While overuse of conjunctions (which "and" is) can be a stylistic device, more often than not, it produces bad sentences.
📝 Here are some examples of such sentences written by a student:
1. Her openness and frankness about her life, misfortunes and victories made her real, trustworthy and relatable.
2. I, personally, still remember and follow some of her pieces of advice, and some of my views and preferences were formed partially because of her speeches.
3. Moreover, exceptional speakers are mostly experts in their sphere and their thoughts are usually backed up by research and evidence, which means listening to them can be both inspirational and educational.
When I ask my students to rephrase such sentences, they are quick to resort to "as well as" or "along with." But these don't help (well, they can occasionally, but rarely).
I tell my students, "Overuse of 'and' is just a symptom." Even if you replace all the "and"s with "as well as, along with, together with" etc, you will still have a clumsy sentence. "And" simply shows that you packed too many concepts into one sentence.
What are the solutions? Sometimes the solution is to simply delete a concept. Sometimes the solution is to use a more precise conjunction. Sometimes the solution is to split the sentence into two or rephrase it entirely.
📝 Look at my re-write of the third sentence:
3. Moreover, exceptional speakers are mostly experts in their sphere, so their ideas are usually backed up by
How would you rewrite the first and the second sentences? Give it a shot in the comments. 📝