If your writing feels flat, repetitive, or confusing, it usually signals a sentence structural issue, not a problem with the core idea. But don’t give up just yet. Here are 9 practical methods for how you can easily restructure your sentences.
1. Change Passive Voice to Active Voice (Or Vice Versa)
The difference is simple: in the active voice, the subject is the one doing the action. In the passive voice, the subject is receiving the action.
For instance, in the active voice, “The editor revised the manuscript,” the editor (subject) is doing the revising (verb).
In the passive voice, the same idea becomes, “The manuscript was revised by the editor.” The manuscript is now the subject, and it’s receiving the action.
While active voice is better for creating clear, direct, and energetic writing, the passive voice isn’t entirely useless.
So, when should you use paassive voice? If you want emphasize or focus on the object of the action rather than the actor.
Let’s take a closer look:
“The ancient vase was accidentally shattered during the move.” (Focus is on the vase/tragedy, not who broke it.)
Another situation when passive voice is applicable is when you don’t don’t know who performed the action, or it doesn’t matter.
Example: “A decision was made to close the facility.”
Active Voice Example: “The software company launched a major update.”
Passive Voice Restructure: “A major update was launched by the software company.”
Tip: In this restructuring example, you swap the subject and object, adjust the verb form to include a form of “to be” and the past participle, and often adding “by” before the original subject.
2. Remove Redundant Words
Many sentences gain unnecessary length from phrases like “completely unique,” “past history,” or “basic essentials.” These pairings are often redundant because unique is, by definition, complete, and history is, by definition, in the past.
Redundant Example: “In my opinion, I personally believe that the final end result will be a huge disaster.”
Restructured Sentence: “The final result will be a disaster.”
Notice how the restructured sentence is faster and more authoritative. The change in structure comes from collapsing descriptive phrases into single, potent words.
Remember, when you strip away redundancy, the sentence’s core message becomes instantly stronger and more impactful.
3. Use Parallelism
Parallelism, or parallel structure, means keeping items that have the same job in a sentence in the same grammatical format. This is usually for things in a list, matching verbs, or matching parts of a sentence.
When you line up your ideas this way, your sentences have better pacing and rhythm, which in turn makes it easier for readers to follow and understand what you are trying to say.
Here are some examples of how this works:
Non-Parallel Example: “She enjoyed running, to hike in the mountains, and painting landscapes.” (Mixes gerund, infinitive phrase, and gerund phrase)
Parallel Restructure: “She enjoyed running, hiking in the mountains, and painting landscapes.” (All gerund phrases)
Restructuring for parallelism can also apply to larger structures like clauses:
Non-Parallel Clause Example: “The consultant advised us on ways to cut costs and how we could improve customer outreach.”
Parallel Clause Restructure: “The consultant advised us on ways to cut costs and ways to improve customer outreach.”
Tip: Parallelism often requires changing the form of the verbs or phrases to match the first item in the list or comparison.
4. Remove Specifics
Sometimes, a sentence becomes tangled because it’s trying to hold too much secondary detail. If you remove these specifics you can simplify the structure, making the primary point of the sentence stand out clearly.
Example: “Because the local grocery store, which had been in the neighborhood for forty years and survived three different owners, was finally forced to close due to rising rent and a lack of foot traffic, the residents were upset.”
Restructured Sentence: “Residents were upset when the long-standing neighborhood grocery store closed down.”
With this sentence-restructuring technique, you keep the important information while saving the extra details for later in the text.
5. Add Details
Now, if your sentence sounds too plain, short, or doesn’t offer enough explanation, you can add details or context.
Example: “The team won the championship.”
Restructured Sentence: “The resilient, underdog team, driven by a season of near-misses and a veteran quarterback’s final chance, finally won the championship in a shocking overtime victory.”
Here are different ways you can add more details to your sentences:
- Extra descriptions in commas: You can add phrases right next to a noun to describe it further (like “a veteran quarterback’s final chance”).
- Better descriptive words: Use stronger adjectives (like resilient, underdog) and adverbs to make your writing more vivid.
- Phrases that act like adjectives: Include short phrases that start with verbs but work as descriptors (like “driven by a season of near-misses”).
6. Reduce Nominalizations
Nominalization happens when you take a verb or an adjective and turn it into a noun.
For example, changing the verb decide into the noun decision, or the adjective hazy into the noun haziness.
When you reduce nominalizations, you restructure the sentence by moving the true action back to the verb position, making the prose more direct and forceful.
Nominalization Example: “The students made the decision to conduct an analysis of the data collection methods.” (The real action is buried in decision, analysis, and collection.)
Restructured Sentence: “The students decided to analyze how they collected the data.”
Tip: Restructuring involves identifying the noun that should be a verb and then reworking the entire sentence around that new, strong verb. This usually eliminates unnecessary prepositions (like of or on) and weak verbs (like make or have), leading to a simpler, shorter, and more vigorous structure.
7. Use Verbals
Verbals are word forms derived from a verb but functioning as a different part of speech (noun, adjective, or adverb). The three types of verbals—infinitives, participles, and gerunds—are an excellent way to restructure sentences for variety and conciseness, especially by adding sophisticated modifying phrases.
Verbals enhance sentence structure by packing extra information into a phrase without needing a separate clause.
- Infinitives (to + verb): Function as nouns, adjectives, or adverbs.
Example: “To write clearly is the ultimate goal.” (Functions as the subject/noun)
- Gerunds (verb + -ing): Function as nouns.
Example: “Editing late at night often introduces new errors.” (Functions as the subject/noun)
- Participles (verb + -ing or past tense form): Function as adjectives.
Example: “Having revised the first three chapters, the author took a break.” (Participial phrase modifies the author)
Example without Verbals: “Because she was motivated, she worked through the weekend.”
Restructured with a Verbal (Participle): “Motivated, she worked through the weekend.”
Tip: Restructuring with verbals often transforms a subordinate clause (like “Because she was motivated…”) into a more concise and descriptive phrase
8. Choose Another Sentence Structure Type
The foundation of effective writing lies in varying the four main sentence structures: simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex.
- Simple: One independent clause.
Example: “The market rebounded quickly.”
- Compound: Two or more independent clauses linked with a coordinating conjunction or semicolon.
Example: “The market rebounded quickly, but investors remained cautious.”
- Complex: This structure has one independent clause and one or more dependent clauses.
Example: “Although the market rebounded quickly, investors remained cautious.”
- Compound-Complex: With this structure, you have two (or more) independent clauses. Yoiu also have one or more dependent clauses.
Example: “Because the market rebounded quickly, investors relaxed, and the firm decided to buy new assets.”
Tip: Over-relying on one type—especially simple sentences—makes the writing feel choppy, while too many complex sentences can overwhelm the reader. Using all is the best way to go.
9. Use Writing With AI’s Sentence Restructure Prompt
Using a specialized AI tool can be helpful, especially when you need a completely fresh perspective on a tangled sentence or are struggling to identify the specific structural issue.
But before you sign up or pay for an AI sentence rewriter, here’s a dedicated sentence restructure prompt. It can analyze your text and offer several high-value alternatives based on the techniques discussed above. To use this prompt, simply copy and paste it to ChatGPT or Gemini.
Your task is to restructure the sentence provided below.
In your response, produce multiple revised versions of the sentence. Each revision must explicitly demonstrate one or more of the following considerations:
Change passive voice to active voice (or vice versa)
Remove redundant or unnecessary words
Use parallelism
Remove or generalize specifics
Reduce nominalizations
Use verbals (gerunds, infinitives, or participles)
Apply a different sentence structure (simple, compound, complex, or compound-complex)
Present each revision in a side-by-side format that includes:
The original sentence
The restructured sentence
A label identifying the consideration(s) applied
A brief explanation of the changes
Original sentence:
[Insert sentence here]Final Thoughts
Restructuring sentences is really about making your message clear and strong. Hopefully, these 9 methods, like using verbals or cutting out heavy nouns, will help you change the pace and make your work much more interesting to read.
And, if you have used AI to generate your paragraphs, don’t make these mistakes.