Doctor! We need the paramedic method. Stat!

Long sentences are harder to read and can distract from the thesis of your writing. Although long sentences can sound intelligent they can be confusing and may need to be reread numerous times to gather the though they were suppose to share. A method used to help shorten sentences, yet still share the information it was suppose to share is called the paramedic method. This method breaks sentences down into small parts and reforms them with the basic information still contained. Below is an example of the paramedic method in action.

The first step is to find a long sentence that is in need of attention:

The large red book sitting on the hall table was a dictionary published by an encyclopedia company in the United States.

There we go, this one should do. The next step is to break this down into smaller parts. This is done simply by dividing the sentence at prepositions and forms of the verb "is".

The large red book sitting
on the hall table
was a dictionary published
by an encyclopedia company
in the United States.

Now we need to find the action in the sentence or sometimes hidden action and restate it in a simple action verb. Now we can state the subject and the action quickly and early in the sentence.

The red book is a dictionary.

Here we are using 6 words instead of 21 words for a  71% more efficient sentence.