The core of every phrase in English is the subject-verb (S-V) relationship. When you put modifiers, phrases, or clauses between these essential parts, ❌ you can make it harder for the readers to understand you. 😩
Readers expect subjects to be close to verbs. By reducing this distance ✔, you avoid building tension, which makes your writing more relaxed and clearer. 😃
Example:
Before: A solar power plant (S) with a central collector design, sun-tracking capability, and a temporary power storage facility will be built (V) in the desert.
➥ After: A solar power plant (S) will be built (V) in the desert. This plant (S) will have (V) a central collector design, sun-tracking capability, and a temporary power storage facility.
Finally, the natural word order of an English sentence is subject-verb-object. This is how you first learned to write sentences, and it is still the best way.
This material is based on the following resources with some additions and modifications from Gavin Lucas and Valeria Di Giacomo.
- https://www.plainlanguage.gov/guidelines/concise/keep-the-subject-verb-and-object-close-together/
- https://www.onlinemathlearning.com/sentence-patterns.html
- https://study.cardiffmet.ac.uk/AcSkills/Documents/Guides/AS_Guide_Sentence_Structure_SVO.pdf
- https://sites.google.com/view/reasonedwriting/home/REASONED_WRITING/SIMPLICITY/SIMPLIFYING_WRITING/SIMPLE_SENTENCE_STRUCTURE
- https://sites.duke.edu/scientificwriting/lesson-1-subjects-and-actions/
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