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Sometimes one has difficult things to say, but one ought to say them as simply as one knows how.

G. H. HARDY

Simple sentences are the best way to express complex thoughts. If you are just starting out and English is not your first language, you may find it difficult to control the length of your sentences. If your first language is German, you may have a natural tendency to write sentences of obscene length. It is important that you put this tendency away when you write in English.

I offer two pieces of advice to students who have problems constructing simple sentences. First, use only one idea per sentence. Second, write your sentences as direct or straightforward statements. Such sentences (like this one) have the subject at the start. The verb and the object follow straight away. There is no long, explanatory phrase at the beginning of a direct sentence. There is no marginal information somewhere in the middle.

Another way to find out about direct sentences is to listen to how people talk to each other. People talk in short sentences, even in German. One of the secrets of the most able science writers is that they write as if they were speaking to the reader. This automatically leads them to use simple, straightforward sentences. Jacob Bronowski's wonderful book “The Ascent of Man” is a fine example. In the videos that accompany this book, two of the students very effectively empahsise this point by speaking in short, clear sentences (see section 7.4).

Box 2.1 provides you with four sentences that are too long. Can you split them into two? section 2.5.1 has some suggestions.

Writing short, straightforward sentences is a starting point. Of course, it is necessary to add minor points or to qualify the content of a sentence in scientific writing. For instance, a common construction to qualify the content in scientific writing is the escape route or disclaimer. In this construction, a scientist first makes a clear statement. A second part then follows, indicating that the statement is probably not true for every situation. For example, consider the following two sentences which a virologist might hopefully write one day.

“We have developed a vaccine against HIV. However, we have not yet tested it against all known strains of HIV.”

The second sentence qualifies the direct statement in the first. This allows the scientist to escape in case the vaccine is not universally applicable. The meaning is clearly expressed by the two sentences. However, combining the sentences connects the qualification or escape route more closely with the first sentence.

“We have developed a vaccine against HIV, although we have not yet tested it against all known strains of HIV.”

With more practice and experience, you can begin to construct sentences with more than one idea and qualify statements with one sentence as above. Always keep in mind, though, that simpler sentences are generally more manageable.

Box 2.1Shortening sentences by splitting them into two

These four sentences are too long and should be split into shorter ones. What would you suggest? Compare your ideas with mine in section 2.5.1.

1. To be a good scientist, you have to be tolerant and patient when experiments or interpretations do not turn out as you had predicted, you must be able to stand high levels of frustration.

2. 62% of certified drug addicts believe that cannabis has effects on the behaviour of car drivers and machine operators which lengthen their reaction time, 45% of students shared this opinion and only 38% of customers interviewed at discotheques were aware of this negative effect of cannabis.

3. Finally, the correlation has been clearly shown, even though not all parameters have as yet been investigated and further investigations have to be done.

4. This results in texts which are extremely difficult to read as well as revealing to the world that their authors are clueless about paragraph structure.