The Writing Brain
University of Exeter

Building Effective Sentences: Word Order

The goal of every sentence is to convey its point as clearly and effectively as possible. 

That’s it.

The difficulty is that to their author sentences are pretty much always clear – you’re the one writing them, so you know what they mean. But from the page just previous you know that good writing isn’t about what you understand; it’s about what your readers can understand.  This means that you can’t stop at “I understand it, so it’s fine.”

The fact is that your first draft is probably not going to convey information as clearly and effectively as possible (which is the goal, remember?).  And for most writers, even very advanced ones, the common block on the road to clarity and effectiveness is word order.

Sentences work best when the elements in them that work together are next to each other. In order to qualify as a sentence, a phrase must have a subject and a verb.¹  The subject and verb are therefore a unit of strength, and their strength comes from being next to each other:

I walk.

Think of a sentence as a unit built on suspense.  Each word before the full stop prompts a

question:

I          (yes? you what?)

walk    (okay. Are you going somewhere?)

.           (oh, no, you’re not.)

¹ Be aware: this is a necessary BUT NOT sufficient condition.

Admittedly, “I walk” is not the most exciting story in the world, but you now see it has a tiny bit of suspense.  Some sentences, which have direct and/or indirect objects, tell more exciting stories:

I                      (yes, we’ve already had that.)

walk                (I remember.)

to the store      (ah! you were going somewhere!)

to kill a man.  (I didn’t see that coming! Tell me more…)

You must create this suspense effectively if you are to keep readers’ attention.  Because of this, you have to be sure to put elements in a sentence that go together next to each other (you will see that this simple rule has very wide-reaching implications).  Most importantly, this means do not split your subject and your verb. 

The single most common way split their subjects and verbs is by placing an introductory phrase between them:

Watson, although he seemed quite important (introductory phrase), did nothing.

An introductory phrase, as its name suggests, is a phrase that introduces a sentence or a thought; there are also introductory words.  Because it introduces, it belongs at the beginning of  the sentence:

Although he seemed quite important, Watson did nothing.

As you see, this keeps your subject and verb next to each other.  You will also notice that it makes the impact of your sentence stronger:  in the first version, Watson’s lack of importance was an aside; in the second version it’s clear he was just a hanger-on (poor Watson!).

Because no other unit of strength in a sentence is as strong as a subject and a verb, you can put

introductory words and phrases after the main verb clause (subject plus verb):

It becomes (main verb clause), thus (Introductory word), unnecessary.

As this case shows, though, putting the word or phrase there isn’t always necessary, and it doesn’t make for smoother writing.

Practical Solutions:

Check to see if your sentence’s subject and verb are next to each other. If they’re not, can you move the element between them to the beginning or end of the sentence?  If so, do so.

Look for words and phrases that come between two commas, and for words that end in “ly” (fortunately, confusingly…). These are often introductory words and phrases, and you can move them to the beginning of the sentence.

There is a whole category of words called “Subordinating Conjunctions.” These words often begin an introductory phrase.  If you see one of them in the middle of a sentence, you may have a misplaced introductory phrase on your hands.

Most common subordinating conjunctions:

as, even though, since, whereas, although, in order that, so that, while, because, just as, though, even if, provided that, unless

Try to think of your sentence as a unit of strength. Words become stronger when they are linked to the words they affect.  For this reason, putting your verb next to your noun increases strength, putting an adverb next to the verb it modifies increases strength, and so on.

Be Aware of These:

Because placing introductory words and phrases between subjects and verbs is such a common error, writers often do it without thinking. Therefore, it’s always a good idea to check.

You can also place introductory words and phrases at the end of a sentence, if that’s logically effective. This will help you to vary your sentence structure.

Sometimes a word or phrase that looks introductory is actually a modifier: in those cases, you don’t have to move it (although often you can, if you want).

Glenn, who was very tall, could reach high shelves.

Glenn, although tall, did not like to touch things on high shelves.

“However,” is actually not an introductory word. You should try to insert it later in the sentence, after at least three words. A good place to try is directly after the main verb clause.

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