Long Sentences Versus Short Sentences

Below is an excerpt of a letter written by a candidate in an examination.
Read it and judge for yourself.

Nana, I am by this letter wanting to express by deepest and most profound gratitude to you for the wonderful reception you bestowed upon me and my family and my family when we paid an unannounced visit to your house on the sudden demise of your father during the yulitide.


A sentence is a group of meaningful words . Simply put a sentence is the group of words which has meaning.

There are three kinds of sentences. These  are Simple, Compound and Complex Sentences.

There is yet another type which most students prefer which is a group of words which make no sense or meaning. These type of sentences also attract low marks.

Candidates who prefer long sentences or complex sentences have the following to contend with.

1. High rate of grammatical errors.
Most of the candidates who like writing long sentences or complex sentences usually have high rate of grammatical errors.  Some of them include wrong punctuation, wrongful amalgamation of words, wrong use of Subject - Verb Agreements,  etc.

2. Break in thought.
Most Of the long sentences identified by Examiners contain disconnected thought or meaningless thoughts. This is due to the inability of candidates to maintain the thought process contained in their sentences.

3. Spelling Errors.
Most candidates have difficulty spelling some words. So the use of long or complex sentences will reveal most of these words and therefore cause the students to loose more marks.