Joseph M. Williams 教授在其英文寫作經典著作《Style: Ten lessons in clarity and grace》中指出，關係子句可以改寫成概括修飾語 (resumptive modifier)、統合修飾語 (summative modifier)、或自由修飾語 (free modifier) 以延伸思路並讓文句產生不同的流動性與節奏感。
以下簡介這幾個讓長句的結構概念更清晰的寫作工具。
1. 概括修飾語 (resumptive modifier)
說明：概括修飾語用以修飾主要子句句尾的關鍵字，透過重複該關鍵字作為同位語再加上修飾語（常用關係子句）進一步發展說明此一關鍵字，用以延伸思路、強調、或補充說明相關資訊。尤其是在該關鍵字已經使用了一些修飾語進行修飾後，若繼續使用關係詞（which, that）進一步發展說明，由於與先行詞已經隔了一段距離而不容易看出關係詞所指的是前述的哪個名詞而容易造成模糊不清，此時適合使用概括修飾語，再重覆一次前面想進一步說明的先行詞，再用修飾語進一步發展說明，以讓文意清析。
此外也可以用 “one” 代替主要子句的關鍵字展開概括修飾語。概括修飾語的句法製造出一種獨特的流動性與節奏感，也讓含有許多修飾語的長句可以斷句，讓讀者更容易閱讀。
例句一：Where we love is home, home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
(家，是愛之所在。也許我們腳步漸遠，但心從未離開。)
例句二：Edith looked out on the morning, the soft bright morning that struck her dazzled dazzling eyes. — Henry Green
(伊迪絲望著外面的早晨，這個柔和明亮的早晨使她眼花繚亂。)
例句三：This is yet another challenge to democracy as a system, a system that has been serially shaken in recent years. We’re still recovering from the financial crisis of 2008; we are struggling to deal with the climate emergency. And now there is this. It is daunting, no doubt. But we are still in charge of our fate. If we want it to stay that way, we have not a moment to waste. — The Guardian
(這是對民主作為一種體制的另一個挑戰，這種體制近年來不斷動搖。我們仍在從 2008 年的金融危機中恢復中；我們正在努力應對氣候的緊急狀況。現在有這個毫無疑問是令人生畏的。但我們仍然掌握著自己的命運。如果我們希望它保持這種狀態，我們就沒有時間可以浪費。)
例句四：Alfred Hitchcock’s 1956 motion picture ‘‘The Man Who Knew Too Much’’ dramatizes the geopolitical status of babies. Or at least that is how I currently see the film, even though there are basically no babies in it. This somewhat eccentric read on a classic is most likely attributable to the fact that I am a mother and have a baby almost constantly on my mind. But I would also point out that the plot of the movie is held together by a song — a song that a mother sings to her child. — The New York Times
(阿爾弗雷德·希區柯克 1956 年的電影《知道太多的人》將嬰兒的地緣政治身分戲劇化。或者至少我目前是這樣看這部電影的，儘管裡面基本上沒有嬰兒。這種對經典有些異乎尋常的看法很可能是因為我是一個母親並且幾乎一直在想著孩子。但我還要指出，這部電影的情節是由一首歌串聯的 — — 一首母親唱給她孩子的歌。)
例句五：More than a decade ago, my then 12-year-old son, Luke, a boy enchanted by Dai Vernon’s card tricks, a pack forever in his hands, found that the many hours he’s spent learning the Erdnase color change was not a necessarily rewarded act in eighth grade. I fought a good fight on his behalf to cut down on homework — a fight that landed eventually on the front page of this newspaper — exactly because homework was cutting into his magic. — The New York Times
(十多年前，我的兒子盧克當時十二歲 — — 一個被戴·福農的紙牌魔術迷住的男孩 — — 他手裡總拿著一副紙牌，花了很多時間學習艾德內斯的紙牌變色戲法，但八年級的他並沒有因此得到老師的認可。我為他打了一場漂亮仗，替他減少了家庭作業，因為家庭作業妨礙了他練習魔術，這一仗後來上了本報頭版的報導。)
例句六：“Babies’ auditory processing or hearing sense is actually the most important sense they have for the first two years of their lives, the sense that gathers the most information about their world,” said Dr. Collins, an associate fellow in music, mind and well-being at the University of Melbourne, Australia, and the author of the forthcoming book “The Lullaby Effect.” — The New York Times
(澳洲墨爾本大學音樂、心靈和幸福研究副研究員柯林斯博士（即將出版新書《搖籃曲效應》）說：「嬰兒的聽覺處理或聽覺其實是他們生命頭兩年擁有的最重要知覺，這種知覺收集了他們世界中最多的資訊。」)
例句七：The Arctic is part of a global cooling system, and as rising temperatures accelerate the loss of sea ice, that system is breaking down. This is a perfect place for visiting researchers from around the world to gather data from the ice, sea, and atmosphere to measure changes over time — data that scientists hope will help them predict what’s in store for the planet. — National Geographic
(北極是全球冷卻系統的一部分，而隨著溫度的上升加速海冰的流失，該系統正在崩潰。這裡是來自世界各地的訪問研究人員從冰、海洋和大氣中收集數據來測量變化的理想場所 — — 科學家希望這些數據將幫助他們預測地球上即將發生的事。)
例句八：Steve and Werner are a handy metaphor for the kind of isolation that COVID-19 has visited upon many of us, an isolation that still lingers.
— Reader’s Digest
(史蒂夫和韋納是新冠肺炎給我們許多人造成的那種孤立的一個方便的比喻，這種孤立仍然存在。)
例句九：Finally, if your thoughts are making you feel seriously distressed and interfering with your ability to work and relax, consider seeing a mental health professional. Therapists who specialize in cognitive therapy, a type of therapy that teaches practical ways to cope with persistent and unwanted thoughts, may be particularly helpful. If the underlying source of your thoughts is clinical depression or intense anxiety, you might want to talk with a professional about the root cause of your negative thinking patterns and discuss medications that can be helpful. — The New York Times
(最後，如果你的想法讓你感到極為痛苦，妨礙你工作和放鬆的能力，那就得考慮去看下心理醫生。找專門研究認知療法的心理治療師，或許尤其有幫助。這種療法會教你一些實用方法去應對持續存在的、不必要的想法。如果你產生這些想法的潛在根源是臨床抑鬱症或嚴重的焦慮症，你或許應該和一位專業人士聊聊你的消極思維模式的根源，討論一下有助於這個問題的藥物治療。)
例句十：I now address a problem we have wholly ignored, one that has plagued societies that sell their natural resources to benefit a few today rather than using them to develop new resources that benefit everyone tomorrow. — Joseph M. Williams
(我現在要處理一個我們完全忽略的問題，這個問題困擾著今天出售自然資源以造福少數人的社會，而不是利用這些資源開發明天能造福所有人的新資源。)
例句十一：When you’re in a great job — one that you feel lucky to have — the fear of losing it can make it harder to speak up. — The New York Times
(當你從事偉大的行業、有一份讓你覺得有幸得到的工作時，害怕失去會讓你更難站出來發聲。)
例句十二：As I spoke to her, I noticed Mr. Kader filling up my plate with fruit salad. I protested, but he carried on. It was a sumptuous breakfast, one that brought back memories of happy days spent with my parents and siblings. — Reader’s Digest
(當我和她說話時，我注意到卡德先生在我的盤子裡盛滿了水果沙拉。我表示反對，但他繼續。這是一頓豐盛的早餐，讓我回想起與父母和兄弟姐妹度過的快樂時光。)
例句十三：The Hakka people — a branch of the Han ethnic Chinese — moved to southern Taiwan from mainland China in the early 18th century, and they now account or the second-largest ethnic group in the country, one that totals a fifth of Taiwan’s total population. — National Geographic
(客家人是漢族的一個分支，於十八世紀初從中國大陸移居台灣南部，現在是台灣第二大族群，佔台灣總人口的五分之一。)
例句十四：Our relationships are a source of healing and well-being hiding in plain sight — one that can help us live healthier, more fulfilled and more productive lives. — The Healthy
(我們的人際關係是隱藏在眾目睽睽之下的治愈和幸福之源 — — 它可以幫助我們過上更健康、更充實、更有成效的生活。)
例句十五：There is a better way, one that would allow the United States to make decisions based not on simplistic extrapolations of the past but on smart estimates of the future. — Foreign Affairs
(有一種更好的方法，這種方法可以讓美國做出決定，不是基於對過去的簡單推斷，而是基於對未來的明智評估。)
例句十六：Life on Earth is like a finely calibrated machine, one that has been built by evolution to work very well within its design parameters. — TIME
(地球上的生命就像一台經過精細校準的機器，這台機器透過演化而建構，可以在其設計參數範圍內運作良好。)
例句十七：But many of the 100 or so schools that practice affirmative action have been planning for this moment for months, if not years. And they have already made moves toward a “race-neutral” admissions era — one that tries to follow the letter of the law, while finding ways to keep the ethos of affirmative action. — The New York Times
(但在採取平權行動的大約一百所學校中，許多都為這樣的局面做好了數月乃至數年的準備。這些學校已經開始邁向「種族中立」的招生時代，即在盡力遵守法律條文的同時，想方設法地留住平權行動精神。)
例句十八：Research has indicated that a propensity toward optimism is strongly influenced by genes, most likely ones that govern neurotransmitters in the brain. Still, the way someone is raised undoubtedly plays a role, too. Parents who bolster children’s self-esteem by avoiding criticism and praising accomplishments, however meager, can encourage in them a lifelong can-do attitude. — The New York Times
(研究顯示，樂觀傾向主要受基因影響，很可能就是大腦中控制神經遞質的基因。但是，成長經歷毫無疑問也有關係。父母如果對孩子採取表揚而避免批評的教育方式，不管是多麼微小的成功都予以表揚，這樣就會有助於增強孩子的自尊，幫助他們在一生中建立起「我能」的心態。)
例句十九：As a culture, we’re as serious as the atom bomb and as superficial as Barbie — and we take our superficial playthings deadly seriously. If the box-office triumph of “Barbie” sends a crucial signal that inviting a gifted filmmaker to revel in the power of her idiosyncrasy works as a commercial proposition, the box-office triumph of “Oppenheimer” sends a different signal, reminding us that we still live in a heady and sober culture, one in which a three-hour talkfest meditation on the meaning of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atom bomb, can seize audiences the way the movies of the ’70s or ’90s used to. — Variety
(作為一種文化，我們像原子彈一樣嚴肅，又像芭比娃娃一樣膚淺 — — 而且我們對膚淺的玩物非常重視。如果說《芭比娃娃》的票房勝利發出了一個至關重要的信號，即邀請一位才華橫溢的電影製片人陶醉在她作品的力量之中，作為一種商業主張，那麼《奧本海默》的票房勝利則發出了一個不同的信號，提醒我們，我們仍然生活在一種濃烈和嚴肅的文化中，在這種文化中，對原子彈之父 J·羅伯特·奧本海默的意義進行長達三個小時的談話式思考，可以像 70 或 90 年代的電影曾經一樣吸引觀眾。)
例句二十：Not every life-changing moment is an earth-shattering “things were never the same” scenario. The words of my teacher formed a subtler threshold, a speech that passed by quietly in a sunlit classroom, but it kicked open a door in my mind, a door through which much of my subsequent life has flowed. — The Guardian
(並非每一個改變人生的時刻都是驚天動地的「事情不再一樣」的場景。我老師的話形成了一個微妙的門檻，那是在陽光明媚的教室裡靜靜地流過的一席話，卻在我的腦海中打開了一扇門，這扇門流淌出我後來許多的人生。)
例句二一：Prior to spending time with your significant other, there was a different order of life that you probably followed, one where you might have had more time for hobbies, passions, and perhaps trips and outings with friends. — Psychology Today
(在與重要他人共度時光之前，你可能有著不同的生活樣態，在其中你可能把更多時間用於興趣愛好、熱情，或許與朋友一起旅行和郊遊。)
例句二二：One important insight Landry has acquired is that within every high-profile story of violence and survival, there is a second, less visible, less well understood story — the one that follows on, the one that forces survivors to ask: “How am I going to deal with this for the rest of my life?” The timeline may be less compressed but, as he sees it, the stakes are just as high. “If you don’t get a handle on these events,” he said, “they will destroy you.” — The Guardian
(蘭德里獲得的一個重要見解是，在每一個引人注目的暴力和生存故事中，都有第二個不太明顯、不太為人所知的故事 — — 接下來的那個故事，迫使倖存者問：「我要如何在我的餘生中面對這個問題？」時間可能沒那麼緊迫，但在他看來，風險同樣很高。他說：「如果你不處理這些事件，它們將會毀了你。」)
2. 統合修飾語 (summative modifier)
說明：統合修飾語和概括修飾語的用法相似，不同之處在於統合修飾語是使用一個名詞總括前面整個子句，再使用修飾語（常用關係子句）對此一名詞進一步發展說明，對於前面子句的概念做了更清楚的定位。此外也可以用 “something” 代替前面的整個子句展開統合修飾語。
例句一：Economic changes have reduced Russian population growth to less than zero, a demographic event that will have serious social implications. — Joseph M. Williams
(經濟上的變化已使俄國的人口呈現負成長，此一人口狀況將嚴重影響社會。)
例句二：These micro-organisms decompose organic matter in the soil and release plant nutrients, a process which occurs particularly rapidly in an oxidized soil under tropical conditions of warmth and humidity. — Charles F. Meyer
(這些微生物分解土壤中的有機物並釋放植物養分，此一過程在熱帶溫暖潮濕的氧化土壤中發生得特別快。)
例句三： At this week’s preparatory meeting, governments will discuss how to set up a fund to help poor countries with loss and damage, which means the ravages of climate breakdown that are too severe for countries to adapt to them. They will also lay out some of the groundwork for assessing how close countries are to meeting their pledges on cutting greenhouse gas emissions under the 2015 Paris climate agreement, a process known as the “global stocktake”. — The Guardian
(在本週的籌備會議上，各國政府將討論如何設立一個基金來幫助遭受損失和破壞的貧困國家，這意味著氣候崩壞的催殘過於嚴重，以致於這些國家無法適應。他們還將為評估各國達到在 2015 年巴黎氣候協定中所做的減少溫室氣體排放的承諾的程度做一些基礎準備工作，這一過程被稱為「全球盤點」。)
例句四： When Miami-Dade County mapped the heat vulnerability in its communities, 14 lower-income neighborhoods had higher land surface temperatures than those around it, a phenomenon known as an urban heat island effect. — National Geographic
(當邁阿密戴德縣繪製其社區的熱脆弱性地圖時，有十四個低收入街區的地表溫度高於周圍的地表溫度，這種現像被稱為都市熱島效應。)
例句五：And where water is running low, as it is in so many parts of the world, farmers are letting their fields dry out on purpose, a strategy that also reduces methane, a potent greenhouse gas that rises from paddy fields. — The New York Times
(在缺水的地方 — — 全世界有許多地方面臨這一狀況，農民有意讓稻田乾涸，從而減少甲烷，這是一種在水稻田中產生的強效溫室氣體。)
例句六：Many of Nanchang’s newest apartments remain empty because developers ran out of money and did not finish building already-sold units. Some homeowners are refusing to pay mortgages until their apartments are finished, a nationwide act of dissent that has rattled the Chinese Communist Party. — The New York Times
(在南昌，許多最新的公寓仍然空置是因為開發商沒錢了，已售出的公寓無法完工。一些房主拒絕為尚未交付使用的公寓支付房貸，這種表達不同意見的做法已在全國範圍出現，令中共感到緊張。)
例句七：The Harvard program’s relocation to Taiwan also comes as the island has supplanted Hong Kong as a bastion of free speech in the Chinese-speaking world, an idea that Taiwanese officials have been keen to emphasize. — The New York Times
(哈佛大學計畫遷往台灣也發生在後者已取代香港，成為華語世界言論自由堡壘的時候，台灣的官員們一直熱衷於強調這點。)
例句八：The Cathay Phoenix is not a lone rogue ship, but one of at least three tankers identified by The New York Times taking extraordinary steps to hide their true activity, a practice that helps them to elude U.S. government oversight and puts their American insurer at risk of violating recent sanctions on Russian crude oil. — The New York Times
(「契丹鳳凰」號並非唯一一艘行蹤詭異的油輪，《紐約時報》至少確認了三艘，這些船採取了非同尋常的措施將自己的真實行動隱蔽起來，以此來幫助它們逃避美國政府的監督，並使得為其承保的美國公司面臨違反最近對俄羅斯原油實施制裁這一規定的風險。)
例句九：In 2017 the government stopped allowing hospitals to sell essential drugs at a mark-up as a way of generating revenue — a practice that had been causing huge public resentment. — The Economist
(2017 年，政府不再允許醫院加價銷售基本藥物作為創收方式 — — 這種做法曾引起公眾的強烈不滿。)
例句十：Two days after the crash on Friday in the eastern state of Odisha left at least 275 people dead, families of the victims were still struggling to reach the site of the wreck, near the town of Balasore, to claim the bodies of their loved ones, a journey that had been complicated by a lack of train service. The tracks were not restored until late Sunday. — The New York Times
(周五在印度東部奧里薩邦發生的這起事故造成至少 275 人死亡，兩天後，遇難者家屬仍苦於無法前往巴拉索爾鎮附近的失事現場認領親人的遺體，由於缺少火車服務，這一旅程變得更加覆雜。直到周日晚些時候，鐵軌才得以修覆。)
例句十一： Many AI tools also offer shortcuts to completing repetitive tasks or managing workers’ time. Nisbet, for example, uses AI image generators like Midjourney to “spice up” the decks he presents to clients as well as AI search tools to scan through music databases for relevant lyrics — a job that would otherwise take hours. — BBC
(許多人工智慧工具還提供了完成重複性任務或管理員工時間的捷徑。例如，Nisbet 使用像 Midjourney 這樣的人工智慧圖像生成器來「豐富」他向客戶展示的套牌，並使用人工智慧搜索工具來瀏覽音樂數據庫以查找相關歌詞 — — 否則這項工作可能需要花數小時的時間。)
例句十二： Thoughtful design helped. The new light rail has carriages that align flush with station platforms, eliminating the steps that can trip up elderly riders. Lest youngsters feel left out, the city also built a skatepark, a rarity in Japan. Such projects made canny use of the city’s existing resources. Old rail tracks were repurposed for the new light rail, a move that reduced costs by 75%, according to the World Bank. While the government handled construction, it farmed the rail network out to an expert private firm. It also offered subsidies to entice people to move into the dumplings. — The Economist
(考慮周到的設計有所幫助。新輕軌有著與站台齊平的車廂，消除了可能絆倒老年乘客的台階。為了避免年輕人感到被冷落，這座城市還建造了一個滑板場，這在日本是很少見的。這樣的計畫巧妙地利用了城市的現有資源。據世界銀行稱，舊鐵軌被重新用於新輕軌，此舉將成本降低了 75%。在政府負責建設的同時，它把鐵路網絡外包給了一家專業的私營公司。它還提供補貼，以吸引人們搬進餃子。)
例句十三： For the better part of two decades, Americans acquiesced in these developments. In 2013, Edward Snowden, a National Security Agency contractor, disclosed that the NSA was secretly collecting Americans’ phone records in bulk — a revelation that briefly rattled the public’s trust and led to some legislative reforms in 2015. But Americans were soon occupied with matters that seemed more pressing than the abstract risk of surveillance abuse. — Foreign Affairs
(在二十年的大部分時間裡，美國人默許了這些發展。2013 年，國家安全局承包商愛德華·斯諾登透露，美國國家安全局正在秘密大量收集美國人的電話記錄 — — 這個揭露曾短暫動搖大眾的信任，並導致 2015 年的一些立法改革。但美國人很快就忙於看似比監視濫用的抽像風險更為緊迫的事。)
例句十四： The waking brain is optimized for collecting external stimuli, the sleeping brain for consolidating the information that’s been collected. At night, that is, we switch from recording to editing, a change that can be measured on the molecular scale. We’re not just rotely filing our thoughts — the sleeping brain actively curates which memories to keep and which to toss. — National Geographic
(清醒時的大腦最適合收集外部刺激，而睡眠中的大腦則適合整合已收集到的資訊。也就是說，在晚上我們做的事從記錄切換到編輯，這種變化可以在分子尺度上測量。我們不只是死記硬背地記錄我們的想法 — — 沉睡中的大腦會積極地策劃哪些記憶要保留，哪些要扔掉。)
例句十五： As the country’s most visited site, the Acropolis is said to draw more than 17,000 people daily — a reflection of the over-tourism that has affected Greece in recent years. — The Guardian
(作為希臘參訪最盛行的景點，據說衛城每天吸引超過 17,000 人次的參訪 — — 這反映了近年來影響希臘的過度旅遊。)
例句十六： Oppressive heatwaves have become more frequent and more severe as a result of the climate crisis — a trend that’s expected to continue, and could worsen in proportion to how quickly we can transition from fossil fuels. — The Guardian
(由於氣候危機，令人難以忍受的熱浪變得更加頻繁且更加嚴重 — — 這一趨勢預計將持續下去，並且可能會隨著我們轉離化石燃料的速度而惡化。)
例句十七： With friends, we are expected to be active and engaged listeners, something that demands nearly constant awareness. — The Atlantic
(和朋友在一起時，我們應該要是積極投入的傾聽者，這件事需要幾乎持續不斷的意識。)
例句十八： The biggest exporters of grain — Argentina, Australia, Russia, Ukraine, and the United States — are spread out around the world. That is a good thing from the perspective of food security, because it minimizes the chances of simultaneous crop failures. But global warming is increasing those odds. Yields of corn, soybeans, and other key crops fall sharply as temperatures rise and the amount of water they receive falls. As a result, there is now a growing possibility of simultaneous crop failures in two far-apart breadbaskets — something that could disrupt the global food supply and lead to malnutrition and, in some places, widespread starvation.
— Foreign Affairs
(最大的穀物出口國 — — 阿根廷、澳大利亞、俄羅斯、烏克蘭和美國 — — 分佈在世界各地。從糧食安全的角度來看，這是一件好事，因為它最大限度地減少了作物同時歉收的可能性。但全球暖化正在增加這些可能性。玉米、大豆和其他重要作物的產量隨著溫度上升和它們獲得水量的下降而急劇下降。因此，現在兩個相距甚遠的糧倉同時歉收的可能性越來越大 — — 這件事可能會擾亂全球糧食供應、導致營養不良，並在某些地方導致大規模的飢餓。)
3. 自由修飾語 (free modifier)
說明：自由修飾語修飾的則是主要子句的主詞，對主要子句的主詞加以延伸、說明、或評論，分詞構句形成的分詞片語即是常見的自由修飾語，省略了多於的內容而達到精簡的效果。而之所以稱為自由修飾語是因為我們可以自由地移動自由修飾語到句首、句中、或句末來修飾主要子句而不改變其意義（但有不同的效果與節奏感）。
例句一：Lazy and indifferent, shaking space easily from his wings, knowing his way, the heron passes over the church beneath the sky. — Virginia Woolf
(悠閒而冷漠，輕而易舉地抖動翅膀，知道牠的路線，那隻蒼鷺掠過天空下的教堂。)
例句二：The snow had come from the north, in the mist, driven by the night wind, smelling of the sea. — John le Carre
(雪來自北方，在薄霧中被夜風吹來，散發著大海的氣息。)
