Is a Line Break Always Inserted to Begin a New Paragraph..??

J

Joanne

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I was at a computer class and on the question sheet it asked for us to type in some text and then make amendments to the text.

I was saying to the person beside me that I thought a line break was always inserted between paragraphs, but she seemed to think that it didn't have to be.

So for example if you had the following three paragraphs I would write them as below...

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB
BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB
BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB.

CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC
CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC
CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC.


Whereas she said it was ok to write as follows...

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.
BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB
BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB
BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB.
CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC
CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC
CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC.


Anyone know the answer...?
 
I think it depends on the purpose of the document, the application and style sheet (e.g. Word template) in use. By default Word normally spaces paragraphs like the first example above as far as I know without the need for explicit line breaks or additional blank lines. What application were you using?
 
It was 'Word'.

What I mean though is which is the "correct" way to write paragraphs? Not necessarily with 'Word' though.

If someone was being type to type in typing school on an old fashioned typewriter, so no 'Word' documents or other software etc. Would they be taught to place a space between each paragraph as in example one, or would they also be taught that example two is also a correct way of typing?
 
Not sure what the "correct" way is but if it was me I would always leave a gap/line break between paragraphs. Probably best to check one of those supposedly authoritative documentation "style" books (there's one in particular - from MIT? - but I can't remember the name offhand).
 
Joanne said:
It was 'Word'.

What I mean though is which is the "correct" way to write paragraphs? Not necessarily with 'Word' though.

If someone was being type to type in typing school on an old fashioned typewriter, so no 'Word' documents or other software etc. Would they be taught to place a space between each paragraph as in example one,
Click to expand...

Yes

Joanne said:
or would they also be taught that example two is also a correct way of typing?
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I doubt it - certainly in my experience it would be incorrect and very bad style. You need a certain amount of white space to make text more readable.
 
A new paragraph always gets a space. Say for instance your sentence went the whole way out the edge of the page and you wanted to make a new paragraph out of it, you wouldn't know it was a new paragraph if the previous line happened to be the width of your page.
 
Thanks for that. I thought I was going a bit doo-lalley yesterday when she said you don't have to put a space between each paragraph, as I've always put a space between each paragraph my entire life!

The woman is an accountant too...!! :rolleyes:
 
I don't think there's a requirement to leave a space between paragraphs. You should, however, always indent the text at the start of a new paragraph. I would consider both of your examples incorrect.
 
Seagull said:
You should, however, always indent the text at the start of a new paragraph.
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Why? Surely it depends on the template/style that you are attempting to conform to. I'm not aware of any definitive rulings on things like this. If you do maybe you could quote them?
 
Seagull said:
You should, however, always indent the text at the start of a new paragraph. I would consider both of your examples incorrect.
Click to expand...

This is considered very old-fashioned and is not really done any more. Again this is in my experience. I would probably still indent in a written letter but to be completely honest it's so long since I've handwritten a letter I'm really not sure anymore what I usually do. I have seen it done sometimes in personal typed letters but almost never in official or business correspondence.

That said, the "rules" are far less rigid now than they were even 10-15 years ago (about when I first started learning to type) and many people have their own style. As so many people now type their own correspondence rather than having secretaries to do it, lots of things have crept into general usage and are accepted by many as ok.
 
ClubMan said:
I'm not aware of any definitive rulings on things like this. If you do maybe you could quote them?
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In my case it's based on what I learned in college (typing and business English classes required as part of Diploma in Languages and Business) and my experience working as a PA and secretary. There are books with rules in them but, to the best of my knowledge, there is no definitive book in English. They're more guidelines than actual rules.

Not like German, which has (had anyway, not sure if it's as strict now) rules for everything (DIN - Deutshce Industrie Normen or German Industry Norms) right down to which line of the page the address should start on, how many cm there should be between address and date and so on and so forth.
 
Agree with Clubman - my take on this is that hand written letters typically (though not by necessity ) used indented paragraphs. I use the first example in the op when typing and a quick scout through all the letters I have recently received use the same style with no indented paragraphs in any of them. It is much easier on the eye imo if you leave a gap between paragraphs.
 
In most business environments the company will have their own template for styling documents and letters etc. If they don't then they will either be ad-hoc or somebody with a little initiative will design one and encourage it to be adopted as standard. There are style guides which are useful when coming up with such templates but often a little common sense works just as well. I have worked with many technical writers who spent more of their time reading such style guides and agonising over a particular style, word or phrase (e.g. one 50 something tech writer who spend half the day trying to convince his minions that "de jure" was correctly spelt "de iure" because the Romans didn't have a "J") instead of churning out the docs that were needed! Keep it in perspective folks. Substance is usually more important than style although having both is the ideal situation...
 
Joanne
Why did you capitalise the first letter of most of the words of the thread title ? Tthis is something that I'm not sure if my preference is correct, or not.

FWIW - I would have written it as "Is a line break always inserted to begin a new paragraph".
 
TarfHead said:
Joanne
Why did you capitalise the first letter of most of the words of the thread title ?
Click to expand...
It's possible that the thread title was originally posted in all capitals but vBulletin is configured to convert such text into mixed case with the first letter of each word capitalised. Unfortunately it doesn't have the smarts to only capitalise the first letter of each word in a new sentence (not to mention recognising proper nouns etc.).
 
Definitely leave a space between paragraphs; indenting the first line is also 'good', but admittedly a lot of publications don't do it any more, and you don't often see it in day-to-day 'business correspondence' (— more's the shame, harrumph! ;) )

The style manual Clubman refers to is produced by the [broken link removed] (Modern Languages Association), but it's intended for academic/scholarly research articles and probably a bit ott for the purposes of ordinary formal writing. You can get the 'Full Monty' here, or see a sample paper [broken link removed], or even download free software that claims to automatically format your work to MLA standards here ('though I haven't tried it).
 
No - there's some other US style guide that's often references, espcially in IT circles. Could have come out of one of the universities out there or something. Can't remember.
 
[broken link removed] (and [broken link removed] for referencing) would be the other main ones in humanities/social sciences — but I dunno about IT. Maybe it's listed here?
 
I think it may be the Chicago one. It's just one that I've seen referenced by technical writers in several (IT) jobs over the years.
 
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