From the course: Writing with Impact
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Managing paragraph lengths
- You've probably learned about so called essay format in grade school. Five paragraphs, each with four or five sentences leading from idea to conclusion. But there's something funny about essay format. It's nearly extinct in the wild. Paragraph lengths have been getting shorter and shorter for well over a hundred years. Take look at these pages from the daily Princetonian, a typical college newspaper. Here we see one from 1876. Once you get past the front page, paragraphs of five or more sentences are common. People read for news, for gossip, for leisure. Move forward to 1905. The format has changed but paragraphs are still long. Now look at 1935 when everyday people had access to movies and the radio. Paragraphs are arguably a bit shorter, maybe averaging around four sentences each. 1965, there's a TV in every home and paragraphs are down to a sentence or two. In this post-Twitter age the long slow read of the past is gone, we're used to fast hits of information and so paragraphs…
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