Sentence Counter
Break a draft into sentences and paragraphs, read the average sentence and paragraph length, and surface the longest sentences that make readers stall, with any above 25 words flagged to split. Abbreviations like “Dr.” and “e.g.”, single initials, decimals, and runs of terminators are handled so they do not miscount, and the whole analysis runs on your device as you edit.
How Sentence Counter works
Paste a draft, an email, or a section of a document.
Review the sentence and paragraph totals with average lengths.
Scan the longest sentences list for candidates to split.
Rewrite in place — the analysis updates as you edit.
When to use Sentence Counter
- Breaking up a paragraph that has swelled into one unbroken sentence, using the longest-sentences list to find exactly where to cut.
- Checking the average sentence length of an essay or article before you hand it in, aiming for the comfortable middle of the range.
- Reviewing an email or cover letter for a sentence that runs too long to follow on first read.
- Auditing a section pasted from a Word or Google Docs draft where the rhythm feels dense but the word count looks fine.
- Confirming a paragraph count for a brief that specifies a number of paragraphs rather than a number of words.
- Reading the sentences-per-paragraph average to catch paragraphs that have grown into walls of text.
- Varying cadence in a piece that reads choppy, using the average to see whether your sentences are consistently too short.
- Verifying that abbreviations like “Dr.” or “e.g.” in a draft are not being miscounted as extra sentences by a naive counter.
Examples
Input
Dr. Ellis reviewed the draft. The opening paragraph, which introduced the three arguments, restated the brief, previewed the conclusion, and hinted at the appendix, ran to well over thirty words before it reached a full stop. She suggested two shorter sentences.
Output
3 sentences in 1 paragraph, averaging roughly 15 words per sentence. The middle sentence tops the longest-sentences panel at 34 words and is flagged amber, since it sits above the 25-word mark where readers tend to lose the thread. The Averages note reads “A comfortable average for web reading.”
“Dr.” is on the abbreviation guard list, so the period after it does not open a second sentence by mistake.
Input
J. R. R. Tolkien sold 3.5 million copies. Sales grew.
Output
2 sentences, not five or six. The single initials “J.”, “R.”, and “R.” are recognised as parts of a name, and the “3.5” is read as a decimal rather than a boundary, so only the full stops after “copies” and “grew” close a sentence.
Single-letter tokens ending in a period are treated as initials, which is why the abbreviation guard does not need to list every name.
Input
Are you serious?! That changes everything!!!
Output
2 sentences. The “?!” after “serious” closes one sentence and the “!!!” after “everything” closes the second; a run of terminators is consumed together rather than counted as several empty sentences.
The same logic keeps an emphatic “Stop!!!” from registering as three sentences.
Input
It rained. We left. The car stalled. We waited.
Output
4 sentences averaging 2 words each, across 1 paragraph. The Averages note switches to “Short, punchy sentences. Varying the length adds rhythm.” because the average has fallen below eight words.
The panel’s guidance changes with the average — long, comfortable, or short — so the number comes with a read on what to do about it.
How Sentence Counter works under the hood
A sentence closes at a full stop, question mark, or exclamation mark that is followed by whitespace or the end of the text. A terminator with nothing after it — inside a URL or a version number like 2.0 — is not treated as a break, because a real sentence boundary is followed by a space or the end of the input.
Runs of terminators are consumed as one. “?!” and “!!!” each close a single sentence rather than spawning several empty ones, so emphatic punctuation does not inflate the count. A run of two or more full stops is read as an ellipsis mid-thought and does not end a sentence at all.
Abbreviations are guarded by a deliberately short list — Mr, Mrs, Ms, Dr, Prof, Sr, Jr, St, vs, etc, e.g, i.e, fig, approx, Inc, Ltd, Co, No, Vol, p.m, and a.m — so the period in “Dr. Chen” does not start a new sentence. The list is kept small on purpose: an over-eager one starts merging genuinely separate sentences.
Single initials are handled without being listed. Any one-letter token ending in a period, such as “J.” in “J. R. R. Tolkien”, is treated as an initial rather than a sentence end, which covers names the abbreviation list could never enumerate.
Decimals are protected too. A full stop sitting directly between two digits, as in “3.5 million”, is read as a decimal point, so numeric prose does not fracture into extra sentences. Paragraphs are separated by a blank line — one or more line breaks with only whitespace between them — so a soft-wrapped block stays a single paragraph.
The averages are simple ratios. Words per sentence is total words divided by sentences, and sentences per paragraph is total sentences divided by paragraphs; both read “—” until there is something to divide. The longest-sentences panel lists the five sentences with the most words, longest first, marking any above 25 words in amber as a candidate to split.
Common mistakes
- Expecting an exact count from informal or heavily punctuated text. The detector is tuned for ordinary prose; ellipses, em dashes standing in for full stops, and abbreviations outside the guard list can each shift the number by a sentence, so read it as a close estimate for edge-case writing.
- Reading a low average as automatically good. A run of very short sentences can read as choppy, which is why the panel flags an average below eight words as a prompt to vary length rather than as a target to hit.
- Trusting the average alone to find a problem passage. A single forty-word sentence can hide inside a healthy overall average, so the longest-sentences panel — not the average — is where the sentence worth splitting usually shows up.
- Assuming every period ends a sentence. Version numbers, file names, decimals, initials, and listed abbreviations all contain periods that are not boundaries; the counter guards against these, which is why its total can be lower than a plain count of full stops.
- Mistaking a single line break for a paragraph break. Paragraphs are separated by a blank line, so soft-wrapped or hard-wrapped lines within a block still count as one paragraph — insert an empty line to register a new one.
- Pasting a bulleted list and expecting each item to be one sentence. A bullet without terminating punctuation can be grouped with the next fragment, so lists are exactly the kind of non-prose input where the count drifts.