Cleaning Up Your Sentences

Chopping run-ons

I've noticed a tendency, especially in academia, for writers to collect as many sentence clauses, or entire sentences, into a single string that can drone on forever and never really give the reader a chance to pause for a breath, or give them an opportunity to process the words that they're reading into a complete thought so that they can easily digest and understand the words that are filling their minds as their eyes scan the words on the page or in the topic that is being read by them.

Sentences like the above are bad for one primary reason. They're too long. While language is a machine that can concatenate phrases ad nauseam, our ability to understand that machine's creations are limited (see Words and Rules, by Steven Pinker for an in-depth look at how language works). So, you should take a run-on sentence like the one above and chop it into smaller sentences. Here are some guidelines I use when I'm writing:

Avoid concatenating complete sentences
original: The Color Palate allows you to select any color currently stored in your Color Catalog and the Color Catalog stores both standard and custom color definitions.
revision: The Color Palate allows you to select any color currently stored in your Color Catalog. The Color Catalog stores both standard and custom color definitions.
Avoid embedded phrases
original: The Address dialog, in the context of creating new contact records, specifies the mailing address.
revision: The Address dialog specifies the mailing address for new contact records.
Use a single sentence for a single thought
original: The Tag Editor, accessed through the Edit menu, allows you to create and modify font and paragraph settings, which you can also do using the Tag Manager.
revision: The Tag Editor allows you to create and modify font and paragraph settings. You can access the Tag Editor through the Edit menu. Many of the Tag Editor's functions are similar to the functions in the Tag Manager.

I would revise the first paragraph of this topic as follows:

I've noticed a tendency for some writers to collect as many sentence clauses, or entire sentences, into a single string that can drone on forever. This tendency is especially prevalent in academia. Readers simply don't get the chance to digest and understand such sentences. They can't even pause for a breath.