Mrs. Weasley was interjecting with a, “Really professor there’s enough for everybody have you eaten yet oh well then you absolutely must join us!” and Snape was settled between Tonks and Bill looking as though he wasn’t quite sure how he’d ended up there. It was rather a tight fit over there. –

August 23, 2022 at 11:29 am

It’s not always possible to follow sentences out of context. I do not know the story so I can’t really follow what’s happening here. My gut feeling is that this doesn’t need to be a long sentence and I’d be tempted to break it up.

February 15, 2022 at 7:47 pm

Brilliant, as usual, Henneke. Was that too short? 😉

February 17, 2022 at 10:14 am

Thank you, Cathy. It can never be too short 😉

April 5, 2021 at 1:44 pm

Well, you made my day again. I found this article as I was getting ready to go to bed, with my eyelids getting heavy, my shoulders aching, my hands fumbling on the keyboard, my chest caving in, my stomach sagging down, my intestines gurgling, my knees aching from a long-ago operation, and my feet swelling from diabetes.

Insanely useful advice.

April 5, 2021 at 7:02 pm

I imagine your dreams were talking to you in very long sentences! 🙂

July 27, 2019 at 12:56 pm

Hello Henneke,

Sometime it’s hard to get a feel good read on a long sentence.The book you are recommending surely is attractive to read. Am looking forward to reading it soon.

Thank you for your suggestions please continue writing these blogs.

July 27, 2019 at 8:37 pm

I agree with you that many long sentences are hard to read. But when they’re well written, they’re easy to read and engaging.

Thank you for stopping by, Lubosi. Happy writing!

April 30, 2019 at 7:28 am

It’s so nice hearing you teach like I am sitting in the classroom of my favourite teacher, whose looks and style inspires me to learn what she is teaching, every word, every sentence captivating my imagination and propelling me towards a beautiful journey of thoughts and concepts until all of she has said fills my mind and my heart and remains there as an unforgettable memory forever. You are amazing.

April 30, 2019 at 3:38 pm

That’s a great long sentence. Thank you for your compliment! 🙂

April 29, 2019 at 12:51 pm

I’ve just come back to read this post and it rings all the bells for me because I have been wrestling with those dreaded readability scores recently ?.

I got the dreaded ‘not enough transition words’ message a couple of times last week and plodded back and forth through my text, second-guessing myself.

In the end I trusted my gut, and I am sure all will work out well.

Conveying a mood accurately feels like the most important consideration. Once I feel I’ve achieved that, I audit to see whether I have enough variety in my sentence lengths.

Thanks for the permission to use longer sentences even when the SEO plug-in starts complaining!

April 29, 2019 at 7:34 pm

That SEO plug-in complains for almost every one of my blog posts that I don’t use enough transitions. Plus it complains that I start consecutive sentences with the same word and urges me to mix it up. I refuse to follow this advice.

Transitions can be made in many different ways, and I don’t think the plug-in gets this right, and repetition is a style choice.

I’m glad your trusting your intuition as a writer. ?

Good to see you again, Alison 😀 🙂

April 25, 2019 at 4:22 pm

The best long sentence I ever wrote: Once I stopped screaming, hovering, and watching me pretending to be okay, and once my world stopped shrinking down to the size of a black dot where nothing existed but Andy’s absence in my life, and once I stopped going through the motions, so to speak, as though nothing had happened, the numbness began to lift.

April 25, 2019 at 6:22 pm

That sentence is full of emotion. Thank you for sharing.

March 30, 2019 at 9:44 pm

Long sentences can establish content as written by a trusted resource, because it shows they have a lot to say and if they didn’t have a lot of valuable stuff to say they would have chosen to write a short sentence instead.

Cheers, Leonardo Candoza

March 31, 2019 at 6:46 pm

You can say a lot in shorter sentences, too, and you have a better chance of readers actually understanding you when your average sentence length is relatively short.

March 27, 2019 at 12:47 pm

Thank you for this Henneke

March 27, 2019 at 1:52 pm

You’re welcome, Grant. What was useful to you?

March 26, 2019 at 11:07 pm

I think the key is about mixing the long sentences with shorter ones. So for anyone who was challenged, there’s a chance to rest and recover.

Try putting Shane Snow’s famous readability post into the Hemingway app. (This one: https://contently.com/2015/01/28/this-surprising-reading-level-analysis-will-change-the-way-you-write/ ) The overall reading level is Grade 8, but there are lots of individual ‘very-hard-to-read’ long sentences. It’s the mix!

March 27, 2019 at 12:30 pm

Yes, it’s about mixing short and long.

When I checked Shane Snow’s post, I found that all long sentences have the core at the start or almost at the start.

If you’re interested, statistician Ben Blatt shares a similar analysis (on sentence length of the classics) in his book “Nabokov’s Favorite Word Is Mauve”—this also includes some interesting analysis of the use of -ly adverbs by famous writers.

Thank you for stopping by, Bridget.

March 26, 2019 at 5:20 pm

Awesome! I was gifted that book. Now I can’t wait to read it.

March 27, 2019 at 12:14 pm

I hope you’ll enjoy it, too!

March 26, 2019 at 11:40 am

Nice post! The Hemingway- and other apps sometimes come to weird conclusions. As does Yoast’s style advice. It keeps summoning me to write easier sentences. Ha! I already have a truly good Hemingway score. So I ditched the style advice.

March 27, 2019 at 12:13 pm

Yes, I find Yoast worse than Hemingway. Yoast has weird advice about transitions and repetition, too. Perhaps Yoast should stick to SEO 😉

March 23, 2019 at 1:00 pm

I was very intrigued when I received this article. What? Somebody actually recommending long sentences? I agree with everything you said.

I always see stories as a big meal, the small appetisers, the main course, the second and delicious second course and dessert. The meal is especially interesting when there’s variety, some plates are small, others big and there’s diversity in the flavours. I am against short sentences in the same way I am against quick meals. In the same way I cook and eat with people that enjoy eating, I write for people who enjoy reading. And that includes loooooong sentences too 🙂

God, I am suddenly feeling hungry.

Thanks for such a refreshing post!

March 24, 2019 at 4:20 pm

I love this: “I cook and eat with people that enjoy eating, I write for people who enjoy reading.”

It made me remember once briefly traveling with someone who didn’t enjoy eating, and it was such a pity. For me, one of the highlights of traveling is getting to savor new foods. When you’re with someone who doesn’t get that, a lot of the traveling fun is gone.

Here’s to good food and good sentences! 🙂

March 23, 2019 at 8:07 am

If you establish the proper tempo, long sentences flow beautifully. One needs to beef things up clearly without adding any fluff or bloat.

March 24, 2019 at 4:13 pm

I like seeing long sentences as cumulative or expanding—you don’t overstuff a simple sentence, but rather you add more at the end so it becomes an intriguing journey. Thank you for stopping by again, Ryan!

March 22, 2019 at 6:07 pm

Sometimes it feels like we’re under attack from the sharp staccatos of modern communication. Abrupt. Get to the point. Move on. Don’t waste time or take too much space. Oh, I’m not downing on short sentences. Good ones – meaningful ones – can be difficult to write and they are certainly key in today’s marketing world. But the beauty of a well-crafted long sentence … it’s like taking time out to ride with the flow of the words and discover meaning. I guess it’s truly an art form, and one that won’t fade away as long as there are people like you to keep it alive! Thanks so much for posting, Henneke.

March 24, 2019 at 4:11 pm

I also feel sometimes under attack of modern communication. It’s so relentless. No better way to escape than with a good book, well written. 🙂

Thank you for stopping by, Judith.

March 20, 2019 at 10:37 pm

One of my favorite sentences by scientist Rachel Carson, approximately 68 words:

“If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of children I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength.”

March 21, 2019 at 10:55 am

Yes, I like it! Thank you for sharing.

March 20, 2019 at 6:50 pm

YES this is so true: “write a long sentence to express an idea with power and rhythm.” Thank you so much 🙂

March 20, 2019 at 9:08 pm

And hank you for stopping by! 🙂

March 20, 2019 at 9:15 am

Love this Henneke. Long sentences can be a problem for many students visiting the university writing center. I can’t wait to share your tips with them, so they can write beautiful rather than dull long sentence. Thanks again Henneke!

March 20, 2019 at 9:07 pm

Thank you, Christine. Long sentences seem to be a funny problem—either people shy away from them completely or they write them but don’t realize how convoluted their long sentences are.

March 20, 2019 at 1:20 am

“This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety.

Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes, when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals–sounds that say listen to this, it is important.”

Gary Provost

March 20, 2019 at 9:05 am

Yes, that’s a good one! 🙂 I didn’t want to get into sentence variation for this post; it’s a big enough topic to write a whole post about.

Thank you stopping by, Mark.

March 20, 2019 at 12:58 am

I was enthralled by Henrietta for minutes before I even got to the post. Such a beautiful, simple, vibrant graphic. There is definitely an art to the long sentence. Thanks for sharing such beautiful examples.

March 20, 2019 at 9:03 am

I really had to think long about what image to create for this post. How could I express the idea of a long sentence? I was quite happy with the result. So, thank you for mentioning it 🙂

March 19, 2019 at 11:47 pm

I loved this post. There’s nothing better than reading a long sentence that so… yummy? I’ve read a-many-a-sentence that each addition to that long sentence just builds to the over-all description the writer is trying to give.

I’ve also had it go the other way and lost my breath… ugh.

Thank you for this post and showing that long sentences can be great.

I love all of your stuff and always look forward to them.

Until next time, Danae I.

March 20, 2019 at 9:02 am

Yes, so true. Most long sentences wear me down, but when you read a good one … it’s wonderful.

Thank you for your lovely comment, Danae. I appreciate it.

March 19, 2019 at 11:10 pm

How do I love ❤️ ?? this one…in oh soooo many ways!!

Best always—Sue-Ann

March 20, 2019 at 9:01 am

Thank you, Sue-Ann. Henrietta sends her regards ❤️ ??

March 19, 2019 at 8:32 pm

As a writer, I avoid long sentences like the plague. Now, though, thanks to you, I might use the odd long sentence from time to time.

March 19, 2019 at 9:20 pm

As my confidence as writer has grown in recent years, I’ve found myself making my sentences gradually longer. I still use very long sentences sparingly, but I’m not afraid of using them any more.

Happy writing, Andrew! And thank you for stopping by.

March 19, 2019 at 7:07 pm

As the Queen of the long sentence, I concur with your analysis. Thanks for the excellent advice.

March 19, 2019 at 7:14 pm

Thank you, your Majesty 🙂 I’m glad you concur!

March 19, 2019 at 5:38 pm

I love this post. Specially this part:

“an app doesn’t understand the intense emotion of a long sentence”

How such a complex insubordinate idea be put in such an enchanting way?

Only you can Henneke 🙂 Bravo!

Thank you so much, Marisa. Fortunately, algorithms can’t write as well as we can. 🙂

March 19, 2019 at 5:04 pm

WONDERFUL. I am going to put a link to this post in my post on “using short sentences,” lol!! Seriously, doing that right now. I love the grace a long sentence brings to its shorter brethren. But previously I could not figure out an easy, clear way to explain HOW one can go about writing a long sentence that has both clarity and grace. You’ve done it again!!

March 19, 2019 at 5:16 pm

I faced exactly the same challenge… finding an easy way to explain how to write a long sentence (without getting stuck in grammar discussions!).

I appreciate your link and your comment, Thea. Thank you.

March 19, 2019 at 4:11 pm

I loved this! Paying attention to the rhythm of a long sentence and the flow of details adding to the image is so effective – when done right. Loved the examples you give, and the idea of the core idea right up front.

March 19, 2019 at 5:15 pm

Thank you, Nicki. I had wanted to write about long sentences for a long time, but I had never come across examples that inspired me … until I read There There.

Happy writing!

March 19, 2019 at 3:49 pm

Thanks for such solid, how-to advice. Great analysis of how to make the long sentence work!

March 19, 2019 at 5:14 pm

Thank you, Kristina. Happy writing!

March 19, 2019 at 3:38 pm

Great advice! I just realized why I use to write long sentences. I want to give more detail on what I think. And I just write exactly what I think (in that same order), so it is hard to understand. I’ll start using this technique in the editing phase. I’m sure it would be really useful, is it was really hard for me to cut my long sentences and still say what I wanted to.

Yes, you can use your first draft just to get your thoughts down, not worrying about sentence structure. Then when you edit, you can improve clarity, flow and rhythm.

March 19, 2019 at 3:14 pm

Putting the sentence’s core at the start instantly made sense, yet it’s not something I’d ever considered before. Thanks for another great tip Henneke, and your lively illustration made it even better. Goed gedaan! Best wishes from an English woman living in the Netherlands 🙂

March 19, 2019 at 5:12 pm

So, we’ve swapped places—crossing The Channel in opposite directions 🙂

Thank you for stopping by, Bev.

March 19, 2019 at 2:35 pm

Henneke, you confirmed what I have often thought about long sentences. If the flow is good and it fits, use it, but sparingly.

March 19, 2019 at 5:11 pm

Yep, that’s it. It’s about flow and rhythm. Thank you for stopping by, David 🙂

March 19, 2019 at 1:23 pm

I love the way you give easy-to-follow advice and yet you are talking about the soul of writing, something that is harder to explain but you know when you see and feel it. Your point about the Hemingway app is so true. Technology can analyze all sorts of things quickly but only the soul can recognize enchantment.

Thank you, Henneke (and Henrietta)!

Thank you so much, Kate. I love your point about the soul of writing. The more I’ve been writing, the more important that has become to me.

I appreciate your comment (and Henrietta sends her regards 🙂 )

March 19, 2019 at 12:48 pm

Another great post I can put into practice immediately.

March 19, 2019 at 3:16 pm

Thank you, Veronica 🙂 Happy writing!

March 19, 2019 at 12:07 pm

What a wonderful article on the ‘art’ of writing. We get so caught up in the technical aspects we forget about giving it life. Loved it!

March 19, 2019 at 12:12 pm

I’m inclined to think that the technical aspects are way less important than most of us think. Focusing on communicating with clarity is so much more important. Plus learning to listen to how your writing sounds (and what you’re really communicating).

March 19, 2019 at 12:00 pm

Brilliant post, Henneke! Thanks… it was perfect timing too. How do you do that?

March 19, 2019 at 12:03 pm

Telepathy, Jeff. That’s my secret 😉

I’m glad you enjoyed it!

March 19, 2019 at 11:52 am

As always, you get to the heart of my struggle and bring clarity with a few written words. Thank you for that!

March 19, 2019 at 11:54 am

Thank you, Maggie. That makes me happy 🙂

March 19, 2019 at 11:35 am

You had me at ” gobble up for readers.” I fell in love with that sentence! And then I read the rest of the post…

Great ideas. Will start implementing them although I think it requires higher writing skills than I have just now.

You don’t have to make the sentences as crazy long as the ones by Tommy Orange. But it’s a great exercise to try longer sentences and play with the rhythm.

March 19, 2019 at 11:25 am

I love this! Thanks, Henneke.

March 19, 2019 at 11:26 am

Thank you, Rachel. Happy writing!

March 19, 2019 at 11:19 am

Hi Henneke, I Love this one! I am always cutting sentences for SEO but you make a lot of sense to have some long sentences for special effects. (Yoast SEO always tells you when you have too many long sentences.) This really explains how to use longer sentences effectively. You need to use them when telling stories and that’s what content marketing is really about. Thanks for clarifying this for me today!

The Yoast plugin is good for SEO, but the advice on readability is limited. For instance, the plugin complains when I start consecutive sentences with the same word and it often complains that I don’t use enough transition words. But when your writing is clear, you don’t need that many transition words.

What’s most important is clarity, and as far as I know apps can’t really measure clarity yet, so trust your own judgment as a writer 🙂

March 19, 2019 at 12:10 pm

Indeed, I have also noticed that. I basically don’t pay attention to the Yoast plugin anymore regarding readability. Your advice makes totally sense Henneke, as always 🙂 Thank you

March 19, 2019 at 12:13 pm

I ignore that part, too, and only check I get a green light for SEO. One day, I’ll write a post about that 🙂

June 4, 2023 at 6:58 pm

Having discovered your blog just last week, I’ve got some catching up to do! Like the other posts, this one is great. Lovely examples (I always like Joe Moran), and I particularly like your irreverence to the mechanistic style guides and tools. On that point, specifically on the transition words – have you noticed that if you ask ChatGPT for an opinion, it comes back full of them? “However,” “Firstly,” “Therefore,” and so on. It sounds like a well-drilled high school student jumping through another exam.

June 5, 2023 at 10:29 am

I haven’t played that much with ChatGPT but that doesn’t surprise me. I have the Yoast SEO plugin installed on this blog and it suggests that I’m not using enough transitions. If anything, I personally feel like I should reduce rather than increase transitions. Too many transitions makes writing sound too smooth, too well-drilled, too mechanistic, and it feels a bit as if the writer doesn’t trust the reader to understand the sentences and how they relate.

Thanks so much for stopping by, Joe, and for your kind words on my blog. 🙂

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How Long Is an Essay? The Ultimate Essay Length Guide

It’s safe to say that most students struggle with the word limit within an essay. Sometimes, it’s hard to find ideas for a text and meet the word requirement for every part of the paper. With so many factors influencing essay length, it’s easy to get confused.

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The picture enumerates the factors influencing essay length.

Luckily, our custom-writing team has your back. In this article, our custom-writing experts will answer all your questions regarding essay length. We will also help you write papers with an ideal number of words!

📜 Is Essay Length Important?

📏 essay parts: recommended length.

🤔 How to Make Essays Shorter or Longer
📑 Essay Length & Formatting
❓ Different Academic Levels FAQ
📚 Essay Length: Different Types
⭐ Other Aspects
📝 Essay Examples

🔍 References

Often, the phrase “word limit” causes panic among students. After all, if an essay is too long or too short, your grade will be lowered. However, in reality, there’s nothing to worry about. When it comes to words, limitations are beneficial for both the students and the professors.

Let’s see what exactly it means.

Many people believe that the longer an essay is, the better. However, according to Frontiers, research shows that it’s a bias that couldn’t be further from the truth. A perfect-length paper is one that allows students to express their ideas and showcase their knowledge fully while keeping it clean and simple.

What Influences Essay Length

Various factors determine the length of an essay. Here are the most important ones:

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Let’s start with the essentials. Usually, assignment length is given as a number of words rather than pages. Unless your supervisor or instructor mentions any specific limitations, it’s acceptable to be 10% below or above the word limit.

It’s also worth knowing the 80/20 rule . According to it, the body should constitute 80% of the text, while the intro and the conclusion take up the remaining 20%.

Keep reading to learn more about the recommended length of each essay part. The main numbers are shown in the table below:

How Long Should an Introduction Be?

An introduction is the first section and the face of your essay. For that reason, it needs to be compelling and well-thought-out. Usually, it consists of 3 to 5 sentences or 50 to 80 words .

An introduction must have a hook, some background information, and a thesis statement. While the attention grabber and the thesis are usually brief, you may need 2 to 3 sentences for the background. To avoid going overboard, try to stay on topic and don’t add any filler.

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How Long Is a Body Paragraph in an Essay?

The length of a body paragraph may vary. Sometimes, it can be limited to a single sentence. In other cases, it may take up a whole page. Usually, it’s recommended to have between 80 and 200 words (5-8 sentences) per body paragraph.

Since the paper’s body contains the most information, it’s necessary to explain and support your ideas properly. That’s why it’s no big deal if your body paragraphs go slightly over the word limit.

How Many Body Paragraphs Should Be in an Essay?

Like the word count, the number of paragraphs is determined by the type of paper and its topic. The minimum is 1. Generally, however, the body consists of 3-5 paragraphs , 1 for each argument.

To improve your paper’s structure, ensure that there are as many paragraphs as there are points in your thesis statement. Each one should have a purpose and support your arguments. If there’s any fluff, it’s better to get rid of it.

How Long Should a Conclusion Be?

Like the introduction, the conclusion consists of 50-80 words . It’s essential to keep it simple and only mention the central ideas. A weak concluding sentence may affect the reader’s understanding of the topic and spoil the overall impression of your paper.

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🤔 How to Make Essays Shorter or Longer: Best Tips

Undoubtedly the essay’s content is more important than the number of words you use. But there are times when students go more than 10-15% below or over the limit. Is there a solution to this problem?

Yes, there is! In this section, we will share the most useful tips to help you stay on point with your paper’s word count.

How to Make Essays Longer

Since having enough words is essential for a good grade, we’ve collected the best tips that can help you lengthen your essay without teachers noticing:

Use relevant quotations.  You don’t need to litter your essay with citations, but using them whenever appropriate is a great idea. For instance, if you’re working on a book analysis, referencing a couple of direct quotes from the source text will make your essay more credible and increase the word count.
Give examples.  Go through the claims in your paper and provide additional evidence where possible. It will make your essay longer and more informative.
Use transitional expressions.  Adding transition words and phrases is a natural way of increasing the number of words. It will also improve your essay’s readability. 
Add more references.  Providing references is always a good idea when writing a formal essay. That way, you will increase the number of words and make your paper more credible.
Work on your descriptions.  If you struggle to develop new ideas, go over what you’ve already written and consider adding some descriptive words. It’s a great idea for creative essays to include more imagery.

How to Shorten an Essay

Another struggle of academic writing is cutting down the number of words in your essay to meet a set limit. We are here to tell you that it’s not that hard. Writing straightforwardly and keeping your sentences short is a key to concise content. Here are several strategies you may use to tighten a lengthy essay:

Choose the active voice.  It takes up less space than passive voice. Using it also makes your writing more professional and compelling.
Remove needless transitions.  Transitions can indeed maintain the flow of the paper. But some transitional phrases can be easily removed.
Get rid of unnecessary adverbs and adjectives.  Some students tend to overuse adjectives and adverbs. It adds wordiness to their writing.
Avoid running starts.  Some students like to start their sentences with long phrases like: “there are,” “it is believed,” or “the fact that.” Getting rid of them makes texts much more concise.
Delete “that.”  In most cases, the word “that” can often be easily removed from texts.

Another cool trick is to use our summarizing tool as essay shortener. Try it out!

📑 How Long Is an Essay Depending on Formatting?

As we mentioned earlier, the essay’s length is usually limited by the number of words. But sometimes, a teacher may ask you to write a specific number of pages. This is trickier because the amount of text you can place on the page depends on the formatting. By using the font size and spacing properly, it’s possible to make the paper visually longer or shorter. Let’s discuss it in more detail.

The picture describes how formatting affects essay length.

Essay Spacing: How Does It Affect the Length?

Adjusting the spacing between lines.  Try to make the changes as slight as possible. For instance, if you were asked to double-space the paper, use 2.1 or 2.2 spacing instead. Another option is to slightly extend spaces between paragraphs.
Extending the margin size.  You can increase the right and bottom margins by a quarter to make very subtle changes in length. For example, if the margins are 1 inch , you can set them at 1.25 inches instead. 
Increasing the spacing between characters.  It is less noticeable than the line spacing. Still, try not to overdo it and keep the numbers between 1.2 and 1.5 . 
Adjusting the footer.  Add a footer with page numbers to stretch the bottom margin even further.
Lengthening the header.  You can extend your header by adding your name, e-mail address, or other relevant information. Another option is double-spacing it.

Length of an Essay: Font and Size

Using the right type of font.  If your instructor didn’t specify which font you should use, go for the bigger ones. We suggest Arial, Bangla Sangam MN, Cambria, or Quicksand. They will make your text look longer without being too on the nose.  
Using a bigger font size.  This is another technique that can come in handy. However, be careful and don’t increase your font by more than 0.1-0.5 pt.  
Increasing the size of periods and commas.   This is one of the less noticeable tricks you can use. For instance, if your paper’s font is 12 pt. , increase it to 14 pt. only for punctuation marks. Italicizing periods and commas will also add several lines of length to your essay.

What to Do if There Are No Length Guidelines

Sometimes a teacher sets no word limit for a written work. What to do in that case? Well, first, you can ask your professor to confirm if they have simply forgotten to mention it. But if that’s not the case, here are a couple of helpful solutions:

Think of the paragraph number.  Sometimes, you may be given the number of paragraphs instead of words. In that case, you can decide on the number of words depending on how many paragraphs you have. 
Think about the topic’s complexity.  The length of your paper is also directly dependent on the theme. If the topic is simple, 4-5 paragraphs will be enough. A more complex issue may require an in-depth explanation, so your essay can be 6-8 paragraphs long.

❓ Essay Length for Different Academic Levels FAQ

The length of the elementary school essay is usually short. Usually, a paper needs to have around 3-5 paragraphs, with 4-5 sentences per paragraph. Primary school essays can be 1-2 paragraphs long.

The word limit for a middle school essay is usually between 300 to 1000 words. The most common essay length is 500 words, which is about 5 paragraphs. However, it may differ from school to school.

The length of the high school essay may differ depending on the school and the complexity of the task itself. Usually, however, a paper can be between 300 to 1000 words long.

The length of the undergraduate college essay often falls within the range of 1500 to 2100 words. It translates into roughly 5-7 pages. 5 pages is the most common essay length at this level.

When it comes to the graduate school admission essay, the word limit is usually between 500 and 1000 words. It’s possible to go slightly over or below the set limit; however, it’s best to stick to the requirements as close as possible.

📚 How Long Should an Essay Be: Different Types

Now, let’s talk about different types of essays. How long should they be? Keep reading to learn about the length of college essays, short and extended ones, scholarship essays, and research papers.

How Long Is a College Essay?

When it comes to a college essay, it’s more important to stick to the word limit than with any other paper. Some teachers may refuse to read it unless it meets all the requirements.

The shortest limit for a college essay is about 250 words which is the shortest length of a Common App personal statement. It’s also rare to see a good college essay with over 650 words . So, an average piece usually has between 150 and 650 words ; you can go over or below the limit by 50.

How Long Is a Paragraph in College Essays?

A college essay usually consists of 4-5 paragraphs . One paragraph takes about 1/3 of the page, which is roughly 5 sentences . Each sentence corresponds with one of the following components:

Topic sentence.
Explanation.
Transitions.

College Essay Length Requirements: Top 5 Schools

To understand the requirements for a college application essay even better, take a look at the table below. It showcases the top 5 schools and their length criteria for personal statements. Keep it in mind when writing your college essay:

How Long Is a Short Essay?

A short essay is usually 500 words long. Using 12pt Times New Roman font with standard margins and double spacing should result in about 2 pages of text.

Extended Essay Length

An extended essay is different from a short or a standard one. It requires extensive research and thorough explanation. That’s why the upper limit for this kind of essay is 4000 words . In this case, a typical essay length is 3500 words or 18 paragraphs .

Scholarship Essay Length

Generally, scholarship papers have a limit of 500 words , which is 1 page in length. Most scholarship programs provide additional requirements that indicate the minimum number of words or pages. If there are no set limitations, you can stick to the limit.

How Long Is a Research Paper?

Typically, a research paper is between 4000 and 6000 words long. Sometimes, there are shorter papers, which have around 2000 words, or in-depth ones with over 10000 words.

⭐ Other Aspects of Essay Length

When it comes to essay length, many different aspects come into play. Here, we’ve gathered all the essential information regarding an essay’s number of pages, paragraphs, words, and references.

How Many Paragraphs Are in an Essay?

Sometimes, it is more convenient to count paragraphs rather than words. Let’s now figure out how many paragraphs are in essays of different lengths. You may also check out the examples to see what such an essay looks like:

How to Count Paragraphs in an Essay Based on Word Count

You can also count the number of body paragraphs for your essay using the formula below:

Number of body paragraphs (average) = (TWC – TWC*0.16)/100

TWC – total word count
0.16 – an average percentage of total word count for introduction and conclusion
100 – an average number of words per paragraph

How Many Pages Are in an Essay?

The number of pages in your essay may vary from subject to subject. But it’s still possible to determine the number of pages based on word count. Check out the numbers below to see the conversions with bonus examples:

You can also use a specialized calculator such as Word Counter to determine a number of pages in your essay.

What Does an Essay Look Like when Typed?

You might be wondering: what do essays of different lengths look like when typed? Well, here’s the table where you can find out the metrics for single- and double-spaced papers.

How Many Pages Are in a Handwritten Essay?

In case you need to turn in a handwritten paper, you should check out the table below.

Counting Words in a Handwritten Essay

If you don’t have enough time to count the words in your handwritten essay one by one, here’s what you can do:

Count how many words there are in one line. Take the first and last lines and a line in the middle of a page. Let’s say there are 15, 14, and 15 words in them. Then, the average number of words per line is 15.
Next, count how many lines there are on one page. Let’s say there are 17 lines on a page.
Take the number of words per line and multiply it by the number of lines per page. In our case, we multiply 15 by 17. So, there are 255 words per page on average.
Finally, multiply the number of words per page by the number of pages. If your essay has 3 pages, it is approximately 765 words long.

How Long Does it Take to Write an Essay?

It is crucial to know how long writing will take you, especially if you are working on an exam essay or just short on time. Note that you need to consider the time for typing and researching necessary to complete a piece. Research time may vary. Usually, it’s 1-2 hours for 200-250 words .

The picture shows the fact about the average speed of writing.

Below, we’ve gathered the average writing time for average and slower writing speed:

And here are the results in pages:

How Many References Does an Essay Need?

Another essential part of any composition is the reference list. Different academic levels require different references. You’ll find out how many of them should be in your paper in the table below!

📝 Essay Examples: Different Length

Finally, we’ve gathered some excellent sample essays of different lengths. Make sure to check them out!

We also recommend you check out our free essay samples sorted by pages:

1-Page Essay Examples
2-Page Essay Examples
3-Page Essay Examples
4-Page Essay Examples
5-Page Essay Examples
10-Page Essay Examples
20-Page Essay Examples
30-Page Essay Examples
40-Page Essay Examples
50-Page Essay Examples

Now you know all about essay length, word limits, and ways to lengthen or shorten your text. If you know other interesting tricks, make sure to share them in a comment! Good luck with your writing assignments!

Lengthy Essay Samples

The lengthy sample essays in the pdf link below showcase writers who, to varying degrees, took chances or simply reached higher. Not only did these writers compose lengthy essays (still within prescribed word-count limits), but in many cases they did something bold with content, form, or personality.

In these samples, length can readily be justified by the fact that these are writers who don’t necessarily fall into “typical” student categories but nevertheless are applying to graduate programs or for scholarships. To be competitive, these writers decided to stand out by telling their stories in a way that they hoped would set them apart from, and above, the crowd. A common thread linking these diverse writers is their obvious confidence that:

their essays matter to the selection committee, and
their essays will be both noticeable and noticed.

Overview of Lengthy Essay Samples

Mechanical engineering student sample.

In the first sample essay from mechanical engineering, what stands out immediately are the length and the photographs. In this case, the student was applying for an engineering scholarship, so he was given room to flesh out technical material as well as address issues such as personal motivations one would expect to read in a personal statement. Much of the essay is given to a discussion of his thesis work, which involves the examination of “the propagation of a flame in a small glass tube.” The figures depict the experimental work and represent the success of preliminary thesis results, visually indicating the likely point at which the flame reached detonation.

Liberal Arts Student Sample

The three-page personal statement by the liberal arts student is interesting in that it is often intentionally abstract and a bit philosophical. This student attended a small liberal arts school that promotes a “Think, Evolve, Act” theme to its students, and this student reflects on this theme and embraces it in his own life from the beginning of the essay. In his curriculum, he has taken a course on Gandhi and Nonviolence, studied abroad in Belgium, and self-designed a program of “Peace and Conflict Studies with an emphasis in Technological Revolution.” He has also taken a ten-day service learning trip to Costa Rica, studied at the Institute of Gandhian Studies in India, served part-time as an assistant to a member of the European Parliament, and written a paper entitled “A Knowledge-Based Society and the Digital Divide.” Meanwhile, he plans to graduate with distinction in both of his majors. In jazz terms, this student certainly does seem to have the chops.

Film Student Sample

One way to get a sense of the daring of this personal statement, written by a student who aims to study film at Columbia University, is simply to consider the allusions he makes throughout his statement. With neither apology nor obvious humility, this writer makes references to Steven Spielberg, Woody Allen, Jean-Luc Godard, Jean Vigo, Terrence Malick, and David Gordon Green. Further, this writer takes the unusual step of using section headings in his personal statement, including, on his first page “Poetry,” “Plastics,” and “Children.” But no matter how creative this writer is, of course, we must ultimately judge him on his evidenced ability as a filmmaker. In that regard, he showcases his ease with talking about films and directors, posits an analogy about student filmmaking (“directing your own material is like parenting”), and discusses the success of his nineteen-minute senior project, “Burying Dvorak”—a film he promoted by taking a year off after graduation, successfully landing it in more than 20 film festivals. As he closes his essay, he makes a specific pitch for Columbia University, where he hopes to continue “to discover my own voice, my own poetry.”

Biological Science Student Sample

For the lengthy sample essay from the student in biological science, the extensive length and scientific depth are necessary because the student is applying for the highly competitive STAR Fellowship. The STAR (Science to Achieve Results) program offers graduate fellowships through the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), funding several years of study. Given the competitiveness of the process and the EPA’s mission of environmental protection, it is vital that this student presents a viable, environmentally important project in a persuasive, professional manner. To achieve this, the writer successfully approaches the essay as she would a thesis proposal, using science-related section heads, providing original figures and data, focusing heavily on future research goals, and essentially performing a literature review, citing 19 sources ranging from basic textbooks to refereed journals. The result is a powerful essay with scientific depth.

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In Praise of the Long and Complicated Sentence

Frank sinatra. now there's a guy who could string together a lotta words..

The style guides say: keep your sentences short. Write cleanly, cut as many words as you can, and don’t overburden your reader’s short-term memory by delaying the arrival of the full stop. But sometimes a sentence just needs to be long. The world resists our efforts to enclose it between a capital and a full stop. The sentence has to withhold its end because life is like that, refusing to fold itself neatly into subject, verb and object.

A long sentence should exult in its own expansiveness, lovingly extending its line of thought while being always clearly moving to its close. It should create anticipation, not confusion, as it goes along. The hard part is telling the difference between the two. I once heard Ken Dodd say that the secret of a great comedian is that he makes the audience feel simultaneously safe and slightly on edge. He has about half a minute from coming on stage, Dodd reckoned, to establish that he is harmless. He must quickly convey calm and control, so that the audience members relax into their seats, safe in the knowledge that nothing truly awkward is about to happen. But he must also create a sense of unpredictability that makes them lean forward. A good long sentence has that same tension. It should frustrate readers just a little, and put them just faintly on edge, without ever suggesting that it has lost control of what is being said.

A sentence, once begun, demands its own completion. It throws a thought into the air and leaves the reader vaguely dissatisfied until that thought has come in to land. We read a sentence with the same part of our brains that processes music. Like music, a sentence arrays its elements into an order that should seem fresh and surprising and yet shaped and controlled. It works by violating expectations and creating mild frustrations on the way to fulfillment. As it runs its course, it assuages some of the frustration and may create more. But by the end, things should have resolved themselves in a way that allows something, at least, to be said.

A long sentence can seem thrillingly out of breath, deliciously tantalizing, so long as we feel the writer is still in charge. It is like listening to a great singer as he holds his breath and prolongs a phrase. The secret to Frank Sinatra’s singing is his gift for fluid phrasing . Matt Monro may have had better technique, Tony Bennett more lung power, Nat King Cole a smoother tone, Bobby Darin more swing. But Sinatra beat them all at breathing.

As a young singer, Sinatra listened awestruck to his bandleader Tommy Dorsey’s astoundingly smooth trombone playing. The note holds seemed to defy human lung capacity. Dorsey would play a musical phrase right through, seemingly without taking a breath, for eight or even sixteen bars. Sinatra sat behind him on the bandstand to learn when and how he breathed, but could not even see his jacket move up and down. Eventually he worked out that Dorsey had a pinhole in the corner of his mouth through which he was taking furtive breaths. Sinatra came to see that singing, too, was about breath control and that the secret was never to break the phrase. In music, legato means “bound together:” a seamless flow, with no break between the notes. Sinatra wanted to sing legato, running the whole phrase into one smooth breath .

S ometimes a sentence just needs to be long. The world resists our efforts to enclose it between a capital and a full stop. The sentence has to withhold its end because life is like that, refusing to fold itself neatly into subject, verb and object.

He worked out on running tracks and practiced holding his breath underwater in public pools, thinking song lyrics to himself as he swam. His breath control got better and, where he had to breathe in a song, he got better at hiding it. He moved the microphone towards and away from his mouth as he sang so that you never heard him inhale. If he had to sneak in a little breath somewhere he made sure it seemed deliberate, as if he were letting the message sink in. He learned this trick from watching the horn section in Dorsey’s band during long instrumentals. When he sang, it sounded as if he was making it all up as he went along, pausing to pluck a word out of the air, lagging a fraction behind the beat—like a long, lithe sentence, ad libitum but always in control of what it was saying.

Unlike writing, which runs with its own irregular pulse, music has a regular rhythm with a steady downbeat. Musical meter controls time completely: a half note hangs in the air for exactly half as long as the whole note. This allows harmonizing singers and instruments to pursue separate agendas and yet still pleasurably coincide. But music also depends on phrasing, which is more subtle and varied than meter. A musical phrase lasts for about as long as a person can sing, or blow a wind instrument, in a single breath. What phrasing does to music is more like what a sentence does to words. A skilled singer can make the phrasing, the sentence structure of a song, work with or against the meter.

Pub crooners and karaoke singers never sing in sentences. They focus too much on lung power and hitting the notes and not enough on the words. They just belt it all out, taking gulping breaths midline, killing the meaning and the mood. But skilled singers know that the words matter. They might hold a note for effect, or add a bit of melisma, but mostly their phrasing will mirror the way the words of the song would be spoken. Songs are written in sentences, and phrasing is about singing in sentences, not song lines.

A phraseologist like Sinatra overlays the meter with something like confiding speech. He is all about the lyrics—you can hear him enunciate every syllable—and it feels as if he is saying as well as singing them to you, stretching out and twisting the pitch of words as we do in speech. Sinatra sings in sentences. Perhaps he hated rock ’n’ roll for this reason, not because he thought it ugly and degenerate, as he said, but because it did not care about the sentences. T he rhythm of rock ’n’ roll always drowns out the syntax. Even a great phrasemaker like Chuck Berry has to make his sentences fit the backbeat.

It always irked me that in record shops Sinatra was filed under “ easy listening,” the suggestion being that his songs were as undemanding as elevator music, and best heard as the background buzz in a cocktail lounge. Another unfashionable singer filed in the same section, and whom I unfashionably loved, was Karen Carpenter. The emotional power of Carpenter’s singing comes not so much from her vocal tone, gorgeous as that is, but from the fact that she, like Sinatra, sings in sentences. Singing for as long as she does on one breath, in complete sentences over twisting melodies, is an amazing feat—not just of lung capacity but of tricking her throat into thinking that she is not about to swallow.

By the end of a Carpenters song you feel wrung out, as if someone has emptied their heart in front of you. All that has happened is that you have been sucker-punched by the dexterity of a technical virtuoso, effortlessly unspooling a long sentence. Easy listening is hard singing — and easy reading is hard writing.

Every writer is a poet by default and every sentence a little poem. The longer the sentence, the more closely it resembles poetry, or should do. A good training exercise for the long-sentence writer is to read some of the countless poems written as one long sentence, often just a simple collection of modifiers. Henry Vaughan’s “The Night” has no main verbs or connectives, just a lightly tied bale of appositives that rename the noun in the poem’s title: “this world’s defeat; The stop to busy fools.” George Herbert’s “Prayer” repeats the trick: “the soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage.”

When he sang, it sounded as if he was making it all up as he went along, pausing to pluck a word out of the air, lagging a fraction behind the beat—like a long, lithe sentence, ad libitum but always in control of what it was saying.

American poetry, from Walt Whitman to Amy Clampitt, offers a vast lending library of these one-sentence poems that pile up free modifiers parted by commas. So many poems work as long, loose sentences — running over many lines, or the whole poem, and inviting us to wonder at how much they can fit inside themselves, and whether they will ever be an adequate vessel for all that needs to be said.

In fact a long, loose sentence turns into a poem if you just add line breaks:

T he London Underground marks the hardest of borders between tourist and native: the tourist fumbling for change, squinting at the ticket machine and trying to work out which zone he is in, then flinching at the barrier as if unsure it will open for him, while the native absently places her card on the reader, and walks straight through in one balletic action, knowing the exact moment it will open without even breaking her stride, and then gauging the spot on the platform at which the doors will open, and answering the beeping sound that announces the closing of the doors by instinctively contorting her body to fit inside the carriage, pulled along by habit and the momentum of other moving bodies, as at home in her habitat as a swift on the wing.

Poems , like songs sung well, are made of sentences as well as lines. The sentence is part of a poem’s music just as much as the meter. Line and meter are the flimsy frame behind which the unassailable syntactical rhythms of the English sentence rumble on. For many poets, the unit of composition is not the line but the sentence spoken in a single outbreath. Robert Graves said that a poem came to him in “the usual line-and-a-half that unexpectedly forces itself on the entranced mind.” Poets write in sentences, just like everyone else, then play them off against the meter. Meter, like rhyme, is so strict that it has to pull against something to create its agreeable tensions. Without sentences, poetry would just be sing-song.

Think of a long sentence as a poem and it will always be clear, because each part of it will unravel in little musical phrases, with all the different parts coloring one another without it ever feeling discordant. The one indispensable quality in a long sentence is that it must divide into these smaller pieces to be chewed and swallowed one at a time , and still always be moving, with each short phrase, towards completion. A long sentence should feel alive, awake, kinetic, aerobic — like a poem.

For the American writing teacher Francis Christensen, learning to write was also about learning to live. He believed that teaching his students how to write a really great long sentence could teach them to “look at life with more alertness.” It should not just be about ensuring that the sentence is grammatically correct, or even clear. The one true aim, he wrote, was “to enhance life — to give the self (the soul) body by wedding it to the world, to give the world life by wedding it to the self.” He wanted his students to become “sentence acrobats” who could “dazzle by their syntactic dexterity.”

The poet Elizabeth Bishop similarly liked sentences that “attempted to dramatize the mind in action rather than in repose.” In an essay she wrote for Vassar Review in 1934 while still a student, Bishop explored how Gerard Manley Hopkins catches and preserves “the movement of an idea — the point being to crystallize it early enough so that it still has movement.” A single stanza of Hopkins could be, she wrote, “as full of, aflame with, motion as one of Van Gogh’s cedar trees.”

Bishop’s own poems are like that. Spoken by a restlessly darting, apprehensive voice, they live inside their slowly cumulative sentences, loose trails of words full of qualifications, self-corrections and second thoughts. Bishop also thought of the long-sentence writer as an aerial artist. Her favorite lines from Hopkins were “reminiscent of the caprice of a perfectly trained acrobat: falling through the air to snatch his partner’s ankles he can yet, within the fall, afford an extra turn and flourish in safety, without spoiling the form of his flight.”

I like this metaphor but am not quite persuaded by it. Is the writer of a long sentence really like an acrobat? Should a long sentence be as showboating as the turns and tumbles of the trapeze artist? I side more with Thoreau, who warned the writer against “trying to turn too many feeble somersaults in the air.” And I am reminded of Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis in Trapeze , attempting to draw reverential gasps from the increasingly bored circus crowds, while down below an elephant stands on its hind legs or a bear rides a bicycle. A trapeze act is all jumpy, interrupted suspense — the somersault over as quickly as it is seen, with that awkward smack as the anchorman grabs the forearms of his flying partner and the ropes quiver. I am not sure I want to write sentences like that, more death-cheating jeopardy than unforced elegance. And if learning to write is also learning to live, then I don’t want to live like that either.

A better metaphor for the long-sentence writer, perhaps, is the high-wire walker. I know that will sound overblown, perhaps deluded. A writer is not risking all, as did the young Frenchman Philippe Petit one August day in 1974, when he secretly strung a wire cable between the twin towers of the World Trade Center and walked across it in the morning rush hour, a quarter of a mile above a street in Lower Manhattan. And yet Petit made the comparison himself. On the steps of the courthouse after his arrest for this illegal act, he shouted, “I am not a daredevil, I am a writer in the sky!”

The trick, with both a long sentence and a high-wire walk, is to give off an air of controlled anarchy, of boundless freedom within clear constraints. Wire-walking may be a little more perilous than writing, but both are, ultimately, all about technique. Petit prepared like a scholar for his New York walk, studying photographs, calculating the effects of high winds and building sway, sneaking into the building to case the joint and recce the anchor points. But once he stepped out on to that thin steel cable he had to rely, like the sentence writer, on learned instinct, got through assiduous rehearsal. The high-wire artist must arrange his body so that it fights the wire’s urge to rotate, like any cylinder, when stepped on. He must teach his feet to land on the cable in such a way as to absorb its swaying and then coax his center of mass to move up to his torso, using his ankles as the pivot point. He must know to pass the wire between his big and second toe, along the sole and behind the middle of the heel.

A high-wire walk has the rhythm and momentum of a long sentence. “I don’t see fear in my life,” Petit said. “That’s how people die: they are frozen rather than acting and thinking.” The walk, like a sentence, takes place in time as well as space. It cannot be done all at once, and only succeeds if it is in constant motion. The high-wire walker must be ever alert and dynamic — although, like a sentence writer putting in a comma or semicolon, he can pause at the cavaletti, the anchor ropes that create little oases of three-dimensional steadiness and stop the wire swaying too much.

In the middle of the wire between the twin towers, as if neatly punctuating a sentence, Petit knelt, lay on his back and waved at the puzzled birds hovering over him. The crowds of people gazing up from the streets below relaxed a little, but could not quite exhale. As Petit neared the South Tower they began to breathe out, and as he made it there they sighed with relief — at least until he turned round and did the whole thing again, making seven more crossings before surrendering to the waiting police. Eight sentences: a high-wire paragraph.

As a metaphor, walking a tightrope means treading a fine line, living on the edge. But Petit was not interested in this death-defying aspect of high-wire walking. He refused to wear a safety harness, not because it would make the walk safer, but because it would be “inelegant.” He also refused to play to the crowd as a big-top tightrope walker might, by making it all look harder than it was, or pretending to lose his balance and nearly fall. Not for him the stunts of Blondin at Niagara Falls, walking the wire on stilts, blindfold or pushing a wheelbarrow. It was as if he were doing it all for his own amusement and for anyone who just happened to be looking on. Even after the walk he employed no agent, refusing to trade it for money or renown. It was simply, as Paul Auster put it, “a gift of astonishing, indelible beauty to New York.”

A long sentence too should be a beautiful, indelible gift. It should give pleasure without provisos, not buttonhole and bedazzle the reader with virtuosity. It can put the reader on edge a little, so long as this does not feel like its main point, so long as it feels as if the sentence has no ulterior motive other than the giving of its own life-delighting self. This is what those algorithmic “readability scores” on Microsoft Word will never tell you. They deal only with reading ease, not the knottier, exacting pleasures of expectancy and surprise, the teasing way that long sentences suspend the moment of closure.

I am a fully terrestrial being, afraid of flying and scared of heights. On the top floors of tall buildings, I don’t even like being close to the windows. I could no more walk on a tightrope between two towers than I could flap my arms and fly across. Just looking at photos of Petit on that wire makes my legs wobble . But how I would love some day to be able to write a sentence of such pointless, big-hearted, joy-bestowing beauty, one that would make a stranger drop what they were doing and, in the middle of a crowded street, look up.

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Very Long Sentences: How to Write and Make Them Shorter (with Examples in English)

Using complex sentences in your writing is fine, but too many very long sentences can be exhausting for your reader. If you have too many very long sentences in your writing, your reader will struggle to remember what you're trying to say and to engage with your ideas. Break your very long sentences into shorter sentences to help your reader.

You can shorten long sentences by:

1. Separating independent clauses Look for conjunctions like "and" in your sentences and see if the part after the "and" could be written as an individual sentence.

2. Eliminating extra clauses Remove sentence starts such as "in my opinion", "as a matter of fact", "as far as I am concerned". They add nothing to your sentence.

3. Cutting out glue words Glue words are the 200 or so most common words in the English language. They're grammatically correct, but often make your sentences unnecessarily long.

4. Look for repetition and redundancy Have you called something a "true fact"? Find places where you've repeated the same idea three times or used unnecessary words that you can easily remove.

How to Cut Glue Words from Your Sentences

In every sentence, there are "working" words and "glue" words. Working words are words that are essential to the meaning of your sentence. Think subjects, verbs, objects. Glue words, on the other hand, are words that hold your sentence together and help it make sense. They're not necessary to convey your meaning—if you rewrite your sentence without glue words and have the same working words, it will still make sense.

Very long sentences are often overstuffed with glue words. These extra words make the sentence difficult to read and needlessly complex. If you reduce the number of glue words in your sentences, you can make your sentences shorter and easier to understand.

Here's an example of a sentence with a lot of glue words:

It doesn't matter what kind of coffee I buy, where it's from, or if it's organic or not, I need to have cream because I really don't like how the bitterness makes me feel.

This sentence is long and complicated. There are lots of extra words and thoughts in it. Here's what it looks like rewritten:

I add cream to my coffee because the bitter taste makes me feel unwell.

This second sentence says exactly the same thing (that the narrator adds cream to their coffee to get rid of the bitter taste) but it does so in half the words, making it clearer and easier for the reader to understand. If you have very long sentences, try rewriting them to remove glue words.

Common Questions about Very Long Sentences: How to Write and Make Them Shorter (with Examples in English)

Why you should avoid very long sentences, learn more about sentence length:, your personal writing coach.

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Long Sentences: How it can Improve Your Writing

Table of Contents

Long sentences can be likened to mountains, where the top of the peak is the sentence’s main idea. Every phrase that leads to that idea is a part of the main idea.

The more you write in the mountain part of your sentence, the more the top of the peak will rise above the other mountains.

We often follow the advice to keep our sentences short. But when we write long sentences , we transcend the boundaries of language and community.

Long sentences are hard to write — but they pay off handsomely in the world of novels, article writing, and research papers.

“Wait, they are still reading?” There is nothing more rewarding than seeing the satisfaction on your reader’s faces when they finally finish the sentence. The feeling is refreshing!

Throughout literature, long sentences have been used to increase the intensity and create a sense of excitement at the end.

Some of the longest respected sentences in literature work are so because they “commanded and carried the reader up and down the reader’s spine.”

The best writers have learned to think fast and write deep. Here are some successful long sentences you can steal.

JANE AUSTEN, “NORTHANGER ABBEY.” 119 WORDS.

“Her plan for the morning thus settled, she sat quietly down to her book after breakfast, resolving to remain in the same place and the same employment till the clock struck one; and from habitude very little incommoded by the remarks and ejaculations of Mrs. Allen, whose vacancy of mind and incapacity for thinking were such, that as she never talked a great deal, so she could never be entirely silent; and, therefore, while she sat at her work, if she lost her needle or broke her thread, if she heard a carriage in the street, or saw a speck upon her gown, she must observe it aloud, whether there were anyone at leisure to answer her or not.”

MIGUEL DE CERVANTES, “DON QUIXOTE.” 200 WORDS.

“About this time, when some rain began to fall, Sancho proposed that they should shelter themselves in the fulling-mill, but Don Quixote had conceived such abhorrence for it, on account of what was past, that he would no means set foot within its wall; wherefore, turning to the right-hand, they chanced to fall in with a road different from that in which they had traveled the day before; they had not gone far, when the knight discovered a man riding with something on his head, that glittered like polished gold, and scarce had he descried this phenomenon, when turning to Sancho, “I find,” said he, “that every proverb is strictly true; indeed, all of them are apothegms dictated by experience herself; more especially, that which says, “shut one door, and another will soon open”: this I mention, because, if last night, fortune shut against us the door we fought to enter, by deceiving us with the fulling-hammers; today another stands wide open, in proffering to use us, another greater and more certain adventure, by which, if I fail to enter, it shall be my own fault, and not imputed to my ignorance of fulling-mills, or the darkness of the night.”

ANNIE PROULX, “CLOSE RANGE.” 142 WORDS.

“But Pake knew a hundred dirt road shortcuts, steering them through scabland and slope country, in and out of the tiger shits, over the tawny plain still grooved with pilgrim wagon ruts, into early darkness and the first storm laying down black ice, hard orange dawn, the world smoking, snaking dust devils on bare dirt, heat boiling out of the sun until the paint on the truck hood curled, ragged webs of dry rain that never hit the ground, through small-town traffic and stock on the road, band of horses in morning fog, two redheaded cowboys moving a house that filled the roadway and Pake busting around and into the ditch to get past, leaving junkyards and Mexican cafes behind, turning into midnight motel entrances with RING OFFICE BELL signs or steering onto the black prairie for a stunned hour of sleep.”

These works of literature are forms of long sentences, sometimes with many, sometimes with few punctuation points. The long sentences are written in a style of diction that is distinct.

When these long sentences are broken up by a sentence not as long as the others, the reader senses a’ pause’ in the text. These are called “breaks.”

To see a sentence break, take a long sentence from two different works of literature. Show how it is broken and how the writer uses punctuation to give it structure.

A long sentence is a sentence where there’s at least one paragraph. That’s it. If it’s one paragraph, then you can’t be done. There are, of course, different ways to write a long sentence to make it interesting for the reader. How does one write flawless engaging long sentences?

Here are some ways to write better long sentences:

You could use a phrase, a series of phrases, or a series of words – that can make your point memorable. The first step, of course, is to make the sentence enjoyable.
It would be best to keep your subject and verb close together at the BEGINNING of a long sentence. The subject is the lead “actor” in the sentence, and the verb is the principal action or “doing” word.
Use Fact, Reason, Result, and Outcome to write long sentences. This structured method will produce meaningful long sentences in your writing.

An example of this is: “My best color is black (Fact), I think it is such a happy and optimistic color (Reason); therefore, I have so many yellow accessories and furniture in my home (Result), which I believe it gives me lots of energy (outcome).”

4. Using unusual and unexpected words to create a more robust structure. It creates a connection between the speaker and the listener. It makes the listener think.

5. When using long sentences, the end of each one should be a complete sentence.

Many scholars have argued that literature would be impossible to read without long sentences. Teachers often recommend writing lengthy sentences in their literature lessons and literature classes.

Why do they recommend it? What benefits can a long sentence bring?

Long sentences are written so that the writer puts enough attention to details, which increases the reader’s interest.
Long sentences create better flow. When we read shorter sentences, we are more likely to skip to the end and read the last sentence of the paragraph.
As long sentences give many details, they enable the reader to grasp them better.
Longer sentences increase the readability of your writing. If your sentence is short, the reader won’t get all the essential details and nuances that your sentence includes.
Longer sentences are more exciting and attractive. They allow a writer put more information into your work without having it cluttered.
A long sentence can be written in a way that builds the scene and keeps the reader’s attention
Longer sentences create better suspense.

Authors routinely craft lengthy sentences in their work with daunting results–often stunningly good results.

A long sentence, when done well, is complex, interesting, deeply meaningful, and can resonate with readers. It can also be a powerful tool.

Longer sentences express complex ideas sincerely , keep readers’ attention and direct them in different directions. They give extra meanings and serve as great pointers in a narrative.

Pam is an expert grammarian with years of experience teaching English, writing and ESL Grammar courses at the university level. She is enamored with all things language and fascinated with how we use words to shape our world.

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AP World Long Essay Question (LEQ) Overview

15 min read • may 10, 2022

Zaina Siddiqi

Overview of the Long Essay Question (LEQ)

Section II of the AP Exam includes three Long Essay Question (LEQ) prompts. You will choose to write about just one of these.

The formatting of prompts varies somewhat between the AP Histories, though the rubric does not. In AP World History, the prompt includes a sentence that orients the writer to the time, place, and theme of the prompt topic, while prompts in AP US History and AP European History typically do not. However, the rubrics and scoring guidelines are the same for all Histories.

Your answer should include the following:

A valid thesis

A discussion of relevant historical context

Use of evidence supports your thesis

Use of a reasoning skill to organize and structure the argument

Complex understanding of the topic of the prompt

We will break down each of these aspects in the next section. For now, the gist is that you need to write an essay that answers the prompt, using evidence. You will need to structure and develop your essay using one of the course reasoning skills.

Many of the skills you need to write a successful LEQ essay are the same skills you will use on the DBQ. In fact, some of the rubric points are identical, so you can use a lot of the same strategies on both writing tasks!

You will have three choices of prompts for your LEQ. All three prompts will focus on the same reasoning skills, but the time periods will differ in each prompt. Prompt topics may span across time periods specified in the course outline, and the time period breakdowns for each prompt are as follows:

Writing time on the AP Exam includes both the Document Based Question (DBQ) and the (LEQ), but it is suggested that you spend 40 minutes completing the LEQ. You will need to plan and write your essay in that time.

A good breakdown would be 5 min. (planning) + 35 min. (writing) = 40 min.

The LEQ is scored on a rubric out of six points, and is weighted at 15% of your overall exam score. We’ll break down the rubric next.

How to Rock the LEQ: The Rubric

The LEQ is scored on a six point rubric, and each point can be earned independently. That means you can miss a point on something and still earn other points with the great parts of your essay.

Note: all of the examples in this section will be for this prompt from AP World History: Modern. You could use similar language, structure, or skills to write samples for prompts in AP US History or AP European History.

Let’s break down each rubric component...

What is it?

The thesis is a brief statement that introduces your argument or claim, and can be supported with evidence and analysis. This is where you answer the prompt.

Where do I write it?

This is the only element in the essay that has a required location. The thesis needs to be in your introduction or conclusion of your essay. It can be more than one sentence, but all of the sentences that make up your thesis must be consecutive in order to count.

How do I know if mine is good?

The most important part of your thesis is the claim , which is your answer to the prompt. The description the College-Board gives is that it should be “historically defensible,” which really means that your evidence must be plausible. On the LEQ, your thesis needs to be related topic of the prompt.

Your thesis should also establish your line of reasoning. Translation: address why or how something happened - think of this as the “because” to the implied “how/why” of the prompt. This sets up the framework for the body of your essay, since you can use the reasoning from your thesis to structure your body paragraph topics later.

The claim and reasoning are the required elements of the thesis. And if that’s all you can do, you’re in good shape to earn the point.

Going above-and-beyond to create a more complex thesis can help you in the long run, so it’s worth your time to try. One way to build in complexity to your thesis is to think about a counter-claim or alternate viewpoint that is relevant to your response. If you are using one of the course reasoning process to structure your essay (and you should!) think about using that framework for your thesis too.

In a causation essay, a complex argument addresses causes and effects.

In a comparison essay, a complex argument addresses similarities and differences.

In a continuity and change over time essay, a complex argument addresses change and continuity .

This counter-claim or alternate viewpoint can look like an “although” or “however” phrase in your thesis.

Powers in both land-based and maritime empires had to adapt their rule to accommodate diverse populations. However, in this era land-based empires were more focused on direct political control, while the maritime empires were more based on trade and economic development.

This thesis works because it clearly addresses the prompt (comparing land and maritime empires). It starts by addressing a similarity, and then specifies a clear difference with a line of reasoning to clarify the actions of the land vs. maritime empires.

Contextualization

Contextualization is a brief statement that lays out the broader historical background relevant to the prompt.

There are a lot of good metaphors out there for contextualization, including the “previously on…” at the beginning of some TV shows, or the famous text crawl at the beginning of the Star Wars movies.

Both of these examples serve the same function: they give important information about what has happened off-screen that the audience needs to know to understand what is about to happen on-screen.

In your essay, contextualization is the same. You give your reader information about what else has happened, or is happening, in history that will help them understand the specific topic and argument you are about to make.

There is no specific requirement for where contextualization must appear in your essay. The easiest place to include it, however, is in your introduction . Use context to get your reader acquainted with the time, place, and theme of your essay, then transition into your thesis.

Good contextualization doesn’t have to be long, and it doesn’t have to go into a ton of detail, but it does need to do a few very specific things.

Your contextualization needs to refer to events, developments and/or processes outside the time and place of the prompt. It could address something that occurred in an earlier era in the same region as the topic of the prompt, or it could address something happening at the same time as the prompt, but in a different place. Briefly describe this outside information.

Then, connect it to your thesis/argument. The language from the College Board is that contextualization must be “relevant to the prompt,” and in practical terms this means you have to show the connection. A transition sentence or phrase is useful here (plus, this is why contextualization makes the most sense in the introduction!)

Also, contextualization needs to be multiple consecutive sentences, so it’s all one argument (not sprinkled around in a paragraph). The introduction is the best place for contextualization, but not the only place.

Basically, choose a connected topic that “sets the stage” for your thesis, and briefly describe it in a couple sentences. Then, make a clear connection to the argument of your thesis from that outside information.

In the period 1450-1750, both European and Asian powers expanded their reach and created large empires across the world. In Asia, the trend was toward large, land-based empires which were controlled from a central capital city. Europeans built empires that stretched across oceans included territories in the Americas, Africa, and Asia.

This contextualization works by addressing the time period of the prompt and establishing basic definitions for empire-building and the types of empires (land and maritimes.) These definitions will be valuable context for seeing the comparisons developed in the thesis and body paragraphs of this essay.

Evidence: Provide Specific Examples

For this point, the focus is simply about having evidence. Evidence is the historical detail you include in your writing. The specific facts and examples that prove your argument. In the LEQ, your evidence comes your knowledge of history.

Evidence goes in your body paragraphs. In fact, the bulk of your body paragraphs will be made up of evidence and supporting analysis or commentary that connects that evidence to other evidence and/or to the argument you are making.

Good evidence is specific, accurate, and relevant to the prompt. For this point, simply including multiple pieces of quality evidence is enough. If you’re a numbers person, a good starting point is to aim for two pieces of quality evidence in each body paragraph and go up from there.

In order for your evidence to count for this point, it needs to be really specific. Using course-specific vocabulary is a great strategy here to know that you are writing specific evidence. If you can’t remember a specific vocabulary term, describe what you mean in plain language with as much detail as possible.

Though the Ottoman Sultans were Muslims, they ruled over a population that included fellow Muslims, Christians, and Jews.

This evidence works because it includes specific and relevant details, namely the religions of both the Ottoman rulers and the diverse population they ruled over.

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Evidence: Supports an Argument with Evidence

In addition to having evidence, this point is about using that evidence to support an argument in response to the prompt. Basically, connect your evidence back to your topic sentence and/or thesis.

Supporting statements go with your evidence in your body paragraph. Ideally, a connecting statement comes right before or after a piece of evidence.

This point is harder to earn than the previous evidence point, because it’s a little more difficult to explain fully.

One way to know if you are doing this at all is to look at the topic sentences of your body paragraphs. First of all, do you have one? You should. The first sentence of your body paragraph should make it clear what you are talking about in that paragraph. It should relate to some aspect of your thesis, and it should be connected to the reasoning skill you have chosen to organize your argument.

One characteristic shared by both kinds of empires was the need to adapt to diverse populations. As the Ottoman empire expanded its influence, it took over territory previously controlled by the Byzantines. Though the Ottoman Sultans were Muslims, they now ruled over a population that included fellow Muslims, Christians, and Jews. In order to keep peace within their empire, the Ottomans allowed people to continue practicing their traditional faiths. Ottoman cities such as Istanbul had areas of the cities set aside where different groups could live and worship without interference from others .

This section works because it defines the adaptation made by Ottoman rulers to effectively rule a diverse population, and elaborates on both how and why that adaptation was made.

Following your topic sentence, your body paragraph should elaborate on the idea in that topic sentence, using the evidence to prove your point. At first, you may rely on phrases like “this shows…” or “this means…,” which can get repetitive, but may also help you know when you are making the connections between evidence and argument explicit.

Analysis and Reasoning: Historical Reasoning

A good argument needs structure, and yours needs to use one of the course reasoning skills to create that structure. You can choose whichever skill works best for a particular prompt: causation , comparison , or continuity and change over time .

Strong reasoning goes throughout an essay, so this will be the overarching structure of your writing from the thesis through your body paragraphs.

The reasoning doesn’t necessarily have to be completely balanced or even in order to count, which gives you room to write about what you know best. For example, in an essay structured around continuity and change, you might spend most of your time addressing changes and relatively little time addressing continuity. And that’s ok.

The best essays do address both “sides” of the historical reasoning, and yours should too. If you created a complex thesis in your introduction, you can extend those ideas into your body paragraphs. Even if you don’t have equal sentences or paragraphs for each topic, as long as you address the reasoning process in your essay, you’re on the right track.

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Analysis and Reasoning: Complexity

The second part of the Analysis and Reasoning scoring category is complexity. This is by far the most challenging part of the LEQ, and the point earned by the fewest students. It isn’t impossible, just difficult. Part of the difficulty is that it is the least concrete skill to teach and practice.

If you’re already feeling overwhelmed by the time limits of the LEQ, don’t stress about complexity. Focus on writing the best essay you can that answers the prompt. Plenty of students earn 5’s without the complexity point.

If you are ready to tackle this challenge, keep reading!

The College Board awards this point for essays that “demonstrate a complex understanding” of the topic of the prompt.

Complexity cannot be earned with a single sentence or phrase. It must show up throughout the essay.

A complex argument starts with a complex thesis. A complex thesis must address the topic of the prompt in more than one way. Including a counter-claim or alternate viewpoint in the thesis is a good way to set up a complex argument, because it builds in room within the structure of your essay to address more than one idea (provided your body paragraphs follow the structure of your thesis!)

A complex argument may include corroboration - evidence that supports or confirms the premise of the argument. Clear explanation that connects each piece of evidence to the thesis will help do this. In the LEQ, your evidence is all from your knowledge of history, so it’s up to you to fully explain how that evidence backs up your thesis. Consistent, thoughtful explanation can go a long way toward the complexity point.

A complex argument may also include qualification - evidence that limits or counters an initial claim. This isn’t the same as undoing or undermining your claim. Qualifying a claim shows that it isn’t universal. An example of this might be including continuity in an essay that is primarily about change.

A final way to introduce complexity to your argument is through modification - using evidence to change your claim or argument as it develops. Modification isn’t quite as extreme as qualification, but it shows that the initial claim may be too simple to encompass the reality of history.

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Since no single sentence can demonstrate complexity on its own, it’s difficult to show examples of complex arguments. Fully discussing your claim and its line of reasoning, and fairly addressing your counter-claim or alternate view is the strongest structure to aim for a complexity point. Explain everything as you go and aim for success!

How to Rock the LEQ: The Process

Before you start writing....

It is tempting to just start writing at the beginning of your LEQ time, especially if you took extra time to write your DBQ and you’re feeling some pressure. It’s actually better to take a few minutes to analyze the prompt and plan your essay before you start writing to give yourself the best shot at success. You might surprise yourself with how quickly an essay comes together after you create a solid plan.

The very first thing you should do with any prompt is to be sure you understand the question . Misunderstanding the time period, topic, or geographic region of a prompt can kill a thoughtful and well-argued essay. When you’re practicing early in the year, go ahead and re-write the prompt as a question. Later on you can re-phrase it mentally without all the work.

As you think about the question, start thinking about which reasoning skill might apply best for this prompt: causation, comparison, or continuity and change over time.

Original prompt - Develop an argument that compares the process of empire building in land-based and maritime empires in the period 1450-1750 CE.

Revised - What were the key similarities and differences in the ways that land-based (Asian) and maritime (European) empires built their governments and power between 1450-1750?

Now that you know what you’re writing about, take a few minutes to brainstorm what you know about that topic. You can make a simple graphic organizer to help you see relationships between information (i.e. a Venn diagram, T-chart, timeline, etc.), or just jot down ideas as they come to mind.

Go back over you list and mark which ideas work best as context (generally broader and less related to the prompt) and which ideas work best as evidence (more specific.)

If you have time, brainstorm a sample thesis and/or outline for how you want to structure your ideas. This may seem like an extravagance with limited time, but it can be a great cheat sheet for you if you lose your way in the middle of a body paragraph.

When you have a plan you like, start writing!

Writing the essay

Your introduction should include your contextualization and thesis. Start with a statement that establishes your time and place in history, and follow that with a brief description of the historical situation. Connect that broader context to the theme and topic of the prompt. Then, make a claim that answers the prompt, with an overview of your reasoning and any counter-claim you plan to address.

Body paragraphs will vary in length, depending on how many documents or other pieces of evidence you include, but should follow a consistent structure. Start with a topic sentence that introduces the specific aspect of the prompt that paragraph will address. There aren’t specific points for topic sentences, but they will help you stay focused.

Follow your topic sentence with a piece of evidence and connect it back to your topic sentence and/or thesis. Continue with 1-2 pieces of evidence and more explanation until you have completed the argument of your topic sentence. Then start a new paragraph with a new topic sentence.

Each body paragraph will follow this general format, and there is no set number of paragraphs for the LEQ (minimum or maximum.) Write as many paragraphs as you need to fully answer the prompt by developing the argument (and counter-argument if applicable) from your thesis.

If you have time, you may choose to write a conclusion . It isn’t necessary, so you can drop it if you’re rushed. BUT, the conclusion is the only place where you can earn the thesis point outside the introduction, so it’s not a bad idea. You could re-state your thesis in new wording, or give any final thoughts in terms of analysis about your topic. You might solidify your complexity point in the conclusion if written well.

Since most people write the DBQ first, when you finish the LEQ you’re done with your AP Exam. Congratulations!

Sample Prompts

AP World History: Modern

In the period 1450-1750 CE, empires achieved increased scope and influence around the world, shaping and being shaped by the diverse populations they incorporated.

Develop an argument that compares the process of empire building in land-based and maritime empires in the period 1450-1750 CE.

AP US History

Evaluate the extent to which Massachusetts and Virginia differed in the ways that economic development affected their politics between 1607 and 1750.

AP European History

Evaluate the effectiveness of challenges to royal authority in Eastern Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

The LEQ Rubric (Quick Reference)

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Writing effective sentences: long vs. short sentences

Every writer once in while faces the situation, where his tone might be inappropriate. He did his best to use the proper words, he found the interesting information, but the overall image of the writing does not seem to reflect the writer’s original idea. What is the matter? Why could this happen? The reasons for inappropriate tone might be different. Nevertheless, one of the most occurred reasons is the inability of writing effective sentences. Very often inexperienced writers do not recognize the effect of long sentences or the effect of short sentences on the intonation, form and shade of the text. This article will help to understand the possible effects of the lengths of the sentence on the writing.

What do short sentences do?

In the academic writing or any type of professional writing, it is usually good to stick to a happy medium. Too short sentences sound as if the writer of the paper has insufficient level of language usage and lacks the ability to provide proper linkage words in clause sentences. On the other hand, too long sentences also decrease the quality of the paper. It is difficult to follow the logic and, thus, the flaw of the paper is disrupted. Therefore, the suggestion for academic papers is to use the middle-lengths sentences that reflect the clear logic and do not look deficient.

Nonetheless, when it comes to writing the artistic literature stories, fairy tales, ghost stories or detective stories, the effects of short sentences are hard to overestimate. So, why do writers use short sentences?

To create tension

When author starts using short phrases, usually it is a sign that something might happen. So it is a way to create the tension. For example, if the writer depicts the robbery that took place at night, he may write: “It is a deep night. No noises. No sounds. Just a light shade of the moon is seen. No one expects the drama… ” Those short sentences are used to express the tension that is present in the air at the moment preceding the event.

To grab the attention of the reader to some detail

When a normal pace of the writing is abrupt by the short sentences, it may be a sign of a significant detail. For instance, “She was walking down the straight pedestrian walk in Manhattan. She was tall, fashionably dressed girl in her twenties. The only detail that could tell about her status was her watch. Chopard L.U.C Tourbillon Baguette. Limited edition. Tourbillon mechanics. 25 carats of diamond.” Here short sentences are used to depict the special features of the detail – the expensive and exclusive watch.

To present the sudden events

Another important usage of the short sentences is associated with the out-of-the-blue events or acts. For example, the story tells about the girl who is lost in the forest late at night:

The girl is scared. She rushes without proper direction and tries to keep her tears away. She hopes to find the right way and get out of this terrifying place. Suddenly, she hears the strange noise. Bang! Here I am! She is not alone! Not anymore! It’s a savior! She smiles and cries! She will get out!

To summarize the ideas presented in the long paragraph or sentences.

For example, consider this instruction:

Work with us is easy and comfortable. Our ordering system requires the customers only to fill out the form CS1 that could be found at the upper right side of our homepage. As soon as we receive your form, our manager processes it and evaluates your chances. If you are qualified for the services, we issue the form CS2 which is sent to your e-mail. In case you are not eligible, we will send you a regret-letter. So remember: Go to our website. Fill CS1. Wait for a response.

The short sentences at the end are used to summarize the key points of the whole instruction material.

Short Sentences: Pros & Cons

The effect of long sentences in creative writing.

Although long sentences have the smell of the old-fashioned 19 century romantic prose, the usage of the long sentences in modern creative writing also has right for a life. Long sentences may be used for several reasons:

To develop tension. While a short sentence is the ultimate sign of the tension, long sentences could be used to develop this tension to a point of culmination.
To give vivid descriptions. For example, we may use long sentences when depict nature: Autumn came without special invitation, coloring the tress in orange, yellow and red, whispering the cold in our ears and hiding the warm sun rays from our eyes.
To investigate the argument, idea or fact thoroughly. For instance, when we write about the nature of the humankind, we may use long sentences: The idea that humankind is inherently good is well supported by the facts that all babies are born sinless and the bad features are acquired during the life. In addition, people are creatures of God and God promotes the goodness, grace and charity, while the sins and crime are perceived as aberrations.

Long Sentences: Pros & Cons

To sum up, we may say that short sentences are usually used to show sudden events, summarize main ideas, or grab the attention of the reader to the detail. On the other hand, long sentences may have good effect when we develop the tension, provide lively descriptions or thorough investigation. So, you may use this knowledge and examples for writing effective sentences in your creative writing, academic papers or hobby-writing.

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Is a bad start for the mets a bad sign of things to come.

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK - MARCH 30: Manager Carlos Mendoza #64 of the New York Mets argues with umpire ... [+] Alfonso Marquez #72 after pitcher Yohan Ramírez #46 of the New York Mets was ejected for throwing at Rhys Hoskins #12 of the Milwaukee Brewers during the top of the seventh inning at Citi Field on March 30, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by Christopher Pasatieri/Getty Images)

The Mets reboot more often than an aging computer behind on its updates, so it doesn’t take long to find examples of new eras that started in promising fashion before unspooling in extraordinarily Mets-like fashion.

In fact, lately, it happens every two years.

In 2018, when Sandy Alderson finally got a chance to select a hand-picked manager, the Mets won 11 of their first 12 games under Mickey Callaway, which is absolutely the only good thing that can be said about any element of his managerial tenure.

In 2020, when Luis Rojas was named to replace Carlos Beltran after the latter “resigned” following the revelation of his role in the Astros’ cheating scandal, the Mets beat the Braves on the pandemic-delayed Opening Day thanks to a solo homer by Yoenis Cespedes. Of course, because that was Cespedes and these are the Mets, he went AWOL nine days later and the Mets never got back to .500 in the 60-game season.

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The 2022 season, alas, ended with the 101-win Mets getting one-hit by the Padres in the third game of the NL wild card series. The Billy Eppler/Buck Showalter era ended with a nightmarish, injury-plagued 75-win 2023, but at least that allowed Cohen to clear the decks for the longtime object of his desire.

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So maybe a poor start to the David Stearns era doesn’t portend another bad season or another bleak period in Mets history. But this weekend, the only good thing that can be said about the start of the David Stearns era is at least the Mets got swept by a team loaded with players acquired by David Stearns.

The Brewers joined the ever-growing list of teams seemingly better positioned for the near- and long-term than the Mets by completing a three-game sweep with Sunday’s 4-1 win.

Colin Rea, signed as a free agent by Stearns in 2021, allowed one run over five innings in the third straight strong performance by a Milwaukee starter. Freddy Peralta, acquired from the Mariners in 2015 in one of Stearns’ best deals, allowed one hit over six innings Friday before DL Hall, whom the Brewers acquired from the Orioles in exchange for Stearns draftee and former Cy Young Award winner Corbin Burnes. With Devin Williams out for months due to stress fractures in his back, Abner Uribe, whom Stearns signed as an international free agent in 2018, recorded saves on Friday and Saturday.

Phenom outfielder Jackson Chourio, who was signed by Stearns in 2020 and became the youngest player in the majors upon his debut Friday, went 4-for-11 over the weekend. Christian Yelich, the Brewers’ oldest everyday player at 32 years old and a product of Stearns fleecing the Marlins in 2018, went 5-for-11 with a pair of steals.

That’s two long graphs on the Brewers because there wasn’t much positive to say about the Mets, whose season began with Cohen channeling the Wilpons on Friday morning by saying he thought “…we’ve built a club that’s going to be there in September.”

They were barely there on the final three days of March, when the Mets paid an immediate price for Stearns’ lack of activity this winter. Even with Jordan Montgomery and Blake Snell basically holding signs that said “Will pitch for food,” Stearns failed to add an upper-rotation pitcher to pair with Kodai Senga, who is out until at least May with a shoulder injury.

The piecemeal rotation got off to such a rough start that the longest outing was delivered by Luis Severino, who allowed a career-high 12 hits in five innings Saturday in his first appearance since posting a 6.65 ERA last season. Jose Quintana lasted 4 2/3 innings Friday and Tylor Megill tossed four innings Sunday before exiting due to a tender shoulder.

The Mets led for one full inning against the Brewers, who outscored them 14-8. But the bulk of the Mets’ offense, such as it was, came in the eighth and ninth innings Saturday, when Brett Baty hit a three-run homer and Pete Alonso delivered a solo shot to turn a 7-2 deficit into a more cosmetically pleasing 7-6 loss.

And new manager Carlos Mendoza wasn’t even there (or at least in the dugout) Sunday, when he served a one-game suspension for Yohan Ramirez doing his best Shawn Estes imitation by throwing well behind Mets antagonist Rhys Hoskins in Saturday’s loss. A manager being suspended before he even wins a game is a uniquely Mets thing that, of course, was basically done by Beltran in 2020.

The easy thing is to say at least things will get better when J.D. Martinez, who wasn’t signed until Mar. 23, is done getting into baseball shape and moves into the major league lineup as the designated hitter. But the Mets’ designated hitters — DJ Stewart, Marte and Francisco Alvarez — went 3-for-8 this weekend while the rest of the team hit a combined .187 (17-for-91).

Three games, of course, is a super small sample size, especially for what the Mets hope will be at least a five-year era for Stearns. But the Mets’ first 0-3 start since 2014 is a reminder of the risks involved in punting or squib kicking a season while waiting for the farm system — which Cohen said is “starting to look stacked” this spring — to finally begin harvesting some difference-making big leaguers.

The first few days of the 2025 season may look and feel much different if some or all of the likes of Luisangel Acuna and Drew Gilbert — acquired at the deadline last July for Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander — can join Mets signees such as Ronny Maurcio, Christian Scott and Jett Williams on the major league roster.

But in the meantime, the Mets might be wasting another prime year for their four core position players. Francisco Lindor is 30, Brandon Nimmo just turned 31 and Jeff McNeil is a week shy of turning 32. Alonso is 29 and, as you might have heard by now, is an impending free agent, Is the next contending Mets team going to have some or all of this quartet? After this weekend and contrary to Cohen’s optimism, such a question does not feel like it’ll be answered this September.

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Israel-Hamas War

Netanyahu’s Appetite for Confronting U.S. Presidents May Cost Israel This Time

collage including photographs of Bill Clinton, Benjamin Netanyahu, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and Israel/Palestine related protests

I t was fully expected that Israel would be displeased that the United States abstained on a United Nations resolution calling for a Gaza ceasefire—instead of blocking it with a veto. But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s reaction was outright ridiculous, as he announced he won’t send his top advisors to Washington for talks about the war. Why did he do that?

Netanyahu has a long history of angering presidents—mostly, although not exclusively, Democrats. After he lectured Bill Clinton in the White House in 1996, the President grumbled to his staff: “Who the f**k does he think he is? Who’s the f**king superpower here?”

While you might think that Israel’s longest serving prime minister would have learned from experience, think about this: He probably has concluded that he always gets away with it. Netanyahu, a self-described expert on the U.S., is taking U.S. support for granted—in the belief that Evangelical Christians and America’s tiny Jewish minority will ensure that Israel is always loved, constantly armed, and repeatedly forgiven for any missteps.

And yet, at this point, after President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have said that Israel has been bombing indiscriminately in Gaza, and Biden said the military reaction to the Hamas massacres of October 7 has been “over the top,” Netanyahu still thinks he can take a slap at Biden.

It’s getting pretty clear that Israel’s prime minister is gambling, and he’s putting his chips on Donald Trump. Netanyahu—and the rightwing extremists in his government who want to annex the West Bank, and now would like to rebuild Jewish settlements in Gaza—feel that if Trump is back in the White House, he will again let Israel do whatever it wants. And, in their view, if Republicans can capture the Senate and keep the House, then Israel will really have it made.

That’s a lousy bet. No one can count on Trump to stick to whatever position he’s voicing at the moment. In fact, the former president bears a grudge against Netanyahu for congratulating Biden on his election victory in 2020. Trump harshly criticizes American Jews for voting for Democrats, and in an interview with an Israeli newspaper now says the Gaza war looks bad and tells Netanyahu to finish it fast and focus on peace.

For decades, in Israeli politics, the government wanted to look like it was 100% in lockstep with the U.S.—that beacon of a free country that, since the Yom Kippur War of 1973, has been Israel’s main arms supplier and protector in the world’s diplomatic arenas. Israel was proud to say that it maintained bipartisan support in the U.S., and both its diplomats and the American lobby AIPAC took pains to make friends with both Democrats and Republicans.

But Netanyahu has embraced the hubris of thinking he’ll look strong to his political base if he challenges American presidents and other foreign critics. He and his closest officials have strengthened ties with the Republicans—especially hawkish conservatives who admire what the small Jewish state is able to accomplish in an overwhelmingly Muslim region.

Read More: Israel Must Not Let Netanyahu Reject the Biden Peace Plan

When Israeli leaders perceived that many Democrats were questioning Israeli actions, especially its occupation of the West Bank since 1967, Israel turned a cold shoulder to the progressives. And the American Left, no longer admiring Israel as a liberal and enlightened enclave in the Middle East, made Zionism one of its main targets for condemnation.

As statistics and our own sensibilities show, that has contributed to an upsurge in antisemitism —in the U.S. and worldwide—notably since October 7 and the Israeli invasion of Gaza that followed. Jews in many countries are being harassed or attacked by anti-Semites and anti-Zionists, who are cut from the same cloth, on both the political Left and Right.

Netanyahu’s bull-headed insensitivity is partially to blame. In the U.S., he was turning off liberals long before his current feud with Biden. Recall his 2015 address to Congress, after an invitation extended only by Republicans. His speech called on America to reject Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. Netanyahu preached, then lost. The support Israel forfeited from Democrats has had lasting impact.

The alliance between Israel and the U.S. is not a force of nature that can be taken for granted. Thirty years ago, we wrote a book aimed at deciphering the secrets of an alliance between a superpower and a tiny country in a far-off strategic region. We outlined factors such as shared democratic values, the importance of the Jewish American community, the strong attachment of Evangelicals to the Holy Land, and memories of the Holocaust.

We also warned that the passage of time and changes in U.S. demography could erode support for Israel. It's happening now, with protests on American campuses against the war in Gaza. Many of the protestors consume a diet of self-selected, sometimes fake news and have little understanding of the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel still enjoys widespread support in America, though it’s constantly eroded by the behavior of Netanyahu and the extremists in his cabinet. “It seems that U.S. officials speak politely but firmly to their Israeli counterparts,” former Israeli ambassador to Washington Danny Ayalon told us. “But the Israelis pretend they don’t understand what they’re being told.”

For now, the Israeli government and military officials who were going to fly to Washington this week will stay home. They had been invited by the White House to hear alternatives developed by Pentagon and CIA strategists: ways of crushing the last remnants of Hamas, and hopefully liberating hostages, without a huge attack on Rafah, where over a million Palestinian refugees have gathered.

Netanyahu isn’t really interested in those talks. He explicitly declares that the Israel Defense Forces must enter Rafah, to kill or capture the top Hamas military chiefs. That means he, apparently backed by everyone in his post-October 7 war cabinet, feels it is necessary to restore Israeli deterrence by showing the power of the IDF.

To the Biden Administration and most of the world, that looks like indifference toward the tens of thousands of Gaza civilians who have been killed or wounded, and the hundreds of thousands made homeless.

Biden’s decision to abstain at the U.N. – rather than protect Israel, as usual, with a veto – was a message to Netanyahu that enough is enough. Netanyahu thinks he’s able to slap back, but his petulance reminds us of the satirical Peter Sellers movie of 1959, “The Mouse that Roared,” in which a tiny fictitious country declares war on the U.S. in the hope of receiving reconstruction aid.

That was farce, of course. The reality is that Israel cannot afford to endanger the aid that's already flowing. On top of $3.8 billion in annual direct military assistance, the U.S. has sent more than 400 transport planes and 30 ships carrying 20,000 tons of ammunition, rockets, and other essential military equipment to help Israel prosecute the Gaza war. "Without this re-supply, the Israeli army wouldn't be able to keep fighting beyond another six months," a former Israeli general told us.

Darker days for American-Israeli relations could follow, especially if Netanyahu keeps misjudging the country that’s been Israel’s greatest defender.

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FTX's victims may get all their money back. The judge sentencing Sam Bankman-Fried might not care.

Sam Bankman-Fried bilked FTX customers out of more than $8 billion, according to prosecutors.
FTX bankruptcy lawyers say they could get all their money back.
The judge sentencing Bankman-Fried on Thursday has to grapple with that gulf — as well as his autism diagnosis.

According to federal prosecutors, Sam Bankman-Fried orchestrated one of the biggest criminal frauds in the history of the world. Customers of FTX, his cryptocurrency exchange, lost more than $8 billion, they say.

According to his lawyers, FTX's customers may get all their money back.

Their dispute leaves a four-decade gap between how long prosecutors want the ex-crypto boss to serve in prison and the much lower 6 ½-year sentence his lawyers are fighting for.

The judge who's set to sentence Bankman-Fried on Thursday is being asked to address this vast gulf. He's expected to decide how much money the convicted fraudster should be held accountable for. He's also being asked to weigh the entire circumstances of Bankman-Fried's life, including whether he should be treated differently than a run-of-the-mill fraudster because of an autism diagnosis.

Bankman-Fried's criminal case is inextricable from the complicated bankruptcy of FTX, the cryptocurrency exchange he was convicted of using as a vehicle for his fraud.

He was arrested in December 2022, just about a month after FTX collapsed and declared insolvency under a new CEO, the seasoned executive John J. Ray III, who was tasked with shepherding the ruins of FTX through the bankruptcy court. Since the arrest, the criminal cases against Bankman-Fried and his coconspirators — other executives who have pleaded guilty and largely cooperated with prosecutors — worked on a parallel legal track to FTX's bankruptcy proceedings.

As Bankman-Fried sat in his parents' home, under house arrest, he purported to make efforts to help out with the bankruptcy process. Offering to help identify FTX's assets, he repeatedly emailed Ray, who spurned him .

Shortly after he took over the company, Ray told the court there was "a complete absence of trustworthy financial information." Bankman-Fried complained about being shut out, insisting to journalists and friends that he could have helped locate FTX's scattered assets.

US District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who presides over Bankman-Fried's criminal case in lower Manhattan, precluded all talk of the bankruptcy proceedings from the monthlong trial. Bankman-Fried's criminal culpability rested on intent to defraud, not how much money customers actually lost, he ruled.

All jurors heard about was how Bankman-Fried used billions of dollars in customer money, not any steps he might have taken to recover it later.

The complicated math of FTX's losses

In November, jurors found Bankman-Fried guilty on all counts, including fraud, conspiracy, and two different kinds of money laundering.

According to prosecutors, Bankman-Fried was responsible for more than $11 billion in fraud overall between FTX customers and investors in FTX and Alameda Research. He spent it all on flashy advertising, real estate, tech investments, political contributions, and charity donations.

In the months after the trial ended, things started looking better for FTX's customers. The artificial-intelligence boom was in full swing, and a $500 million investment that Bankman-Fried made using their money was looking prescient. Within the last month, some cryptocurrency prices — after diving with FTX's collapse — reached new highs. In a January 31 bankruptcy hearing, an FTX debtor lawyer told the bankruptcy court that FTX customers and creditors "will eventually be paid in full."

While the jury wasn't given the chance to consider it, Kaplan himself is soon getting to decide whether the fact that Bankman-Fried's victims may get their money back — and how he did or didn't contribute to that — will factor into his sentence.

Judges ultimately have wide latitude in what they're allowed to consider while imposing a sentence. Sarah Krissoff, a white-collar defense attorney at Cozen O'Connor, says that whether they should consider the intended loss or genuine loss is a hot legal dispute that will probably end up in front of the US Supreme Court.

If Bankman-Fried went to trial an hour's drive away, in a New Jersey district court, the judge would have worked under the jurisdiction of the United States Third Circuit Court of Appeals and considered actual loss. But because he was tried in New York, controlled by the Second Circuit, the intended loss is what matters, Krissoff says.

"If you intend to steal $5 million, and you steal $2, it's still driven by that $5 million number," Krissoff, who was a former federal prosecutor in New York, told Business Insider.

In their sentencing submission , prosecutors say Bankman-Fried shouldn't be rewarded for how he spent other people's money. Bankman-Fried's attorneys have argued that the lack of customer losses should cut in his favor, but prosecutors say that doesn't account for the efforts of FTX's bankruptcy lawyers, who had to liquidate real estate, cancel contracts, and sue to claw funds back from K5 Global, a celebrity-connected investment firm that Bankman-Fried invested money into.

Ray, who's stewarding FTX through its bankruptcy process, wrote in his own scathing letter to the judge that Bankman-Fried left the company as "a metaphorical dumpster fire." "The value we hope to return to creditors would not exist without the tens of thousands of hours that dedicated professionals have spent digging through the rubble of Mr. Bankman-Fried's sprawling criminal enterprise to unearth every possible dollar, token or other asset that was spent on luxury homes, private jets, overpriced speculative ventures, and otherwise lost to the four winds," he wrote.

Ray also said many of the things Bankman-Fried spent customer money on couldn't be recovered.

"There are plenty of things we did not get back, like the bribes to Chinese officials or the hundreds of millions of dollars he spent to buy access to or time with celebrities or politicians or investments for which he grossly overpaid having done zero diligence," he wrote. "The harm was vast. The remorse is nonexistent."

The recovered calculations, too, distort how much money customers are actually getting back.

Bankman-Fried's lawyers and family want the judge to consider autism symptoms

Bankman-Fried's lawyers and family members have made other entreaties to the judge . They have said he exhibits behavioral characteristics associated with neurodivergent people and have asked Kaplan to judge him accordingly.

"I genuinely fear for Sam's life in the typical prison environment," Barbara Fried, Bankman-Fried's mother, wrote in a letter to the judge. "Sam's outward presentation, his inability to read or respond appropriately to many social cues, and his touching but naive belief in the power of facts and reason to resolve disputes, put him in extreme danger."

Neurodivergence can manifest in several ways, including autism, dyslexia, or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. In their sentencing submission, his defense attorneys attached a letter from Hassan Minhas , a psychiatrist who said he met with Bankman-Fried for four hours in July 2023 and diagnosed him with autism spectrum disorder.

Minhas wrote that Bankman-Fried "does not have any intellectual deficits and in-fact he presented as intellectually gifted" but "demonstrated deficits in being able to read social-cues, and appropriately respond to them." He added that while Bankman-Fried had "made attempts to compensate" for those deficits, he'd probably exhibit those symptoms for the rest of his life.

"The deficits persist and may present in various settings as him being socially awkward or inappropriate, not understanding social nuance, or responding in ways that may be perceived as off-putting to others," Minhas wrote.

About 2.2% of adults in the US have autism, according to the Centers for Disease Control in 2017. Minhas said the "social deficits" associated with autism would make it more challenging to interact with prison staff and other incarcerated people. He recommended that Bankman-Fried get access to psychotherapy and that personnel be trained to "inform their interactions with him."

Bankman-Fried's lawyers also included a letter from the psychiatrist George Lerner, who described himself as the "in-house coach at FTX" and wrote that the former FTX executive was "on the autism spectrum."

"I believe that his psychiatric conditions led others to misinterpret his behavior and motivations," Lerner said.

Prosecutors, in their 116-page sentencing memorandum, didn't address the topic of Bankman-Fried's neurodiversity at all. They say Bankman-Fried's life and characteristics — he grew up in a stable home with caring parents, went to an elite college, and worked at an elite Wall Street trading firm — show that he knew exactly what he was doing.

"The defendant chose to abandon honest work to pursue profit and influence through crime, and he used the proceeds of those crimes to enjoy his own lifestyle of affluence," they wrote. "The fact that he chose to engage in a massive fraud is an aggravating factor, not a mitigating one."

Bankman-Fried's diagnosis may come up again in an appeal. During the trial, lawyers and jail staffers tussled over access to his prescribed medication that he said he needed to focus for his defense.

It's in the judge's hands to decide how much neurodivergence should matter.

"You'd have to show that his divergence had some effect, I would think, on his judgment, his ability to understand right and wrong," Maimin, the Lowenstein Sandler attorney, told BI.

Maimin said that, in any case, the Federal Bureau of Prisons dealt with various neurological issues all the time.

"The BOP handles people with an enormous range of medical problems, including psychological problems, neurological problems, and probably has a not insignificant population of neurodiverse people, and is able to handle that," she said.

At this point, Kaplan has formed his own view of Bankman-Fried.

It doesn't appear to be positive.

Before the trial, he ordered Bankman-Fried to be jailed after finding that he repeatedly violated his house-arrest conditions and engaged in witness tampering, including for leaking personal journal entries by Caroline Ellison , his ex-girlfriend and the former CEO of Alemda Research, and by sending text messages to an FTX lawyer offering "a constructive relationship."

When Bankman-Fried took the witness stand for his criminal trial, often giving circuitous answers, the judge didn't find his testimony very convincing .

"Part of the problem," Kaplan said, "is that the witness has what I'll simply call an interesting way of responding to questions."

Correction: March 28, 2024 — An earlier version of this story misstated whether Sam Bankman-Fried's lawyers disclosed an autism diagnosis. In their February sentencing submission, they included a letter from a psychiatrist diagnosing him with autism spectrum disorder.

Watch: Why Sam Bankman-Fried is charged with perpetuating one of the biggest frauds in US history

Main content

Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison — but how much will he actually serve?

D isgraced crypto mogul Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison Thursday, but the convicted fraudster could be out in half that time.

The 32-year-old was sentenced to more than two decades in prison in Manhattan after being found guilty of stealing more than $8 billion from FTX customers.

Federal crimes are not eligible for parole, however, Bankman-Fried could shave off a considerable amount of time — perhaps as high as 40 or 50% — with good behavior and completing prison rehabilitation programs, said Mark Bini, a veteran prosecutor turned defense lawyer at white-shoe law firm Reed Smith.

This means the fallen crypto king could serve as little as 12.5 years.

Bankman-Fried would qualify for a sentence reduction under the federal First Step Act, signed into law by President Trump in 2018, because he’s a non-violent offender and this is his first conviction.

However, if “he shoots himself in the foot as he has done in the past, he’s going to do the whole 25 years,” Bini told The Post, referring to how Bankman-Fried breached the terms of his release while on bail when he leaked the personal writings of his former lover and business associate Caroline Ellison to a New York Times reporter.

Another way the entrepreneur could have his sentence reduced is by the court for extraordinary reasons, such as medical issues, former prosecutor Jordan Estes told CNN.

“Since the pandemic, courts have been more willing to grant early release under this provision if the defendant has served a substantial portion of his or her sentence,” Estes said.

US District Judge Lewis Kaplan suggested that Bankman-Fried — who is currently being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn — be sentenced to serve his time in a medium-security prison near his family’s home in Northern California.

He added that the federal Bureau of Prisons could also send the convicted fraudster to “any lower security prison that they could consider appropriate” — raising the possibility that Bankman-Fried could do his time at a far more comfortable low-security prison, like Ghislane Maxwell and Todd Chrisley, rather than a medium-security one.

Judge Kaplan said Bankman-Fried should not be sent to a maximum security prison, citing the non-violent nature of his crimes.

The Bureau of Prison did not immediately respond to a request for comment. They are expected to decide where Bankman-Fried will go in the next few months.

Bankman-Fried was also ordered to pay $11 billion and forfeit assets that could be used to pay the hefty fine.

Ahead of his sentencing, the fraudster apologized before the judge for making “bad decisions” and failing “everyone I care about.”

“At the end of the day, I failed everyone that I care about and everything that I care about, too,” he said Thursday. “A lot of people feel really let down and, I’m sorry about that. I’m sorry about what happened at every stage.”

His company, FTX, hit $40 billion at its peak and even had celebrities endorsing it.

Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison — but how much will he actually serve?

Sam Bankman-Fried gets 25 years in prison as judge cites lack of remorse

A federal judge also ordered repayment of more than $11 billion for what investigators concluded was one of the largest financial crimes in u.s. history.

NEW YORK — A federal judge sentenced former cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried to 25 years in prison Thursday, saying that a man who once graced magazine covers and testified at congressional hearings as the face of a booming new industry had in fact perpetrated one of the largest financial crimes in U.S. history.

The quarter century in prison that U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan prescribed was less than what prosecutors wanted for what they called his “massive” financial crimes, but far more than defense lawyers sought. Bankman-Fried was also ordered to pay more than $11 billion.

Bankman-Fried, co-founder of crypto exchange FTX and investment fund Alameda Research, failed to take responsibility for the disaster he created, Kaplan said in handing down the sentence. “Mr. Bankman-Fried says mistakes were made … but never a word of remorse for the commission of terrible crimes,” Kaplan said.

Thursday’s hearing underscored the precipitous downfall of the man who turned FTX into a behemoth, with a Super Bowl ad, naming rights to a Miami stadium and glowing publicity for its cryptocurrency exchange. Jurors in November convicted Bankman-Fried on charges related to wire fraud, conspiracy to commit fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Only when FTX collapsed into bankruptcy in 2022 did investigators uncover what prosecutors have described as a straightforward fraud dressed up as a breakthrough financial innovation. Bankman-Fried was accused of misappropriating FTX customer funds to spend lavishly on luxury real estate, investments and political donations.

Prosecutors asked for a sentence of at least 40 years in prison. Defense attorneys argued that a sentence of five to six years would be more appropriate.

Bankman-Fried and his top deputies, prosecutors said, took customers’ money out of FTX and put it into Alameda Research. At the trial, former Alameda chief executive Caroline Ellison, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges before cooperating with prosecutors, described Bankman-Fried telling her to use FTX funds.

“The criminality here, it’s massive in scale,” prosecutor Nicolas Roos said Thursday. “It was pervasive in all aspects.”

The chance that Bankman-Fried could commit other crimes weighed into the sentencing decision, Kaplan said.

“There is a risk this man will be in a position to do something very bad in the future and it’s not a trivial risk,” the judge said. “Not a trivial risk at all.”

Under federal rules, Bankman-Fried probably will serve more than 21 years in prison before he can be eligible for release. Kaplan said he should serve his sentence in a low- or medium-security institution near his parents’ home in the San Francisco Bay Area. Although he castigated Bankman-Fried, the judge said the prosecution’s sentencing request was “substantially greater than is necessary.”

The 25-year sentence is longer than most sentences for high-profile white-collar crimes, although Bernie Madoff received a 150-year sentence in 2009 for running a Ponzi scheme that cost victims an estimated $20 billion or more; he died in prison 12 years later. Elizabeth Holmes, who took in hundreds of millions from investors for blood-testing start-up Theranos, was sentenced in 2022 to more than 11 years in prison.

Defense lawyer Marc Mukasey argued that his client should not be compared to Madoff because Bankman-Fried did not have harmful intentions. “It’s obviously a serious offense, but Sam was not a ruthless financial serial killer who set out every morning to hurt people,” Mukasey said Thursday. He described Bankman-Fried as a person who “doesn’t make decisions with malice in his heart. He makes decisions with math in his head.”

In arguing for leniency, Mukasey extolled Bankman-Fried’s intelligence and his lifelong interest in helping others, and described his client as “a beautiful puzzle.”

Bankman-Fried said that as the leader of FTX, he ultimately bears the blame for the misfortunes that befell the company’s customers. “It must just be an excruciating feeling, waiting every day, not knowing what’s going to happen, feeling that they’ve lost everything,” he said, clutching his elbows while a courtroom artist sketched him.

But Bankman-Fried, in a khaki-colored prison T-shirt, also gave a meandering account of events in an attempt to justify some of his actions. “I made a series of bad decisions,” said Bankman-Fried, who spoke for about 20 minutes. “They weren’t selfish decisions. … They were bad decisions.”

His lack of a straightforward confession or apology might have pushed Kaplan toward a stiffer sentence, said white-collar defense lawyer Jack Sharman, who characterized Bankman-Fried’s testimony during the trial as a “disastrous” performance.

“Would [taking responsibility] have dramatically reduced it? I don’t know,” said Sharman, who was not involved with the case. “But I’ve been at enough sentencings to feel a palpable difference when defendants do that and when they don’t.”

Federal officials spoke of the financial devastation suffered by FTX customers. Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement that Bankman-Fried created “extraordinary harm” for victims, some of whom “had their life savings wiped out overnight.”

Bankman-Fried on Thursday claimed that FTX still had the money, spread across various accounts and investments, to fully restore customers’ funds. “There’s plenty of assets to do that,” he said. “There’s billions more. It’s been true the whole time.”

John Ray III, who is leading the company through the bankruptcy process as chief executive, had criticized that stance in a letter to the court. The defense’s assertion that FTX customers and investors suffered no harm is “callously and demonstrably false,” Ray wrote before Thursday’s hearing.

Bankman-Fried cast aspersions on that ongoing bankruptcy and said FTX’s problems amounted to a “liquidity crisis” that should have lasted only a few weeks. But Roos took issue with that view. “It wasn’t a liquidity crisis or an act of mismanagement or poor oversight from the top,” the prosecutor said. “It was the theft of billions of dollars.”

Ahead of Thursday’s hearing, some trial observers wondered whether the Justice Department overreached in asking for at least 40 years in prison. A full recovery of FTX assets could undercut prosecutors’ assertion of “dramatic devastating personal loss” for investors, said Martin Auerbach, a white-collar defense lawyer who has been involved in cryptocurrency cases but did not work on Bankman-Fried’s case.

“That is part of the theory for why he should be punished,” Auerbach said before the hearing. “If that will turn out not to be correct because those small investors have been made whole or recovered much of their money, I think the judge has the discretion to say, ‘I’m going to look at the loss in a different way.’”

Kaplan instead took a harder line.

“A thief who takes his loot to Las Vegas and successfully bets the stolen money is not entitled to a discount on his sentence,” he said Thursday.

The judge concluded that Bankman-Fried defrauded investors out of $1.7 billion, his hedge fund’s lenders out of $1.3 billion and FTX customers out of $8 billion. In an adjacent room at the court from which many victims and other observers watched the proceedings, some let out soft whistles as they heard each of the numbers.

If federal officials follow Kaplan’s recommendation, Bankman-Fried would serve his term at a prison near the Bay Area, perhaps not far from where he grew up at his parents’ home at Stanford University. At least one Stanford alumnus on Thursday saw the sentence as just.

FTX’s collapse was “truly devastating” for its customers, said Tyler Benster, a start-up founder who has a PhD in neuroscience from Stanford. Benster hopes the sentences of Bankman-Fried and Holmes, another Stanford-associated tech entrepreneur, might serve as a warning to the tech world.

“I want to see the return of the nerds — of the scientists and hardcore engineers,” Benster said. “I think we’re going to see this resurgence of looking more at the actual technical prowess and accomplishments rather than this vision-spinning and setting that has run away.”

Bankman-Fried’s prison term will set an important example, said Sheila Warren, chief executive of the trade group Crypto Council for Innovation. “This sentencing is crucial,” Warren said. “What we don’t want to do is incentivize people to say, ‘Oh, you just pay a big fine and do whatever you want.’ No, you go to jail if you lie, if you steal.”

She said she faulted not just Bankman-Fried, but also the many people who lionized him instead of questioning whether he was honest. “There were a lot of institutions that were supporting this kind of wunderkind mythology,” she said.

The case has affected the whole cryptocurrency industry. University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias pointed to FTX’s collapse as motivation for the Biden industry’s push to regulate cryptocurrency companies: “It’s Exhibit A for arguing to regulate this as we regulate other activities, especially in the stock market.”

Lisa Bonos contributed to this report.

Prosecutors: Sam Bankman-Fried should get 40 to 50 years in prison March 15, 2024 Prosecutors: Sam Bankman-Fried should get 40 to 50 years in prison March 15, 2024
Sam Bankman-Fried gets 25 years in prison as judge cites lack of remorse March 28, 2024 Sam Bankman-Fried gets 25 years in prison as judge cites lack of remorse March 28, 2024
Bankman-Fried convicted on all charges after weeks-long criminal trial November 2, 2023 Bankman-Fried convicted on all charges after weeks-long criminal trial November 2, 2023

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Sam Bankman-Fried Sentenced to 25 Years in Prison

Mr. Bankman-Fried, who was convicted of stealing $8 billion from customers of his FTX cryptocurrency exchange, faced a maximum sentence of 110 years.

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Sam Bankman-Fried walking away from a building with gold door and window frames, while surrounded by people and cameras.

By David Yaffe-Bellany and J. Edward Moreno

David Yaffe-Bellany and J. Edward Moreno have covered the collapse of FTX extensively.

Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange who was convicted of stealing billions of dollars from customers , was sentenced to 25 years in prison on Thursday, capping an extraordinary saga that upended the crypto industry and became a cautionary tale of greed and hubris.

Mr. Bankman-Fried’s sentence was shorter than the 40 to 50 years that federal prosecutors had sought after a jury found him guilty of fraud, conspiracy and money laundering — charges that carried a maximum penalty of 110 years behind bars. But the punishment was far above the six and a half years requested by his defense lawyers.

Mr. Bankman-Fried, 32, did not visibly react as Judge Lewis A. Kaplan handed down the sentence in Federal District Court in Manhattan. His parents, the law professors Joe Bankman and Barbara Fried, sat two rows from the front, staring at the floor.

“He knew it was wrong. He knew it was criminal,” Judge Kaplan said of Mr. Bankman-Fried’s actions.

Before the sentence was delivered, Mr. Bankman-Fried, cleanshaven and wearing a loosefitting brown jail uniform, apologized to FTX’s customers, investors and employees.

“A lot of people feel really let down, and they were very let down,” he said. “I’m sorry about that. I’m sorry about what happened at every stage.” He added that his decisions “haunt” him every day.

Mr. Bankman-Fried was also ordered to forfeit about $11 billion in assets.

At the sentencing, Judge Kaplan pointed to testimony from Mr. Bankman-Fried’s trial that showed the FTX founder’s extreme appetite for risk, saying it was his “nature” to make colossally dangerous bets. “There is a risk that this man will be in a position to do something very bad in the future,” he said.

Judge Kaplan also said Mr. Bankman-Fried had lied on the witness stand and failed to take responsibility for his crimes. “He regrets that he made a very bad bet about the likelihood of getting caught,” he said. “But he’s not going to admit a thing.”

Mr. Bankman-Fried, currently housed at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, will be sent to a low- or medium-security prison, the judge said, very likely near his parents’ home in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The sentencing signified the finale of a sweeping fraud case that exposed the rampant volatility and risk-taking across the loosely regulated world of cryptocurrencies. In November 2022, FTX imploded virtually overnight, erasing $8 billion in customer savings. At a trial last fall, he was convicted of seven counts of fraud, conspiracy and money laundering.

His sentence ranks as one of the longest imposed on a white-collar defendant in recent years. Bernie Madoff , who orchestrated a notorious Ponzi scheme that unraveled during the 2008 financial crisis, received a 150-year sentence in 2009. He was in his 70s and died 12 years later. Elizabeth Holmes , who was convicted of defrauding investors in her blood-testing start-up, Theranos, was sentenced to 11 years and three months in 2022.

A representative for Mr. Bankman-Fried declined to comment. In a statement, his parents said, “We are heartbroken and will continue to fight for our son.”

Ira Lee Sorkin, the defense lawyer who represented Mr. Madoff, said he was not surprised Mr. Bankman-Fried got a stiff sentence, albeit a shorter one than his own client.

“He is 32 years old, and he will see the light of day,” he said of Mr. Bankman-Fried. “But he is going to spend a lot of time in a cell.”

Just 18 months ago, Mr. Bankman-Fried was a corporate titan and one of the youngest billionaires on the planet. With his face plastered on billboards and magazine covers, he could raise money seemingly at will. He hobnobbed with actors, musicians and superstar athletes, cultivating an image as a nerdy do-gooder who intended to donate all his wealth to charity.

Based in the Bahamas, FTX was one of the largest marketplaces for cryptocurrencies — an easy-to-use platform where investors could exchange dollars or euros for digital coins like Bitcoin and Ether. Its valuation was north of $30 billion.

But over less than a week in November 2022, a run on deposits exposed an $8 billion hole in FTX’s accounts. Mr. Bankman-Fried resigned, handing over power to a team of lawyers who promptly filed for bankruptcy. The next month, he was arrested at his luxury apartment in the Bahamas and charged with stealing from customers to finance billions in political contributions, charitable donations and investments in other start-ups.

The investigation moved with startling speed for such a complex case. Within months, three of Mr. Bankman-Fried’s top deputies, including a former girlfriend, pleaded guilty to fraud charges and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. Mr. Bankman-Fried was initially granted home detention, but the judge revoked his bail in August after ruling that he had tried to intimidate witnesses, and sent him to the Brooklyn detention center.

At the trial in October, Mr. Bankman-Fried’s former colleagues testified for the prosecution, telling a jury that they had conspired with him to loot customer accounts. When he took the witness stand, Mr. Bankman-Fried seemed evasive at times, repeatedly claiming that he couldn’t remember crucial details of his FTX tenure.

“When he wasn’t outright lying, he was often evasive, hairsplitting, dodging questions,” Judge Kaplan said on Thursday. “I’ve never seen a performance quite like that.”

After he was convicted, Mr. Bankman-Fried’s lawyers and family embarked on a long-shot campaign to secure a lenient sentence and rewrite the public narrative about FTX’s failure. In a sentencing memo, Marc Mukasey, one of the defense lawyers, argued that Mr. Bankman-Fried had sometimes behaved strangely on the stand because he was autistic. He also cited the mogul’s charitable initiatives, arguing that FTX was supposed to be a force for good in the world.

But the defense’s case centered on the money that FTX users lost when the exchange went under. Since FTX’s bankruptcy, its new leaders have cobbled together billions of dollars to return to customers, partly by liquidating stashes of digital coins and selling Mr. Bankman-Fried’s stakes in other companies. Mr. Mukasey claimed those customers would eventually be made whole through the bankruptcy process, putting the losses caused by Mr. Bankman-Fried’s actions at “zero.”

The prosecutors rejected that argument. While FTX’s new leadership has predicted that customers will eventually get their deposits back, the money they receive will be equivalent to the dollar value of their holdings in November 2022 — and won’t account for a recent surge in the crypto markets that sent Bitcoin to its highest-ever price .

Mr. Bankman-Fried “demonstrated a brazen disrespect for the rule of law,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memo. “He knew what society deemed illegal and unethical, but disregarded that based on a pernicious megalomania.”

On Thursday, Judge Kaplan said of FTX’s victims: “The defendant’s assurance that they will be paid in full is misleading. It is logically flawed. It is speculative.”

Over the past several weeks, the prosecutors filed hundreds of letters from FTX customers that laid out how the financial losses had devastated their lives. One customer said the collapse had led to “suicidal thoughts.”

“Sam Bankman-Fried has to think for the rest of his life of the multitude of lives he destroyed with his selfishness and superficiality,” the customer wrote. “I really hope that justice will teach him the difference between life and video games.”

Another FTX user, Sunil Kavuri, who lost $2 million when the company collapsed, testified at the hearing that the implosion had wiped out money he planned to spend on a house and his children’s education.

“I’ve lived the FTX nightmare for almost two years,” he said.

When Mr. Bankman-Fried spoke, he offered a sometimes-rambling assortment of thoughts, apologizing for his mistakes while insisting that FTX had enough assets to make customers whole.

“I made a series of bad decisions,” he said, his leg shaking. “They weren’t selfish decisions. They weren’t selfless decisions. They were bad decisions.”

Mr. Bankman-Fried has vowed to appeal his conviction, hiring a lawyer from the law firm Shapiro Arato Bach to oversee that effort. But in his remarks, he appeared to accept that he would be in prison for some time.

“At the end of the day, my useful life is probably over now,” he said.

Matthew Goldstein contributed reporting.

David Yaffe-Bellany writes about the crypto industry from San Francisco. He can be reached at [email protected]. More about David Yaffe-Bellany

J. Edward Moreno is a business reporter at The Times. More about J. Edward Moreno

International

Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison

Sbf's parents: "we are heartbroken".

From CNN's Kara Scannell

Barbara Fried and Joseph Bankman, parents of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, exit the Manhattan Federal Court today in New York.

Bankman-Fried's parents, Joe Bankman and Barbara Fried, issued a statement after leaving the Manhattan courtroom Thursday, saying: “We are heartbroken and will continue to fight for our son.”

Some in crypto community contrast SBF's sentence with that of shuttered dark market site's founder

From CNN's Elisabeth Buchwald

Several prominent voices in the crypto community took issue with Sam Bankman Fried's 25-year sentence, given Ross Ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison in 2015.

Ulbricht created Silk Road — a website that let users anonymously buy and sell anything, including drugs and hacking tutorials. Transactions on the site took place using bitcoin, making it much harder to trace.

Bitcoin Magazine, a crypto publication with more than 3 million followers, posted on X shortly after SBF was sentenced on Thursday:

Roger Ver, an early bitcoin investor often referred to as "bitcoin Jesus," posted on X Thursday morning ahead of Bankman-Fried's sentencing trial that Ulbricht's "'crime' was building a website where people could trade freely without government permission." Since Bankman-Fried's sentence was announced, his post has been shared by many popular crypto-linked accounts.

US Attorney Williams: SBF's sentence is a warning to others

Damian Williams, the US attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement that Bankman-Fried's 25-year sentence "will prevent the defendant from ever again committing fraud and is an important message to others who might be tempted to engage in financial crimes that justice will be swift, and the consequences will be severe."

How long will SBF actually serve?

From CNN's Allison Morrow

In this courtroom sketch, Sam Bankman-Fried, second from right, stands while making a statement during his sentencing in Manhattan federal court, Thursday, March. 28, 2024, in New York. Crypto entrepreneur Bankman-Fried was sentenced Thursday to 25 years in prison for a massive fraud that unraveled with the collapse of FTX, once one of the world's most popular platforms for exchanging digital currency.

There is no possibility of parole in federal criminal cases, but Bankman-Fried can still shave time off his 25-year sentence with good behavior.

"SBF may serve as little as 12.5 years, if he gets all of the jailhouse credit available to him," Mitchell Epner, a former federal prosecutor, told CNN.

Federal prisoners generally can earn up to 54 days of time credit a year for good behavior, which could result in an approximately 15% reduction.

Since 2018, however, nonviolent federal inmates can reduce their sentence by as much as 50% under prison reform legislation known as the First Step Act.

Epner says the First Step Act was billed as a civil rights measure, to help minority offenders who committed non-violent drug-trafficking offenses.

"It has turned out to be an enormous boon for white-collar criminal defendants, who are already given much lower sentences ... than drug-traffickers," Epner added.

There is also a provision that allows a court to reduce a person’s sentence for extraordinary and compelling reasons, which are often medical, according to Jordan Estes, a former federal prosecutor who is now a partner at Kramer Levin.

"Since the pandemic, courts have been more willing to grant early release under this provision if the defendant has served a substantial portion of his or her sentence,” Estes said.

Kaplan recommends medium-security federal prison

From CNN's Lauren del Valle and Allison Morrow

Sam Bankman-Fried on March 30, 2023 after leaving the Manhattan federal court in New York City.

Judge Lewis Kaplan said he would recommend to the Bureau of Prisons that Bankman-Fried be placed in a medium-security facility or any lower-security facility the bureau finds appropriate.

Medium-security federal prisons have strengthened perimeters — often double fences with electronic detection systems — and mostly cell housing, according to the Bureau of Prisons. They also have a "wide variety of work and treatment programs."

Kaplan orders $11.02 billion forfeiture

From CNN's Lauren del Valle

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried attends his sentencing hearing at Federal Court in New York City, U.S., March 28, 2024 in this courtroom sketch.

Judge Kaplan also ordered a forfeiture of $11.02 billion.

He ruled Bankman-Fried's forfeited assets can be used to help fund the repayment of victims of the FTX collapse.

Correction: A previous version of this post misstated the forfeiture amount. It is $11.02 billion.

Judge Kaplan: "Not a trivial risk" that SBF could commit crimes again

Judge Lewis Kaplan, just before announcing Bankman-Fried's 25-year sentence, said there was a risk "that this man will be in a position to do something very bad in the future, and it's not a trivial risk."

Bankman-Fried acknowledged his mistakes and said he was sorry for what happened to customers but "never a word of remorse for the commission of terrible crimes," Judge Kaplan said.

"He knew it was wrong," he added.

Bankman-Fried is sentenced to 25 years in prison

Sam Bankman-Fried has been sentenced to 25 years in federal prison for defrauding customers and investors in crypto exchange FTX.

Judge Kaplan: SBF wanted to be a 'hugely, hugely politically influential person'

Sam Bankman-Fried after a court appearance on June 15, 2023 at Manhattan Federal Court in New York City.

Kaplan says many facts are not disputed, including that SBF had "an exceptionally privileged background."

"He is extremely smart. And he suffers from autism," Kaplan said, noting his understanding of the condition. Kaplan said SBF "is capable of huge accomplishments" while noting he has "a way of interacting with people that’s unusual and sometimes off-putting."

Kaplan agreed with prosecutors' claim that Bankman-Fried "wanted to be a hugely, hugely politically influential person in this country," and that that propelled his financial crimes.

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Knowledge Base
Sentence structure

Sentence Structure in English | Explanation & Examples

Sentence structure determines how the different parts of a sentence are put together, from its punctuation to the ordering of its words. As well as following basic word order rules , there are many other things you have to consider to write correctly and clearly structured sentences.

There are two especially common sentence construction mistakes:

Run-on sentences : incorrect punctuation used to join different parts of a sentence
Sentence fragments : missing necessary components to form a full grammatically correct sentence

Sentence structure is not just a matter of grammar, but also of style and flow. Strong academic writing uses a variety of sentence lengths and structures. It’s important to avoid overly long sentences that can be confusing for readers, but too many very short sentences can make your text feel choppy and disjointed. If you struggle with this, you could consider a proofreading and editing service .

Avoid run-on sentences, avoid sentence fragments, split up overly long sentences, link together overly short sentences, fix sentence structure with a paraphrasing tool, other sentence structure tips.

An independent clause is a group of words that could stand as a full sentence on its own. There are various ways to join independent clauses, but a run-on sentence occurs when they are joined without proper punctuation.

Run-on sentences are a matter of grammar rather than length—even relatively short sentences can contain this error. There are two common mistakes that result in run-on sentences.

Comma splice

Two independent clauses cannot be joined by a comma alone. This form of sentence is called a comma splice .

The project ran over the deadline, data processing was extensive.

There are three ways to fix this error. You can split the clauses into two separate sentences.

The project ran over the deadline. Data processing was extensive.

You can replace the comma with a semicolon or (if appropriate) a colon .

The project ran over the deadline; data processing was extensive.

Alternatively, you can use a conjunction to create a connection between the clauses.

The project ran over the deadline because data processing was extensive.

Comma splices can also appear in longer sentences with multiple clauses. In this context they are especially likely to cause confusion.

Jimmy likes to take cream and sugar with his coffee, when he drinks it warm, he also likes it black.

Here it is not clear which part of the sentence should be connected to the clause when he drank it warm. Does he like cream and sugar when he drinks coffee warm, or does he like coffee black when he drinks it warm? A semicolon, period or conjunction clarifies the meaning of the sentence, which changes in meaning depending on where the punctuation is placed.

Jimmy likes to take cream and sugar with his coffee; when he drinks it warm, he also likes it black.
Jimmy likes to take cream and sugar with his coffee when he drinks it warm. He also likes it black.
Jimmy likes to take cream and sugar with his coffee, but when he drinks it warm, he also likes it black.

Missing comma with a coordinating conjunction

There are seven coordinating conjunctions in English: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so (you can remember them with the acronym FANBOYS). When you use one of these conjunctions to join two independent clauses, you need to use a comma before it.

Data was gathered through questionnaires and selected respondents participated in interviews .

The missing comma creates a run-on sentence, and like the comma splice , it can often cause confusion. Because we use these conjunctions so often and for so many purposes, it’s useful to know how they are being used when we encounter them.

The comma before and helps the reader navigate the sentence by signalling that the next part is a new, related, and complete thought.

Data was gathered through questionnaires, and selected respondents participated in interviews.

Check for common mistakes

Use the best grammar checker available to check for common mistakes in your text.

Fix mistakes for free

A fragment is a group of words that doesn’t contain all the components of a grammatically correct sentence. For a string of words to be considered a sentence, it has to contain a subject and a predicate.

Note that sentence fragments are often used stylistically in journalism and creative writing, but they are rarely appropriate in academic or other formal writing.

Subjects and predicates

The subject of the sentence tells us about the person or thing that acts, while the predicate tells us about what the subject does or is. Put another way, the subject is the noun part of a sentence, and the predicate is the verb part.

Some sentences have more than one subject-predicate combination, but the subject position always comes first. No matter how many subject-predicate pairs come in a sentence, the ratio is always 1:1—every subject needs a predicate, and every predicate needs a subject.

Ducks fly .
Haggard and elderly ducks and geese fly slower, lower, and with more caution.
Haggard and elderly ducks and geese fly slower, lower, and with more caution, perhaps because of rheumatism .
Haggard and elderly ducks and geese fly slower, lower, and with more caution , perhaps because their rheumatism hinders them .
Ducks fly ; dogs walk .
Ducks fly faster than geese when dogs run and bark .
The dog catches the ball .
The dog catches the ball , which is covered in slobber .
The dog catches the ball , which we bought .
The ball is caught .
The ball now has the following characteristics: a slipperiness, a smelliness, and a chewiness .
The ball now has the following characteristics : it is slippery , it is smelly , and it is chewy .
The ball now has the following characteristics : it is slippery, smelly, and chewy .

Missing predicate

The simplest form of sentence fragment is a sentence missing a main verb. A noun phrase alone is not a sentence—it needs a predicate to be grammatically correct.

After they settled the argument , they became friends . A fortunate turn of events .

The fragment can be revised either by using appropriate punctuation to join it to the preceding sentence, or by rewriting the sentence to include a predicate.

After they settled the argument , they became friends: a fortunate turn of events .
After they settled the argument , they became friends . It was a fortunate turn of events .

Dependent clause on its own

A dependent clause has a subject and a predicate, but it does not express a complete thought. It has to be attached to an independent clause to form a full sentence.

Dependent clauses are often formed with subordinating conjunctions , which include words such as when, after, since, while, although, if, unless, because, while , and whereas . When one of these words is added to the beginning of an independent clause, it turns into a dependent clause.

The coast was clear .
When the coast was clear .

The first sentence is an independent clause that can stand as a full sentence on its own. The subordinating conjunction when transforms it into a dependent clause. On its own, this is a sentence fragment. It needs to be correctly connected to another clause to form a full sentence.

They would go to safety . When the coast was clear .
They would go to safety ; when the coast was clear .
They would go to safety when the coast was clear .
When the coast was clear , they would go to safety .

Note that these clauses cannot be joined with a semicolon . A semicolon can only join two independent clauses.

Misuse of the present participle

The present participle is the form of a verb that ends with -ing (e.g. running, researching, being ). Sometimes it is misused where a present or past simple form should be used instead. An -ing verb on its own can be part of a modifier that refers to another part of the sentence, but it can’t mark the beginning of a predicate.

The most common verb abused with this mistake is to be , which is conjugated as being when it should be conjugated is or was .

He argued all night long . The point being important .

The point being important is a sentence fragment. It needs to be connected to another clause or revised with a properly conjugated verb.

He argued all night long . The point was important .
He argued all night long, the point being important .

Sometimes a long sentence is grammatically correct, but its length makes it difficult to follow. To make your writing clearer and more readable, avoid using too many overly long sentences.

The average sentence length is around 15–25 words. If your sentence starts to exceed 30–40 words, you might want to consider revising it. Removing redundancies and inflated phrases is a good way to start, but if all the words in the sentence are essential, try to split it up into shorter sentences.

This sentence doesn’t contain any grammatical errors, but the information can be presented more clearly by revising its structure.

Another issue to watch out for is overly long introductory phrases or clauses. If your sentence starts by repeating material that has already been presented, it can bury the new information you want to communicate.

The main point of the sentence is that none of the findings were significant , but the long introductory clause distracts us from this information. To clarify the point and shorten the sentence, focus on reducing repetition .

Shorter sentences are generally clearer and more readable, but using too many very short sentences can make a text feel choppy, disjointed or repetitive. Try to use a variety of sentence lengths, and use transition words to help readers see how your ideas fit together.

While all of these are grammatically correct sentences, the text reads more smoothly if they are merged.

At the end of the day, you want your writing to be natural and easy to understand. And we get it. When you’re in the middle of writing your paper, you might not remember all the rules for making sentences.

Why not use new technology to make your sentence structure flow more smoothly? With the AI-powered paraphrasing tool , you can easily copy your sentences into the tool, choose “fluency”, and fix your sentence structure. It only takes one click.

Apart from these basic rules, there are some other techniques you can use to improve your sentence structure.

Use parallel structure Fix dangling modifiers Fix misplaced modifiers

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Active vs. Passive Constructions | When to Use the Passive Voice

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Triple killer played pro soccer while on the run. Now he’s fighting his long prison sentence.

Updated: Apr. 01, 2024, 3:08 a.m. |
Published: Mar. 31, 2024, 8:00 a.m.
Kevin Shea | For NJ.com

Alberto Scabone is 70 years old and has to serve another nine years in prison before he’s eligible for parole for killing his wife, and her sister and mother, in Newark in 1981.

He now represents himself, and he’s still appealing what he believes is an excessive sentence - 80 years, with a mandatory minimum of 40.

His latest appeal, issued Thursday, failed. The two judges dispatched his arguments in stark form: “Defendant’s sentence is not illegal.”

And they ended it with, “The record establishes that defendant has been accorded all the process he is due.”

Looking at his appeal history, an appeal of this appeal could happen.

Legal filings and news stories portray Scabone as someone who will not stop trying. And also a brutal, controlling killer with a history of escapes.

At the age of 39, he stabbed his wife Monica, 22, and her mother Norma Estevez, 39, and Monica’s sister, 17-year-old Yannet Estevez. The three suffered a total of 90 wounds. Then he set fire to their Bloomfield Avenue apartment and fled to Mexico with his 2-year-old son.

A prosecutor later said a jealous Scabone killed his wife because he didn’t like her dressing up and going out at night. He murdered the in-laws to aid his escape.

Essex County authorities indicted him for murder and arson, but it would be 12 years before the FBI could bring him back to U.S. soil.

A native of Uruguay, Scabone moved around while on the run, in Central and South America, authorities said.

Just two weeks after the Newark slayings, Scabone started dating a woman in Costa Rica, who he would eventually marry. He also played professional soccer and traveled with a team in South America.

With the FBI constantly on his tail, Scabone successfully eluded local authorities twice: he escaped from a Costa Rica prison in 1989 while awaiting extradition, and gave local cops the slip by jumping out of a window in Mexico while with his second wife.

Things did not work out with the second wife, and she would eventually inform on him and lead to his arrest. U.S. agents tracked Scabone in Florida, Uruguay, Argentina and in the end, Mexico, who put the handcuffs on him.

He landed in the United States in early 1993. (No news story or legal filing ever explained his son’s whereabouts).

While awaiting trial, Scabone planned to escape from the county jail and officers found him with a homemade knife and lock pick in the inner soles of his shoes.

A jury convicted him later that year of two counts of murder for his in-laws, and passion provocation manslaughter of his wife, plus arson. A judge in 1994 sentenced him to an aggregate of 80 years using consecutive sentences, rather than the typical concurrent sentences.

The trial judge said they were essentially three separate murders, committed as each woman entered the apartment. And Scabone needed to pay, “so he can’t do [any more] damage to the community,” the decision says.

Scabone then started regular appeals, first to challenge the case, then mainly to undo the consecutive sentences.

First came the regular, or direct, appeals. Then post-conviction relief, or PCR, during which defendants seek relief from the trial court that handled their case. All of those were denied. The state supreme court then declined to hear it.

Scabone went to the federal system, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take the case.

Then, Scabone filed four motions with the trial court alleging that his sentence was illegal, the latest decision says. The first two were in 2004 and 2005, and they were denied, as well as appeals of the denials.

A third occurred in 2018, and Scabone did not appeal that.

In November 2022, Scabone filed his fourth motion to correct an alleged illegal sentence, arguing cruel and unusual punishment. It was denied, and Thursday’s appeal rejected it again.

The appeals court did filter his case through all applicable case law and found his original sentences, “were in accordance with the criminal code in effect at the time defendant committed his crimes.”

Scabone is currently in East Jersey State Prison, records show. His parole will be considered in February of 2033.

Stories by Kevin Shea

Well-known music activist, entrepreneur charged with child porn possession
Man acquitted of killing woman shot to death in car in Burlington County
N.J. corrections officer shot woman believing he was under fire, officials say

Material from prior Star-Ledger news stories was used in this report.

Please consider supporting NJ.com with a voluntary subscription. Kevin Shea may be reached at [email protected] .

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COMMENTS

Example of a Great Essay
This example guides you through the structure of an essay. It shows how to build an effective introduction, focused paragraphs, clear transitions between ideas, and a strong conclusion. Each paragraph addresses a single central point, introduced by a topic sentence, and each point is directly related to the thesis statement.
40 Useful Words and Phrases for Top-Notch Essays
4. That is to say. Usage: "That is" and "that is to say" can be used to add further detail to your explanation, or to be more precise. Example: "Whales are mammals. That is to say, they must breathe air.". 5. To that end. Usage: Use "to that end" or "to this end" in a similar way to "in order to" or "so".
14 College Essay Examples From Top-25 Universities (2023-2024)
College essay example #1. This is a college essay that worked for Harvard University. (Suggested reading: How to Get Into Harvard Undergrad) This past summer, I had the privilege of participating in the University of Notre Dame's Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program .
How to Write a Long Sentence: Tips + Example Sentences
The long sentence above also starts with its core: You lived a life of disappointment and suffering, and then the sentence branches out, describing the circumstances of that life. Note how the repetition of the phrase didn't adds rhythm in the middle of the sentence. 3. An example by Elif Shafak.
PDF ACADEMIC WRITING
Jeffrey R. Wilson's Academic Writing is a no-nonsense guide to the long and complex writing process. Packed with concrete examples, helpful visuals, and practical tips, the book is an essential guide for academic ... There are models for different ways to organize an essay and tips to make sentences snap with style. Emphasis is placed on ...
Writing Effective Sentences in Your English Essay
Uses punctuation correctly. 1. Make Your Subjects and Verbs Interesting. My first tip for writing effective sentences is to spice up your subjects and verbs. 1. Use subjects and verbs to state the key actors and actions. Don't say: The intention of the company was to expand its workforce. Instead, say: The company intended to expand its ...
How Long Is an Essay?: Word Count Tips & Essay Length Tricks [+Examples]
Increasing the size of periods and commas. This is one of the less noticeable tricks you can use. For instance, if your paper's font is 12 pt., increase it to 14 pt. only for punctuation marks. Italicizing periods and commas will also add several lines of length to your essay.
Make long sentences crystal clear
The problem with long sentences lies in the execution. In a well-written sentence, the length is rarely a problem. Ambiguity and frustration arise from long, poorly written sentences, not because they are long but because they are poorly written. For example, confusing sentences often contain subordinate clauses that begin with who, which or that.
Lengthy Essay Samples
Lengthy Essay Samples. The lengthy sample essays in the pdf link below showcase writers who, to varying degrees, took chances or simply reached higher. Not only did these writers compose lengthy essays (still within prescribed word-count limits), but in many cases they did something bold with content, form, or personality.
In Praise of the Long and Complicated Sentence ‹ Literary Hub
December 12, 2018. The style guides say: keep your sentences short. Write cleanly, cut as many words as you can, and don't overburden your reader's short-term memory by delaying the arrival of the full stop. But sometimes a sentence just needs to be long. The world resists our efforts to enclose it between a capital and a full stop.
Very Long Sentences: How to Write and Make Them Shorter (with Examples
Very long sentences are often overstuffed with glue words. These extra words make the sentence difficult to read and needlessly complex. If you reduce the number of glue words in your sentences, you can make your sentences shorter and easier to understand. Here's an example of a sentence with a lot of glue words:
Long Sentences: How it can Improve Your Writing
Long sentences can be likened to mountains, where the top of the peak is the sentence's main idea. Every phrase that leads to that idea is a part of the main idea. The more you write in the mountain part of your sentence, the more the top of the peak will rise above the other mountains. We often follow the advice to keep our sentences short.
AP World History How To Write a LEQ Overview
1750-2001. 1890-2001. 1815-2001. Writing time on the AP Exam includes both the Document Based Question (DBQ) and the (LEQ), but it is suggested that you spend 40 minutes completing the LEQ. You will need to plan and write your essay in that time. A good breakdown would be 5 min. (planning) + 35 min. (writing) = 40 min. ⭐️.
AP U.S. History Long Essay Example
Step 2: Plan Your Response. Next, take time to plan your response. Check your plan against the long essay question requirements. See the sample plan that a high-scoring writer might make; scoring requirements are written in bold for reference. Step 3: Action! Write Your Response & Step 4: Proofread.
How to Structure an Essay
The basic structure of an essay always consists of an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. But for many students, the most difficult part of structuring an essay is deciding how to organize information within the body. This article provides useful templates and tips to help you outline your essay, make decisions about your structure, and ...
Writing effective sentences: long vs. short sentences
In the academic writing or any type of professional writing, it is usually good to stick to a happy medium. Too short sentences sound as if the writer of the paper has insufficient level of language usage and lacks the ability to provide proper linkage words in clause sentences. On the other hand, too long sentences also decrease the quality of ...
Is A Bad Start For The Mets A Bad Sign Of Things To Come?
But the Mets' first 0-3 start since 2014 is a reminder of the risks involved in punting or squib kicking a season while waiting for the farm system — which Cohen said is "starting to look ...
Netanyahu's Long History of Angering U.S. Presidents
Netanyahu, a self-described expert on the U.S., is taking U.S. support for granted—in the belief that Evangelical Christians and America's tiny Jewish minority will ensure that Israel is ...
SBF Sentencing: Judge to Consider FTX Funds, Autism Diagnosis
Sam Bankman-Fried bilked FTX customers out of more than $8 billion, according to prosecutors. FTX bankruptcy lawyers say they could get all their money back. The judge sentencing Bankman-Fried on ...
Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison
Disgraced crypto mogul Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison Thursday, but the convicted fraudster could be out in half that time. The 32-year-old was sentenced to more than two ...
Crystal Mason's 5-year illegal voting sentence is overturned
Texas appeals court overturns Crystal Mason's conviction, 5-year sentence for illegal voting. Mason gained national attention after she was convicted for voting while under supervised release ...
Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison
The 25-year sentence is longer than most sentences for high-profile white-collar crimes, although Bernie Madoff received a 150-year sentence in 2009 for running a Ponzi scheme that cost victims an ...
Sam Bankman-Fried Sentenced to 25 Years in Prison
March 28, 2024 Updated 2:51 p.m. ET. Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange who was convicted of stealing billions of dollars from customers, was sentenced to 25 years ...
March 28 2024: Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison
Updated 3:29 p.m. ET, March 28, 2024. The sentence: Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison Thursday. SBF speaks: The former CEO of collapsed crypto exchange FTX apologized in a ...
Sentence Structure in English
Split up overly long sentences. Sometimes a long sentence is grammatically correct, but its length makes it difficult to follow. To make your writing clearer and more readable, avoid using too many overly long sentences. The average sentence length is around 15-25 words. If your sentence starts to exceed 30-40 words, you might want to ...
Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in federal prison
In addition to the prison sentence, Kaplan also ordered a forfeiture of $11.02 billion. The forfeiture is intended to be paid over time, and Bankman-Fried will likely be required to pay all of his ...
Triple killer played pro soccer while on the run. Now he's fighting his
Then, Scabone filed four motions with the trial court alleging that his sentence was illegal, the latest decision says. The first two were in 2004 and 2005, and they were denied, as well as ...