Twelve questions for one sentence.

The same lenses the Clinic uses — load, verb, detail, rhythm — arranged as a self-diagnostic. It will not mark your sentence; it will help you see it, and point you to the entry that rebuilds what you find.

Your sentence

Now hold the sentence against each question, and tick the ones that are true of it. Honest ticks only — the checklist can’t see the sentence, so it can only be as truthful as you are.

LoadIt joins three or more events with and, but or because.Read aloud, you run out of breath before the full stop.You couldn't say which of its clauses matters most.

VerbAn adverb is propping up the main verb (quickly ran, loudly shut).The main verb is one of: is, was, went, got, said, did.Cutting the adverb would leave the sentence saying less than you meant.

DetailIt announces a feeling or quality (creepy, nervous, beautiful) without evidence.It contains very, really, extremely or so.A reader couldn't draw the scene from what the sentence gives them.

RhythmIt's nearly the same length as its neighbours on the page.It opens the same way as the sentence before it (same subject, same shape).Read aloud with its neighbours, the paragraph sounds like a metronome.

Why this isn’t an automatic marker

A machine that grades your sentence teaches you to please the machine. These twelve questions work the other way: they train the editorial eye itself — the habit of holding your own sentence at arm’s length and asking what it is doing. That habit, once built, comes with you into the exam room, which is the one place no tool can follow.

One student, one practitioner, and a thread held steady week by week until the voice on the page is unmistakably theirs.

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