# Sentence Complexity Audit

Identify overloaded sentences and plan restructuring that preserves logical relationships, necessary qualifications, sequence, emphasis, and technical accuracy.

## Usage note

Use complexity signals to locate sentences for human review, not enforce a universal length. A long sentence can express one clear relationship, while a short one can remain ambiguous. Preserve conditions, exceptions, causal links, and attribution; consequential revisions need source or subject review.

## How to use this template

1. Define the reader task and flag sentences using clause, reference, condition, and memory-load signals.
2. Label the main idea and every necessary logical relationship in each flagged sentence.
3. Select a restructuring strategy that preserves scope, qualification, sequence, and attribution.
4. Compare the revision with the source and request specialist review where meaning is consequential.
5. Read the paragraph in context, test important actions, and record unresolved ambiguity.

## Blank template

### Audit context

- **Document and audience:** [Title and reader]
- **Reader task:** [What must they do?]
- **Risk of misreading:** [Consequence]
- **Editor:** [Name]
- **Source or expert:** [Reference]
- **Target section:** [Scope]

### Flagged sentence

- **Sentence ID:** [Location]
- **Original:** [Exact text]
- **Main idea:** [Primary actor and action]
- **Clause count:** [Approximate]
- **Conditions or exceptions:** [List]
- **Reference problem:** [Pronoun, demonstrative, or None]
- **Noun or modifier stack:** [Phrase]
- **Sequence burden:** [What must be remembered?]
- **Reason to revise:** [Reader effect]

### Restructuring plan

- **Strategy:** [Split / Reorder / List / Define / Activate verb / Retain]
- **Relationship map:** [Cause, condition, contrast, sequence, attribution]
- **Revised version:** [Draft]
- **Necessary repetition:** [Subject or term repeated for clarity]
- **Qualification position:** [Where the limit appears]
- [ ] Actor, action, timing, quantity, and certainty are unchanged.
- [ ] No condition became an optional afterthought.
- [ ] List items are genuinely parallel.

### Verification

- **Source comparison:** [Result]
- **Expert check:** [Name, status, and scope]
- **Paragraph flow:** [Effect]
- **Reader test:** [Method and result]
- **Open query:** [Question and owner]
- **Decision:** [Accept / Revise / Retain original]