All rules

Monotonous sentence rhythm

sentence-rhythmon by defaultJapanese / English

Sentences that are all about the same length, so the text reads as a drone

Example

Flagged
Today we look at the new tool in detail. First you open the settings page here. Then you pick the option you want to use. Next you switch the option on with a click. Finally you press save and close it. Now the first part of setup is done. Next we invite the rest of the team. The invite page sits on the left side.
What chaff prints
1:1 Sentence length varies by only 6% (want 30%)
Fixed
Today we look at the new tool. Open the settings. The gear icon at the top right opens a list of everything you can change, so pick the option you want there and switch it on. Then save. That is the first part done. Next, invite the rest of the team from the page on the left.
What chaff prints
no finding
chaff.yaml used for this example
genre: blog/tech

How to fix

Mix in short sentences. Splitting one in two is enough.

Why it matters

When every sentence is the same length, the reader loses the rhythm. It is also a common shape of generated text.

What it does not flag

List items are not counted, since a list is written alike on purpose. Prose of fewer than 8 sentences is not measured, because the spread means little.

Turning it off or relaxing it

Silence this one spot (in the document)
<!-- stet: sentence-rhythm — reason -->
Relax it for the team (the reason is kept as a comment in chaff.yaml)
npx chaffjs relax sentence-rhythm --why "reason"
Turn it off for the team (chaff.yaml)
rules: sentence-rhythm: off
Technical details
Layer
L1
Status
stable
Severity
warning
Languages
Japanese and English
Suited to
technical/readme, blog, legal, docs, academic, literature, speech

Levels

Set a level for this rule under rules in chaff.yaml. With nothing set, it runs at the level its genre gives it (see By genre below).

strictreported when sentence length varies by less than 35%
normalreported when sentence length varies by less than 30%
relaxedreported when sentence length varies by less than 20%

These genres set their own numbers for the levels (npx chaffjs explain shows them): blog

By genre

Runs by default in
technical/readme, blog/tech, blog/essay, blog/owned-media
Turned off by the genre in
legal/contract, legal/statute, legal/judgment, legal/patent, docs/manual, docs/faq, docs/glossary, academic/paper, literature/fiction, literature/essay, literature/poetry, literature/play, speech/address, speech/transcript
Not suited to, and not run in
technical/spec, business/proposal, business/report, business/email, business/press-release, business/meeting-notes

Genres

Message

Sentence length varies by only {count}% (want {limit}%)

Rewrite depth (chaff fix-plan --depth): light — words and sentences; the structure and the voice stay

Sources

This page is built from the rule's definition file:packages/chaff/rules/sentence-rhythm.yaml