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Young Writers Society


Sentence Fluency Exercise



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Thu Feb 21, 2008 6:27 am
Teague says...



I can't believe I haven't posted this yet. Meh.

This is a really good way to check your sentence fluency in your writing. My 8th grade English teacher had us do it and boy does it help. I'm at the point where I do it mentally. It's both annoying and a godsend at the same time.

What you do is this, and it's best to do this in a table format:

1) Take your whole piece or an excerpt from your piece. Your choice.
2) Number each sentence.
3) Write the first four words of each sentence next to its number.
4) Count the total number of words in the sentence and write that as well.

This will show you any trends in sentence length and beginning. Now remember, you do have creative license as an author, and if the situation merits it, your sentence beginnings can be the same. Generally speaking, though, it's a bad thing.

This'll show you where you need to vary your sentence lengths/beginnings. It's actually really handy, because then you notice if you're doing something like "I have a cat. I also have a dog. I also have another dog." etc. etc.

Oh, and if there aren't four words in the sentence, that's okay. That happened to me the first time I did this. xD

Enjoy!
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Thu Feb 21, 2008 5:46 pm
Shafter says...



This is a great idea! I struggle constantly with rhythm (I think I was born with a tin ear), so this would be helpful. Cool...
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Thu Feb 21, 2008 6:12 pm
Emerson says...



Now all we need is a program that does this for us! :D


No, haha, really, this is an awesome idea!
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Wed Mar 05, 2008 4:10 am
Lynlyn says...



Yeah, this sounds like a great idea. I'll use this on my essay that I'm writing. Right now. Like, the one I'm not procrastinating on. Yup.
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Wed Mar 05, 2008 7:00 am
gyrfalcon says...



This is fantastic! I had to teach myself to do this mentally (table idea is great though) and now that I've kind of got it ingrained it really annoys me when I see it in other people's stories (or even published books!). Thanks for a great tip, Sir Saint.
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Sat Mar 08, 2008 1:50 am
niteowl says...



I had a teacher who required that every sentence starter be different in each paragraph. She also made us limit our "being" verbs and subject-verb starts (e.g. "I went to the store." It was very useful and helps establish good writing habits. This is a good tip.
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