Creating effective paragraphs directly impacts readability.
I spend a lot of time reading online. I read a lot of posts on both Medium and Steem. Nothing will stop me faster from reading on the screen than large blocks of unbroken text.
Image from Pixabay
When writing for computer or mobile device screens, the paragraph and spacing is even important. Short, two to four sentence paragraphs are easier to read.
Do you really want to make your reader struggle to read your post? I know I don’t. I want you to start on the first word of my post and have no desire to stop until you get to the last word.
Invite Your Reader to Start at the First and Read to the End
I’d love to start at the first word of your post and read to the last while enjoying the experience.
Writing is about how well you put your thoughts into words. How you present those thoughts can make a huge difference. Invite the reader to start at the first and finish at the end. Make it a warm and pleasant reading experience.
The first step you need to take is to forget how teachers taught you to do paragraphs in school.
Those of us raised reading on the printed page often saw long paragraphs making them seem the norm. Viewing on an electronic screen is a different experience.
Our eyes react differently to electrons than paper.
The Evolution of the Paragraph
Paragraphs have evolved through the ages. In the oldest Greek texts, the only form of punctuation mentioned by Aristotle was a horizontal line called the paragraphos. It was placed under the beginning of a line in which a new topic was introduced.
By the 17th century the line space between paragraphs was introduced along with the concepts of indenting and capitalizing the start of a sentence.
The line space wasn’t strongly adopted until well into the 20th century. Printing on wood based papers rather than vellum drastically dropped the cost of printing. Line spaces no longer cost a lot to use.
The indent disappeared with screen reading. The “white” space created by a paragraph break gives the eye a very brief rest. Reading on a screen can tire the eyes quickly.
Adjusting for screen reading is one more evolution.
What Should A Paragraph Look Like?
Paragraphs introduce a new topic.
In printed text, the paragraph will introduce the topic and discussion. On the screen, paragraphs need to break the topic into related discussions similar to the format you see when reading a newspaper.
Notice the paragraphs in this post are varied but not long?
That is what you’re shooting for when writing a post. You need to break the text up with headings or graphics. Large paragraphs broken with graphics doesn’t do it. Your paragraphs need to be as compact as possible.
An Example to Illustrate
Here is a paragraph I plucked out of a post of overlong paragraphs. I wont center-out the author by naming him/her.
The Original:
Don't just sit there and be a bank or a "baller" in some cases. That won't mean a damn thing when you cannot access any of it. DO SOMETHING positive with that! Invest in the network that pays your bills. This would be akin to helping to build highways in a local or national level. These help everyone, but ESPECIALLY those that use them more often. Investments like these by large corporations, guilds, associations, committees and organizations in the "real world" insure that their products and ideas can spread abroad thus equaling more profits for them in the long run simply because they invested in the means in which people will access these products and ideas, and how they are distributed. This is no different with steem. The technology that runs this network (seed nodes) provide the means for product sellers (authors and curators) to distribute their ideas and products abroad. They are our highways. Our pipelines and utilities. It is critically important that these are not only always working and available (so that our products can be consumed without issue), but it is also critical that control of these said "highways" be neutral and unaffected by the politics that are at hand within the current hierarchy of top 10 witnesses. This is not meant to piss anyone off or undermine anyone's effort. It's not meant to step on anyone's toes or invoke a spirit of competition with anyone else's interests in any way. This is a problem that affects everyone so getting witness votes and support from whales (not just other witnesses or top 20 witnesses) is essential to help the community flourish.
Pretty brutal reading, right? Let’s make it an easier read. I will resist the urge to rewrite the paragraph.
Don't just sit there and be a bank or a "baller" in some cases. That won't mean a damn thing when you cannot access any of it. DO SOMETHING positive with that! Invest in the network that pays your bills.
This would be akin to helping to build highways in a local or national level. These help everyone, but ESPECIALLY those that use them more often.
Investments like these by large corporations, guilds, associations, committees and organizations in the "real world" insure that their products and ideas can spread abroad thus equaling more profits for them in the long run simply because they invested in the means in which people will access these products and ideas, and how they are distributed. This is no different with steem.
The technology that runs this network (seed nodes) provide the means for product sellers (authors and curators) to distribute their ideas and products abroad. They are our highways. Our pipelines and utilities.
It is critically important that these are not only always working and available (so that our products can be consumed without issue), but it is also critical that control of these said "highways" be neutral and unaffected by the politics that are at hand within the current hierarchy of top 10 witnesses.
This is not meant to piss anyone off or undermine anyone's effort. It's not meant to step on anyone's toes or invoke a spirit of competition with anyone else's interests in any way.
This is a problem that affects everyone so getting witness votes and support from whales (not just other witnesses or top 20 witnesses) is essential to help the community flourish.
Do you see the difference in the reading experience?
The exact same words, made easier to take in. Well, there was a run on sentence. That wasn’t for me to fix.
Don’t Forget the Section Headers
Once you have your content broke into varied paragraphs, you also need to add section headers. Ideally, someone scanning your post will get a decent idea of the content just from the section headers. Most people will scan a post before reading.
Brought To You By:
This post is brought to you by a curmudgeon who has seen too many posts that are painful to read. Please treat me to a pleasant reading experience.