I also think paragraphs have been getting shorter because attention span is getting shorter. Now, lists of bullet points are becoming the norm. Which is a hallmark of AI text.
So style is changing. Subjects of verbs casually being dropped is normal now. And broken phrases are standing in for complete sentences. As periods are placed anywhere where a piece of thought breaks into another. Which makes for more conversational and rhythmic texts and comments. And gives a natural breath to run-on streams of consciousness. Lending to its own form of coherence.
I am reminded of an incident from my lawyers’ assistant days. One of my tasks was preparing witnesses. There was an exercise physiologist, a perfectly amiable fellow, whose testimony was impossible to take in, though the subject matter was not overly complex.
I realized he did not — and seemed unable to — break his speaking into rhetorical paragraphs — topic sentences, idea development, provisional conclusions, all pointed to the grand conclusions we needed him to impart to the jury. I realized the paragraph structures I had taught (and learned while teaching) as a college English tutor had their correspondence in nature. The listening, apprehending brain needs this sort of structure to do its job of understanding another’s point. Pauses, changes in the pace of delivery, changes in tone, all corresponded to those written structures.
This suggests an analogy to music and its transcription: There are many celebrated musicians, ranging from Irving Berlin to Paul McCartney, who could neither read nor write a note of transcription. So an unlettered speaker, deploying a sensitive mode of delivery, might be master of the paragraph — as it is experienced.
I welcome insights on any illuminating distinctions I may be missing.
Your articles always make me smile. You take something so innate to us as writers, so seemingly simple that we do it reflexively without even thinking about it, and you explain it and its origins while entertaining us and making us think. Bravo!
My feeling exactly, Dorothea! I know what I was TAUGHT (eons ago) and I know what I instinctively DO, but I had never analyzed it. “…ideal paragraph length can be very different depending on what you’re reading — and where you’re reading it.” I don’t necessarily think it’s a good thing that our eyes and brains have been conditioned to preferring shorter paragraphs. But I notice the difference—even in my willingness to read a dense piece of writing any more. This article contained so much information, but it was painless to read because of ample white space.
Assholes made it so you can’t count on hitting Enter giving you a new paragraph. Half the time these days you hit Enter for a new paragraph and it posts what you’ve already written.
I like the short paragraphs in journalism and the kind of Internet writing you do, but I read a novel yesterday (Victorious by V.E. Schwab) and she uses the most aggressive paragraphing I've seen in a respectable piece of writing. I found it a little exhausting. It has a punchy rhythm that obviously comes from social media. In many places each sentence is its own paragraph, and those sentences are often just sentence fragments. The short paragraphing can't go any further than this.
I once had to design the style file used for a number of technical documents for a project. For revision tracking and other reasons, I used the Memoir LaTex package. The package designer had extensive background in publishing. Paragraphs are also impacted by the choice of font style and point size and the length of the line. A good metric for laying out a document was to not have two few or too many characters and spaces – the optimal line length appears to be between 35 and 75-Ish characters.
I’ve noticed that ChatGPT tends to write in very short paragraphs, so that when I encounter a succession of them in online writing I immediately suspect its use. Because of this I’ve come to appreciate the longer paragraphs of yesteryear. Negative polarization. Maybe it’ll make a comeback.
Fascinating article. I was thinking about this yesterday when I was composing a lengthy text that could (or should) have been an email. I used very short paragraphs, really bullet points, because the text bubbles at so small. As you note, the format drives the paragraph decisions ..
Oh but just hate hate hate it, likely because I’m a pedantic snob. And I _particularly_ hate that minuscule paragraphs of ridiculously short sentences have also overtaken most peoples’ email. But cheers for the explanation!
Very illuminating!
I also think paragraphs have been getting shorter because attention span is getting shorter. Now, lists of bullet points are becoming the norm. Which is a hallmark of AI text.
So style is changing. Subjects of verbs casually being dropped is normal now. And broken phrases are standing in for complete sentences. As periods are placed anywhere where a piece of thought breaks into another. Which makes for more conversational and rhythmic texts and comments. And gives a natural breath to run-on streams of consciousness. Lending to its own form of coherence.
I am reminded of an incident from my lawyers’ assistant days. One of my tasks was preparing witnesses. There was an exercise physiologist, a perfectly amiable fellow, whose testimony was impossible to take in, though the subject matter was not overly complex.
I realized he did not — and seemed unable to — break his speaking into rhetorical paragraphs — topic sentences, idea development, provisional conclusions, all pointed to the grand conclusions we needed him to impart to the jury. I realized the paragraph structures I had taught (and learned while teaching) as a college English tutor had their correspondence in nature. The listening, apprehending brain needs this sort of structure to do its job of understanding another’s point. Pauses, changes in the pace of delivery, changes in tone, all corresponded to those written structures.
This suggests an analogy to music and its transcription: There are many celebrated musicians, ranging from Irving Berlin to Paul McCartney, who could neither read nor write a note of transcription. So an unlettered speaker, deploying a sensitive mode of delivery, might be master of the paragraph — as it is experienced.
I welcome insights on any illuminating distinctions I may be missing.
Your articles always make me smile. You take something so innate to us as writers, so seemingly simple that we do it reflexively without even thinking about it, and you explain it and its origins while entertaining us and making us think. Bravo!
My feeling exactly, Dorothea! I know what I was TAUGHT (eons ago) and I know what I instinctively DO, but I had never analyzed it. “…ideal paragraph length can be very different depending on what you’re reading — and where you’re reading it.” I don’t necessarily think it’s a good thing that our eyes and brains have been conditioned to preferring shorter paragraphs. But I notice the difference—even in my willingness to read a dense piece of writing any more. This article contained so much information, but it was painless to read because of ample white space.
Assholes made it so you can’t count on hitting Enter giving you a new paragraph. Half the time these days you hit Enter for a new paragraph and it posts what you’ve already written.
I like the short paragraphs in journalism and the kind of Internet writing you do, but I read a novel yesterday (Victorious by V.E. Schwab) and she uses the most aggressive paragraphing I've seen in a respectable piece of writing. I found it a little exhausting. It has a punchy rhythm that obviously comes from social media. In many places each sentence is its own paragraph, and those sentences are often just sentence fragments. The short paragraphing can't go any further than this.
Or.
Can.
It?
We.
Will.
See.
I once had to design the style file used for a number of technical documents for a project. For revision tracking and other reasons, I used the Memoir LaTex package. The package designer had extensive background in publishing. Paragraphs are also impacted by the choice of font style and point size and the length of the line. A good metric for laying out a document was to not have two few or too many characters and spaces – the optimal line length appears to be between 35 and 75-Ish characters.
I’ve noticed that ChatGPT tends to write in very short paragraphs, so that when I encounter a succession of them in online writing I immediately suspect its use. Because of this I’ve come to appreciate the longer paragraphs of yesteryear. Negative polarization. Maybe it’ll make a comeback.
Fascinating article. I was thinking about this yesterday when I was composing a lengthy text that could (or should) have been an email. I used very short paragraphs, really bullet points, because the text bubbles at so small. As you note, the format drives the paragraph decisions ..
Oh but just hate hate hate it, likely because I’m a pedantic snob. And I _particularly_ hate that minuscule paragraphs of ridiculously short sentences have also overtaken most peoples’ email. But cheers for the explanation!