Imagine reading a learning text …
The first sentence grabs you gently by the hand.
And it pulls you along to the next sentence, and the next, and the next.
You’re reading and reading, and reading.
But what’s that?
A sentence yanks your arm, and your eyes widen.
When well used, sentence fragments and broken sentences have this kind of impact; they command attention and keep your learners following the narrative to the learning conclusion.
Broken sentences are controversial
Strunk and White warn against them in the often recommended bible for writers The Elements of Style.
“Do not break sentences in two”
They do make an exception for the emphatic use of a sentence fragment. But they do so a little begrudgingly. (You have to be certain the emphasis is warranted!).
Language evolves, and their advice now feels a little dated. When used well, there’s both beauty and power in broken sentences and fragments.
For instance, Nathan Hill uses sentence fragments regularly in his special novel ‘The Nix’. He showcases an informal, modern tone of writing. This style of writing might well become more popular in learning texts in the coming years.
You can use broken sentences and fragments for most genres of learning text.
Let’s see how:
- Start with But or Because (or any other conjunction)
This is probably the most common way to break up sentences. Here’s an example from Nathan Hill’s ‘The Nix’: “They’d repair to separate floors of their giant house. It was an uncomfortable life, yes, a painful life. But it was a familiar life.”
If the last six words had been merged with the sentence before, the message would have had less impact.
Punctuation is not about sticking to grammar rules. It’s a tool to adjust the tone of your writing and highlight key messages.
2. Up the emotion
When I first started designing eLearning (nearly 20 years ago), I tried to stick to conventional rules. And lately I feel my writing for eLearning has found a new level of attention capture using this technique of fragments.
Not only can it make your writing feel emotionally stronger, it adds a sense of energy. It’s easy to use. Here’s Hill again: “And he needs her to come back. Desperately, Harrowingly.”
And: “When Sebastian landed on the police car, he landed hard. On his jaw.”
And: “But this girl, she emitted a kind of danger, a flirtatiousness and fierceness that he found alien and unpredictable. Maybe even thrilling.”
Note that the super-short sentences above all contain emotional words: Desperately, Harrowingly, Thrilling. Even on his jaw is emotional as we’ve just read that he’s landed hard on the police car. You can almost feel the pain. Ouch. In writing, we can’t use hand gestures and facial expressions. That’s why we often use stronger, more emotional, or sensory words. And we can further up the emotion by putting emotional words in super-short sentences. Energetically. Emphatically.