Paragraph breaks? Or long, run-on blocks of text?

[Common Sense Party]

Poll question: Paragraph breaks? Or long, run-on blocks of text?

What do you do if you see a post on DU with one long, continuous block of text? Do you read it? Or move on?

For example, what would you do if you saw something like this:



A good writer knows when a paragraph should end. A bad writer often gets their OP or their post ignored, because 99.98% of people don't like to wade through a massive, oversized block of text. William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White perhaps said it best in The Elements of Style: "Enormous blocks of print look formidable to the reader. He has a certain reluctance to tackle them; he can lose his way in them. Therefore, breaking long paragraphs in two, even if it is not necessary to do so for sense, meaning, or logical development, is often a visual help." And on a computer screen as opposed to the printed page--even more so. The LENGTH of each sentence in the paragraph also matters. Six sentences might not be that many (assuming they are all on the same subject), but six l-o-n-g sentences in one big block is very tedious to read. Some posters may try to get around the four-paragraph rule when citing another source, and they lump everything into one paragraph. They are defeating their own purpose by doing this. They want us to read the article and get informed, get outraged, whatever... But by smushing it together in one massive block, they ensure that 98% of us pass it by. I don't know if I could even find 2% who ENJOY reading big text blocks.





Or something even longer?

[Common Sense Party]

1. Inspired by this thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=7929271&mesg_id=7929271

[Common Sense Party]

2. I don't think we're THIS bad, though:

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/nation_shudders_at_large_block_of?utm_source=onion_rss_daily

LOL.

[Greyhound]

4. LOL!

[LiberalFighter]

5. I don't recall any being that long. But I haven't checked every post either.

[nonconformist]

6. LOL!

WASHINGTON—Unable to rest their eyes on a colorful photograph or boldface heading that could be easily skimmed and forgotten about, Americans collectively recoiled Monday when confronted with a solid block of uninterrupted text.

Dumbfounded citizens from Maine to California gazed helplessly at the frightening chunk of print, unsure of what to do next. Without an illustration, chart, or embedded YouTube video to ease them in, millions were frozen in place, terrified by the sight of one long, unbroken string of English words.

"Why won't it just tell me what it's about?" said Boston resident Charlyne Thomson, who was bombarded with the overwhelming mass of black text late Monday afternoon. "There are no bullet points, no highlighted parts. I've looked everywhere—there's nothing here but words."

"Ow," Thomson added after reading the first and last lines in an attempt to get the gist of whatever the article, review, or possibly recipe was about. <snip>


*giggle*

[tishaLA]

3. I worship Henry James, so paragraphs like that look comfortable to me

[Common Sense Party]

8. How about Faulkner? Didn't he have sentences that ran on for an entire page?

[HubertHeaver]

7. The unbroken paragraph in this post is too long.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

9. don't ask Stephen King...

I recall a place in The Stand where one paragraph spanned three pages...

sP

[Common Sense Party]

11. What editor allowed that to happen?

Yeegads.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

13. Well, it might have been edited out of the 1970's version

but in the 90's when the book was re-released as an 'uncut' version it was there (and by then King was a horror writing GAWD so no publisher/editor would axe the content!

sP

[MineralMan]

15. Trust me. If you're as big a money-producer as King,

you can override editorial suggestions at will. You just write <stet> in the margin of the galleys and it stays as is.

Not so for most writers, though.

[anigbrowl]

16. Or James Joyce...

http://www.claddaghireland.com/library/molly.htm

Despite the punctuation deficit, I consider this to be the single most beautiful prose ever written in the English language.

[Common Sense Party]

18. Joyce could seriously use some bullet points.

And maybe a drawing or two.

[anigbrowl]

26. Oddly enough, what you seek is to be found in the preceding section. nt

[ProdigalJunkMail]

25. rodney dangerfield forever ruined that piece for me... n/t

[Canuckistanian]

10. TLDR

Too long, didn't read

[Common Sense Party]

12. BDYVITP?

But did you vote in the poll?

[Canuckistanian]

14. YS

Yes Sir.

[Common Sense Party]

17. Okay you "every-worders", fess up! Who actually reads EVERY word

of a long, run-on monoblock? Every time?

[Change Happens]

19. I would start a new thread about writing skills in general. In the meantime, I would try

to lear a little bit more about how people think when they write, just in case.

[hlthe2b]

20. It is usually far worse as these posts normally lack both capitalization

and punctuation. While I am not normally a grammar or spelling Nazi, these issues begin to become additive-- in terms of irritation factor. I really would like to find some middle ground between an edited thesis and tweeter message.

[Fumesucker]

21. It depends on how interested in the information contained in the paragraph I was..

Just casual reading, skip it..

Mild to moderate interest, skim it..

Extremely interested to fascinated, every word..

[tech9413]

22. More often than not, I'd skim it

If the premise of the post or the nature of the argument makes sense, I might likely wade through the whole post. One of the sad things about internet posts is they are often posted quickly with little thought to the use of style, language, or spelling. I don't like to be dismissive of posts because of style, language, or spelling. The problem for me is that the poster didn't think enough about what they were saying or how they say it to make it presentable and intelligible to the intended audience.

I do understand that the educational standards in the use of written language and the use of spoken communication exacerbate the problem. Unfortunately, if someone is trying to present ideas in a format that relies on the written word, it should be presented in a proper format, with proper spelling, and word usage.

One big problem with me is that my "tired old eyes" have a problem following long run-in lines of text without having to go back 10 times to re-read the same line and understand what they are trying to say.

I'm sorry if this offends the younger users but I had English teachers that would humiliate me if I didn't adhere to the rules of the language.

[blondeatlast]

23. Grammar/spelling/punctuation nanny--it's part of what I get paid to do.

And yes, I edited due to poor typing. Oops.

[inna]

24. I voted choice #3. This thread is worth recommending, actually.

[JoeyT]

27. It depends on the author.

I'm usually willing to read a large block of unbroken text from someone a few times, until I can figure out if it's worth reading a unbroken block of text from that person. Your long block of text wasn't bad at all, since the reader doesn't have to parse a hundred (possibly unknown) acronyms, slang terms, or leetspeak. If you really want to make it hard to read, try using "like" as virtually every part of a sentence and following every third sentence with LOL or something like it.

[patrice]

28. I'll read just enough to determine whether it is either extraordinary information or extraordinary

writing.