Avoid using too many short sentences that will create choppy prose. Vary your sentence types and combine short related sentences by making some elements dependent clauses or phrases.
Compare the following choppy sentences and the revised version (as the author actually wrote it).
Adaptive optics is an electronic feedback mechanism capable
of correcting for the distorting effects of the earth's
atmosphere It allows much sharper images of astronomical objects.
Because of moving pockets of air and changes in temperature, the
earth's atmosphere is constantly shimmering. Such shimmering
causes passing light rays to bend one way then another. In
effect, the shifting atmosphere acts as a rapidly changing lens.
It smears out and defocuses images. In adaptive optics,
motorized cushions are placed behind the telescope's secondary
mirror. They constantly reshape the mirror's surface to
counteract the defocusing effect of the atmosphere.
[choppy]
Adaptive optics is an electronic feedback mechanism capable
of correcting for the distorting effects of the earth's
atmosphere and thus allowing much sharper images of astronomical
objects. The earth's atmosphere is constantly shimmering, because
of moving pockets of air and changes in temperature, and such
shimmering causes passing light rays to bend one way then
another. In effect, the shifting atmosphere acts as a rapidly
changing lens, smearing out and defocusing images. In adaptive
optics, motorized cushions are placed behind the telescope's
secondary mirror and constantly reshape the mirror's surface to
counteract the defocusing effect of the atmosphere.
[original]
--Alan Lightman, Ancient Light
