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RSSHow Many Sentences in a Paragraph?
A DWT reader, exasperated by an online newspaper article formatted as eleven one-sentence “paragraphs,” asks for a definition of “paragraph” and wants to know how long a paragraph should be.
A paragraph is a unit of thought that develops an idea. A traditional paragraph contains a topic sentence that states the idea to be developed, plus additional sentences that develop the idea stated by the topic sentence.
A newspaper lead (or lede if you prefer) can do its job in one sentence, but with few exceptions, a paragraph will contain more than one sentence. The OWL site, aimed at college students, suggests a length of from three to five or more sentences.
We all know that online writing calls for techniques different from those of the print media. Web readers do not tolerate long expanses of text. They expect short paragraphs, subheads, and bulleted lists. Nevertheless, they require the organization and coherence that paragraphs provide.
The article that prompted this post is an instructive example of a badly-organized piece which would have benefited from placing related ideas in paragraphs. Take a look and see what you think.
Eleven-sentence/paragraph story
OWL on paragraphs
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I’ve always felt that a paragraph should be at least three sentences: one subject sentence plus two or three sentences that expand on the subject’s thought.
“A subject sentence is the most important sentence in a paragraph. It provides the main idea behind the paragraph. There is no hard and fast rule for the order in which it will appear amongst the other sentences. Sometimes it can be the last sentence in the paragraph, used to drive the idea home conclusively.”
I took several years of journalism classes in college and they actually teach you NOT to write big paragraphs. To journalism teachers a one sentence paragraph is perfectly acceptable.
That article you mention though is awful. You need to balance those one sentence paragraphs with a 2-3 sentence ones if you want it to be an article and not a list.
Thank you, Maeve.
Yes it’s a terribly written piece. But that’s not to say single sentence paragraphs don’t have their place. They’re just another tool in the writer’s arsenal. Perhaps their application is what requires the discussion.
Great site.
Was going to comment, but I felt so strongly about this issue I was inspired to respond on my own blog.
http://www.daccreative.co.uk/goodcopybadcopy/?p=57
Clare,
Thanks for the link. I read your post (which has planted seeds of future posts of my own). I agree with your itemized list of outdated rules such as not ending a sentence with a preposition or never splitting an infinitive. I don’t agree that paragraphing belongs in that category.
We’ll have to agree to disagree on the paragraph question, but I’m glad my post has inspired ideas for future posts. I look forward to reading them – and commenting on them, of course!
Newspaper “English” has nothing to do with fine writing techniques and style.
Newspaper “English” seeks to pack the most information into the least amount of space, which means eliminating as many uppercase letters as possible, cutting out commas and periods, and placing modifiers before the nouns and verbs, which also saves commas and spaces.
The width of the newspaper column is equally as important, which might be only two inches wide, and rarely wider than three inches. Adding spaces means knocking text onto the next line, and that’s a waste of space and money.
An example newspaper sentence: Beloved long-time Frederick HS football coach John Jones died today in a fiery car wreck along US Hwy 37 around 9 pm in a collision with a stalled cattle truck whose trailer extended into the inside traffic lane.
But when a newspaper story goes on-line, there are other considerations, which is usually too much space to fill. That’s why every sentence is treated like a whole paragraph.
I’m sorry—I wasn’t finished.
In an “on-line” story, the goal is to have the reader scroll down down down until all the advertising banners have been made visible, so the text is extended by making every sentence stand alone.
Advertising, in print or on-line, pays for the medium. And it’s a tough market these days for the advertisers, because their success depends on the contents of the medium. Lose 30-40% of your readers (due to content) and advertisers will fall off accordingly.
I used to proofread for a court reporting service (that produced, e.g., deposition transcripts).
The hard-and-fast rule there was to create a new paragraph once the testimony, as transcribed, ran over 5-7 lines. It was more about readability than expressing ideas in a paragraph block. Actually, I kind of enjoyed the challenge of interpreting testimony and defining paragraphs on my own.
And, there’s something to be said for readability — similar to the type of Web writing that Maeve pointed out.
(Oh, and I do believe it’s “a badly written piece,” without the hyphen. Yes?
)
Cassie,
I stand corrected. “Badly written” it is.
We’ll throw in our two cents (don’t we always?).
How many sentences does a paragraph need? At least one.
Here are 2 bits quoted from our training manual, with some additional commentary:
a. One paragraph = one central idea. Has someone ever said to you, “Hey, you’ve got a good point there”? Well, that’s what your paragraph does. It makes a point, one point, which is the central idea of the paragraph. You might think of it as the purpose for the paragraph. That one point of a paragraph may be supported by several other ideas, and the paragraph, itself, may be written to support a broader idea, but its purpose remains the same. It stands alone as the vehicle to express one complete idea to the reader.
What is the idea expressed by the paragraph? The length of your paragraph depends on the complexity of that idea and its scope. When you have completed discussing that idea, stop. If you haven’t completed the discussion, keep going.
b. Perhaps you had an English teacher tell you that a paragraph must have a thesis statement at the beginning. This is partially true. It must have a thesis statement. Your thesis statement is the point you are trying to communicate, but you have a couple of choices about its placement: beginning and end. You can start with the central idea and then build the internal and external supports, or you can provide the supports and lead up to your point.
Long paragraphs become manageable to the reader and to the writer when the supporting ideas are relevant to the main idea and are paced appropriately with context sentences, discussion, and an impact statement (but that’s a different article, I believe).
FYI: Henry David Thoreau used long paragraphs very effectively. See http://www.gutenberg.org/files/71/71-h/71-h.htm. As an exercise, identify the single main idea of each paragraph. Then find the supporting ideas by their context sentences, discussion, and impact statements. Have fun!
A paragraph should more precisely contain a central thought correlated to the preceeding paragraph (title if it is the first para).
If you wish to change the direction of your thought, or bring in a new dimension to your writing; you ought to know how to play with a paragraphs.
A very long paragraph is bad and so is a very small one., but nothing is rigid when it comes to writing.
So, experiment more and create newer styles.
As a journalism student I would argue that there are instances where the one par sentence is required. In news articles this is the standard form. Furthermore pars should not be arranged by topic in this structure, but by the most important information down to the least important.
Having said that, the telegraph article is indeed not the highest standard of writing – and as a part time Sub Editor I am left wondering who checks their page titles: “Coman jailed for murdering author.”
Oh dear!
hi
please write me a parapraph in this topic “What make success,luck or struggle?”
hurry please
As long as necessary but not a word longer!
http://blogs.news.com.au/daily.....wikifable/
another one-sentence-a-paragarph article
how many??????????