Since writers seek variety in their style, they change not only their word choice but their sentence length and structure. One way of looking at sentence structure is sentence branching. A sentence branch is secondary to the base clause, which is the part of the sentence that contains the subject and predicate. Branches can appear on the left, middle, or right side of the base clause. Here are simple examples of all three branches yielding identical 8-word-sentence counts:
Base Clause: Maria works for Apple.
Left Branch: To support her family, Maria works for Apple.
Middle Branch: Maria, who supports her family, works for Apple.
Right Branch: Maria works for Apple to support her family.
If you're thinking that the right-branching sentence is the easiest to follow and the mid-branching sentence the hardest, then good thinking. In work-related writing, you would not want to suspend the subject (in this case, Maria) for too long, as in this 36-word left branch:
To support her family, some of whom live in Greece and some in Argentina, two countries she enjoys visiting in alternating years since arriving in the United States in 2002 to work as an IT analyst, Maria works for Apple.
As bad as that sentence is, see those 36 words as an even more confusing middle branch:
Maria, who supports her family, some of whom live in Greece and some in Argentina, two countries she enjoys visiting in alternating years since arriving in the United States in 2002 to work as an IT analyst, works for Apple.
Now notice how much better the sentence reads as a right branch:
Maria works for Apple to support her family, some of whom live in Greece and some in Argentina, two countries she enjoys visiting in alternating years since arriving in the United States in 2002 to work as an IT analyst.
Are you feeling it? If you think that sentences like these are a figment of my imagination, read The New York Times, which in its November 30 issue reported in "Henry Kissinger Is Dead at 100; Shaped the Nation's Cold War History" this first middle-branch sentence:
Henry A. Kissinger, the scholar-turned-diplomat who engineered the United States’ opening to China, negotiated its exit from Vietnam, and used cunning, ambition and intellect to remake American power relationships with the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War, sometimes trampling on democratic values to do so, died on Wednesday at his home in Kent, Conn.
That 57-word sentence shows a base clause of 12 words and a highlighted middle branch of 45 words. When we put our subject (in this case, Henry A. Kissinger) and our verb (died) in different sides of the Atlantic Ocean, our readers will get lost along the way.
You may reasonably wonder, then, why would The New York Times write a sentence like that? Because it's entertaining and surprising. After reading the words engineered, negotiated, and used, the writer sets us up to think the sentence will end predictably. These are things that Secretaries of State do. Then out of nowhere around the bend comes sometimes trampling on democratic values to do so. Wow! You weren't expecting that, were you?
I am not encouraging you to write endless middle-branching sentences unless you're writing fiction. But do think about sentences you already commonly write, like these:
- Left Branch: If you need help with the project, please call me.
- Middle Branch: Paula, who worked with us for five years, will visit the office today.
- Right Branch: We should buy the laptop to be more available from remote locations and to have complete access to needed files.
Mix up the branches. Don't let them run too long. Have fun.
