Syntactic Complexity and Writing Quality: A Review

This article examines the relationship between syntactic complexity (especially as measured by T-unit and clause length) and quality of written composition. Various strands of research over the past fifteen years seem to support the view that the two are positively related. The studies reviewed fall into two broad categories: (a) intervention studies designed to increase syntactic complexity and to examine the effect of such increases on the quality of written composition; and (b) a set of diverse studies which examine the relationship between syntactic complexity and writing quality. The conclusions are: (a) that neither T-unit length nor clause length is a good predictor of writing quality; and (b) that, while sentencecombining studies sometimes seem to improve writing quality, the improvement is probably due to factors other than increases in T-unit and clause length. Implications for teachers in the field are listed.