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Currently, I am writing papers with rather short sentences: About half of them contain around 20 words, about 10% to 20% even less. I am doing this for three reasons: I find short sentences easi...
#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T02:14:31Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/5169 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
by
DaveBall
·
2019-12-08T02:14:31Z (almost 5 years ago)
Currently, I am writing papers with rather **short sentences** : About half of them contain around 20 words, about 10% to 20% even less. I am doing this for three reasons: - I find short sentences easier to read, - prefer to show relationships using other means, such as colons and conjunctions (e.g. thus, because of, but), - and thought the scientific community agreed upon short sentences being better. Now I did some research and came upon **contrary statements** , for instance: - [This presentation from the University of Manchester](http://www.cs.manchester.ac.uk/pgt/COMP60990/lectures/scientific_writing.pdf) advises that one use short sentences. - [This article about the science of scientific writing](http://www.docstyles.com/library/ascience.pdf) prefers long sentences. - The [ACS Style Guide](http://science.widener.edu/svb/essay/writing.pdf) promotes the happy medium. So: **Should I use long or short sentences, or a mixture, in scientific writing? Why?**
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2012-03-06T12:23:58Z (over 12 years ago)
Original score: 7