paragraphing

 


Paragraphing

 

“If your paragraph is too long, you might as well stamp it with red ink:
‘Don’t bother reading this paragraph.’”

― Ann Wylie

 

Avoid long paragraphs.

 

Something I've noticed with the youngsters lately is a propensity for ponderous paragraphs. Some that I have seen are James Joycean in magnitude, carrying forth their wrath and wreckage from one full page to the unsuspecting next. I can only kick my chair back from the computer monitor in awe as I quietly smother beneath the cold avalanche of sentence after sentence. Perhaps a culture built on texts, TikTok, and twitter is at fault. Informal communication these days is too short to think about separating thoughts since there often is but one thought (if there is one at all). However, serious writing requires more than LOLz and emojis: it requires paragraphs.

Paragraphs are important for organizing thoughts, but also for breaking your writing into manageable, and thus readable, pieces. Oftentimes it's easy to break a paragraph apart. As a new thought emerges in your writing, you should instantly reach for the "return" key. Othertimes, you simply need to carve a long passage into digestable chunks. Don't worry, you're still going to get to eat the whole steak, you just won't have to stuff it into your mouth as a single filet.

Classic paragraph construction involves writing (1) a topic sentence that introduces an idea, (2) a few sentences that develop that idea, and (3) a concluding sentence. As an example, let's look at the first paragraph of this blog post.

The first sentence states: "Something I've noticed with the youngsters lately is a propensity for ponderous paragraphs."

Indeed, this is the topic sentence that introduces the idea that youngsters tend to write long paragraphs.

The next several sentences develop the idea. I provide an example ("Some that I have seen are James Joycean in magnitude..."), provide a response ("I can only kick my chair back from the computer monitor..."), and potential reasons ("Perhaps a culture built on texts, TikTok, and twitter is at fault." and "Informal communication these days is too short to think about separating thoughts...").

Finally, I provide a concluding sentence: "...serious writing requires more than LOLz and emojis: it requires paragraphs."

Writing paragraphs in this way adds flow to the text and helps a writer convince the reader about the content.

Even though that first paragraph follows the classic paragraph recipe, I originally broke it into two separate paragraphs:

"Something I've noticed with the youngsters lately is a propensity for ponderous paragraphs. Some that I have seen are James Joycean in magnitude, carrying forth their wrath and wreckage from one full page to the unsuspecting next. I can only kick my chair back from the computer monitor in awe as I quietly smother beneath the cold avalanche of sentence after sentence.

"Perhaps a culture built on texts, TikTok, and twitter is at fault. Informal communication these days is too short to think about separating thoughts since there often is but one thought (if there is one at all). However, serious writing requires more than LOLz and emojis: it requires paragraphs."

I prefer it in two parts because I believe it improves the readability. There's also some logic there. Ending the first paragraph with my slow death seems a fitting way to end a paragraph. And transitioning to the "whys" of long paragraphs also seems like a new thought. But for the sake of having an example to show you a classically constructed paragraph, I've suppressed my writing instincts and melded them together.

Paragraphs can be a single sentence (perhaps you noticed I've used a few above). It may be that a single sentence is all you need to convey your thought. Rather than randomly attaching it to the previous or subsequent paragraphs, you can leave it as its own paragraph. Furthermore, you don't have to (and shouldn't) conjure meaningless words and sentences to arbitrarily have more than one sentence in a paragraph.

You might also seek to have a variety of paragraph lengths. Too many paragraphs of the same length and construction in a row make for dull reading. However, this "rule" is more for non-technical writing rather than technical writing. Regardless, if you can mix your paragraph lengths up, you will improve your writing and your readers will appreciate it.

Finally, I present to you this post as a single paragraph. Which one would you prefer reading?

Something I've noticed with the youngsters lately is a propensity for ponderous paragraphs. Some that I have seen are James Joycean in magnitude, carrying forth their wrath and wreckage from one full page to the unsuspecting next. I can only kick my chair back from the computer monitor in awe as I quietly smother beneath the cold avalanche of sentence after sentence. Perhaps a culture built on texts, TikTok, and twitter is at fault. Informal communication these days is too short to think about separating thoughts since there often is but one thought (if there is one at all). However, serious writing requires more than LOLz and emojis: it requires paragraphs. Paragraphs are important for organizing thoughts, but also for breaking your writing into more manageable, and thus readable, pieces. Oftentimes it's easy to break a paragraph apart. As a new thought emerges in your writing, you should instantly reach for the "return" key. Othertimes, you simply need to carve a long passage into eatable chunks. Don't worry, you're still going to get to eat the whole steak, you just won't have to stuff it into your mouth as a single filet. Classic paragraph construction involves (1) writing a topic sentence that introduces an idea, (2) a few sentences that develop that idea, and (3) a concluding sentence. As an example, let's look at the first paragraph of this blog post. The first sentence states: "Something I've noticed with the youngsters lately is a propensity for ponderous paragraphs" Indeed, this is the topic sentence that introduces the idea that the youngsters write long paragraphs. The next several sentences develop the idea. I provide an example ("Some that I have seen are James Joycean in magnitude..."), provide a response ("I can only kick my chair back from the computer monitor..."), and potential reasons ("Perhaps a culture built on texts, TikTok, and twitter is at fault." and "Informal communication these days is too short to think about separating thoughts..."). Finally, I provide a concluding sentence: "However, serious writing requires more than LOLz and emojis: it requires paragraphs." Writing paragraphs in this way adds flow to the writing and helps a writer convince the reader about the content. Even though that first paragraph follows the classic paragraph recipe, I originally broke it into two separate paragraphs: "Something I've noticed with the youngsters lately is a propensity for ponderous paragraphs. Some that I have seen are James Joycean in magnitude, carrying forth their wrath and wreckage from one full page to the unsuspecting next. I can only kick my chair back from the computer monitor in awe as I quietly smother beneath the cold avalanche of sentence after sentence."  "Perhaps a culture built on texts, TikTok, and twitter is at fault. Informal communication these days is too short to think about separating thoughts since there often is but one thought (if there is one at all). However, serious writing requires more than LOLz and emojis: it requires paragraphs." I prefer it in two parts because I believe it improves the readability. There's also some logic there. Ending the first paragraph with my slow death seems a fitting way to end a paragraph. And transitioning to the "whys" of long paragraphs also seems like a new thought. But for the sake of having an example to show you a classically constructed parargaph, I've melded them together. Paragraphs can be a single sentence (perhaps you noticed I've used a few above). It may be that a single sentence is all you need to convey your thought. Rather than randomly attaching it to the previous or subsequent paragraph, you can leave it as its own paragraph. Furthermore, you don't have to (and shouldn't) conjure meaningless words and sentences to have more than one in a paragraph. You might also seek to have a variety of paragraph lengths. Too many paragraphs of the same length and construction in a row make for dull reading. However, this "rule" is more for non-technical writing rather than technical writing. Regardless, if you can mix your paragraph lengths up, your reader will appreciate it. Finally, I present to you this post as a single paragraph. Which one would you prefer reading?

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