The average sentence length for a document written in the English language is 15-20 words, according to Dr. Kristi Siegel of Mount Mary College's English Department. Calculating the average sentence requires examining the total word count and total sentence count. Finding the average sentence length of your document can help you edit. Writers can connect short sentences through the use of conjunctions and commas to create compound sentences. Writers benefit from splitting long sentences apart into shorter ones for better readability.
Instructions
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1
Select a piece of your writing that contains at least 20 sentences. Count all the words in a hard copy document and write down the final amount or find the word count of a word processing document.
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2
Look over the document and count the number of sentences. You can speed up this process by skimming through the piece of writing and counting end punctuation points such as periods, question marks and exclamation points.
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3
Divide the number of words in the document by the number of sentences to find the average sentence length of your work of writing.