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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2015
In this chapter you will
• master how to make documents seem tightly organized
• learn the best way to structure paragraphs
• understand when and how to break paragraphs
• discover how to recognize when a paragraph is too short or too long.
When you write a paragraph, do you
a. just start with the first item on your list of things to get through?
b. throw in a return and create a new paragraph, whenever the one you're working on begins to threaten to give War and Peace a run for its money?
c. observe the principles used by editors at newspapers like the Times-Picayune and USA Today and begin a new paragraph every sentence or two?
d. cop to being guilty of all of the above?
If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, consider yourself busted. And in bloody good company, since legions of other writers do exactly the same thing. However, avoid giving in to despair. Unlike the principles behind clarity and continuity, where nearly everything you learned was wrong-headed (if haplessly well intentioned), you'll discover you have a nodding acquaintance with the principles behind coherence. Provided you managed to stay awake during English in secondary school, you've already had some exposure to the fundamental principles underlying coherence. Your teachers were actually within shouting distance of practices psychologists and neuroscientists agree promote rapid comprehension and good recall of content.
Context is everything
In writing, as in life, where you say what and to whom is vital to whether you observe some of the coherence principles. For example, readers of email invariably expect messages to be dynamic, brief, and easily skimmed. When writing an email, keep your message and paragraphs alike short – unless you're writing a chatty update to an old friend who's happy reading the kind of missive Henry James might have sent. […]
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