Style Standards, Part 3: Use the Branches Prudently

The two sentences below can easily be joined as one: 

We want more participation in our go-green initiatives. We encourage staff to reuse plastic cutlery.

The issue is not, however,  whether to join them but how to join them as one sentence. Since our choices are virtually limitless, we would do well to remember left-branching, mid-branching, and right-branching cumulative sentences. A left-branching sentence places additional content at the left of the base clause, a mid-branching sentence splits the base clause with additional information, and the right-branching sentences inserts content at the right of the base clause.

First, we need to decide what the base clause should be: We want more staff participation in our go-green initiatives or We encourage staff to reuse plastic cutlery. Of the six examples below, the first three make the first sentence (our intention) the base clause, and the last three make the second sentence (our suggestion) the base clause. For illustrative purposes, the base clause is in bold:

1. Left-branching: Encouraging staff to reuse plastic cutlery, we want more participation in our go-green initiatives.
2. Mid-branching: We want, by encouraging staff to reuse plastic cutlery, more participation in our go-green initiatives.
3. Right-branching: We want more participation in our go-green initiatives through staff reusing plastic cutlery.
4. Left-branching: As we want more participation in our go-green initiatives, we encourage staff to reuse plastic cutlery. 
5. Mid-branching: We, wanting more participation in our go-green initiatives, encourage staff to reuse plastic cutlery.
6. Right-branching: We encourage staff to reuse plastic cutlery for increased participation in our go-green initiatives.

Perhaps all these sentences are grammatically correct, but only sentence 6 works for me. The first three devalue the desired staff action by marginalizing it as a dependent phrase. The fourth is just difficult to understand. Long mid-branching sentences, such as the one you are reading at this moment, which, causes gratuitous ambiguity by separating the subject and verb by twenty-three words, are the most difficult branch for the average reader to grasp. Sentence 4 adds a bit too much suspense in that nine-word opening before it gets to the point. We are not writing fiction to a leisure-seeking audience; we are writing a business message to overstimulated staff. Sentence 6 gets to the point and still provides the motivation in the right branch.

Keep in mind the following tips when "branching" ideas in a sentence:

• Right-branching sentences are generally the most readable.
• Using all branches wisely cultivates a good writing style.
• Any branching sentence can fall apart syntactically if not edited carefully.
• The best way to edit cumulative sentences is to read them aloud. If they don't sound right, or if you stumble while reading them, then they need rewriting.