Every sentence a paragraph?

Atom Smasher

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What's with this new influx of people who write every single sentence as a paragraph?

Don't they realize it makes it hard to read?

It's like talking to someone who says, "Umm" after every sentence.

This seems like a relatively new phenomenon.

It used to be that guys would throw a massive wall of text up on the screen.

There would be absolutely no paragraphs used, and these posts were way too much work to read.

Now guys are doing this thing with every sentence being a paragraph.

Isn't this a little hard to read, and distracting?

I believe they are doing this because their actual thoughts are disjointed.

Therefore that disjointedness is reflected in their writing style.

Whatever the reason, it's distracting and shows poor communication skills.

Paragraphs serve to arrange thoughts and to present them in a meaningful manner.

It is assumed that in a paragraph, the other sentences contained within support a certain concept or point.

But when each sentence is a paragraph, each one is a separate entity and one sentence does not support or elaborate upon another.

In other words, they are equally weighted.

This makes for very difficult reading, and for miscommunication.

I wonder how they got through school writing this way.

A massive amount of information is lost due to this inefficient and inaccurate style of writing.

Paragraphs are an integral, indispensable part of written communications.

They count enormously in how one's points are received.

When you write like this, your points become lost and stagnant.

Don't they?

I think they do.

I'll have to think of a name for this style of "writing", and for those who use it.

It's gotten so bad that I rarely even read what they write anymore.

I usually skim their posts because the way they write forces me to work too hard.

I have to mentally put their sentences together into paragraphs in order to extract accurate meaning.

It is not fair to the reader to foist that work upon him.

The purpose of paragraphs is to arrange your thoughts, convey them accurately, and to facilitate one sentence supporting another.

Giving each sentence equal weight cannot possibly convey your intended meaning.

This bad habit should have been corrected decades ago in school.

It is perhaps true, however, that this habit has been picked up recently.

Possibly because of texting and social media.

Whatever the cause, it hurts you and it hurts the reader as it masks the intended meaning of your communication.

Thanks for reading, if you made it this far.
 

SamTheHobit

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Thanks for your wisdom atom smasher.

It's definitely something I need to improve on.

But I think it's better than a never ending wall of text.

See what I did there?
 

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Mike32ct

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I'm probably guilty of this. I find very LONG paragraphs painful to read, and I compensate by using very short paragraphs. It's funny you should mention this. Someone editing my writing at work combined a few short paragraphs into one big one. Anyway, good post. Thanks.
 

logicallefty

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I got in the habit of writing that way from an idiot woman I work with. If you wrote a regular paragraph she would selectively only read what she wanted out of it.. and then say she didn't notice the rest and try to wiggle her way out of being accountable for the parts you said that she didn't want to deal with. So I started writing the one liners so they would be nice and noticeable for her. She would also complain if you wrote too much. she was so bad that I actually have sent her spreadsheets that she refused to look at because there were too many colors in them and they bothered her eyes. So anyway the habit of one paragraph lines has carried over outside of work..
 

Atom Smasher

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SamTheHobit said:
Thanks for your wisdom atom smasher.

It's definitely something I need to improve on.

But I think it's better than a never ending wall of text.

See what I did there?
You

rascal

!
 

Atom Smasher

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zekko

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I think we should all post in haiku.
 

salinechow

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I think its about aesthetics.

Broken up paragraphs looks less daunting to the brain in the world of text, and chat messengers. People even truncate words nowadays.

I think this first started in email. In an email you are not supposed to space paragraphs but only indent them. I think when email first started to take hold as inter office communication and then later, global communication, it became courtesy to keep email short to avoid scrolling and printed waste. Large screen resolutions made for a lot of scrolling. Printers took a min or more to print a page.

Furthermore, thread like forums such as ours where there is limited on the fly manipulation of the text to suit the reader, the writer tries to compensate by writing what would make it easier for HIM to read.

I break up paragraphs even when I know its grammatically incorrect to make it easier on the reader to grasp the concept of the thought.


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For comparison:

I think its about aesthetics.
Broken up paragraphs looks less daunting to the brain in the world of text, and chat messengers. People even truncate words nowadays.
I think this first started in email. In an email you are not supposed to space paragraphs but only indent them. I think when email first started to take hold as inter office communication and then later, global communication, it became courtesy to keep email short to avoid scrolling and printed waste. Large screen resolutions made for a lot of scrolling. Printers took a min or more to print a page.
Furthermore, thread like forums such as ours where there is limited on the fly manipulation of the text to suit the reader, the writer tries to compensate by writing what would make it easier for HIM to read.
I break up paragraphs even when I know its grammatically incorrect to make it easier on the reader to grasp the concept of the thought.



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Even worse is this:

I think its about aesthetics.Broken up paragraphs looks less daunting to the brain in the world of text, and chat messengers. People even truncate words nowadays. I think this first started in email. In an email you are not supposed to space paragraphs but only indent them. I think when email first started to take hold as inter office communication and then later, global communication, it became courtesy to keep email short to avoid scrolling and printed waste. Large screen resolutions made for a lot of scrolling. Printers took a min or more to print a page.Furthermore, thread like forums such as ours where there is limited on the fly manipulation of the text to suit the reader, the writer tries to compensate by writing what would make it easier for HIM to read.I break up paragraphs even when I know its grammatically incorrect to make it easier on the reader to grasp the concept of the thought.
 

mangotot

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The opening post was extremely easy to read because of the small screen size. That is because I am accessing the forum on the phone.

More and more people are using the phone to access the net, it explains why the use of single paragraphs: easier to read and easier to type. It is for practical reasons rather then dumbing down.
 

VladPatton

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Aah...the dreaded one-liners!
 
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