Talk:Paragraph

message: "A paragraph is 4-5 sentences that are all about the same thing."
enuff not to be a stub any more? Some of the ideas need rephrasing to make them clearer. Paraphrasing will make the narrative more convincing.
As it stands its disjointed and lacking direction and focus. From an mature person's POV it's salad days.
More examples of paragraphs in action please. Edgar Allen Poe regularly wrote paragraphs that ran for more than one page.
James 21:17, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi 2600:1700:16E0:2020:E1D8:AF3B:223B:E1CF (talk) 18:54, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: [No heading given]

message: "ORIGIN French paragraphe, from Greek paragraphos ‘short stroke marking a break in sense’." from Oxford dictionary. Is Wiki or Oxon correct?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.151.177.15 (talk) 11:09, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Etymology 

message: There's nothing about history in this article.  When was the paragraph invented, and by whom?  I seem to recall it was invented rather late... I looked at this article to find out more and was disappointed to find nothing. John Baez 02:51, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Me too! When was the paragraph invented? By whom is probably not known, but there probably was some first occurrence of paragraphs in western hand printing. ... said: Rursus (mbork³) 16:01, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Since added a ton. -- Beland (talk) 22:17, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  History? 

message: "In XHTML, the p element marks a block of text as a paragraph - the opening tag  marks the beginning of a paragraph, and the closing tag  marks the end of a paragraph. The paragraph consists of at least three sentences."
What is this about three sentences? Krum Stanoev 13:33, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Removed! -- Beland (talk) 22:26, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  XHTML 

message: I edited the "Structure" paragraph (at 10:50 on 11/30/07), but I wasn't logged in at the time (darn cookies). I corrected what amounted to a combination of prescriptivism and contradictory redundancy (note this is not a criticism of the editors who have worked on this page; it's natural for a paragraph that's been worked on by dozens of people to develop eccentricities). If anyone has any comments or would like to discuss I'd be happy to hear from you. Richardpaez 03:53, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Structure" 

message: See templates.  See WP:CITE.  --NYScholar (talk) 12:12, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Insufficient documentation (lack of source citations)

message: Do other languages have the same conventions for what makes up a paragraph? In other words, are paragraphs a form of organization determined by English convention, or are they an expression of the universal way the human mind organizes information? A section on the history of paragraphs, as suggested above, might also help answer my question. 138.78.98.196 (talk) 05:17, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: This "short sentences, and 3-7 of them per paragraph" thingy is particularly English. --141.3.167.120 (talk) 01:08, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Other languages? 

message: Could s.o. add a paragraph on "use in law". (pun intended :-)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.236.26.74 (talk) 05:56, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Use in law 

message: ...redirects to this article, yet no such term is to be found in this article. --Jerome Potts (talk) 07:42, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Hanging indent has since been changed to redirect to Indentation. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:27, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hanging indent 

message: Although an American in my 60's, I've never indented the first paragraph in a section; for the section mark (a blank line) will almost always be followed by a paragraph.  This should be in American stye manuals. Also, though five space indentations were used with double-spaced typescript, and carried over to word processed text, three spaces are more common.  Rarely, people indent to make a clear space the shape of a square or the shape of a capital H in the paragraph font. Geologist (talk) 21:36, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  American Indentation Practice 

message: An oddity, but the section "Indenting" seems to refer only to print media, which is misleading, because it isn't indicated. The information that follows applies only to print media and includes some unusual cases.
One detail (presently needing a citation) states that indented paragraphs, rather than blocked, are preferred in almost all genres. It seems to be a bit of an oversight not to note that almost all electronic media prefer block paragraphs.
I'm inserting the word "print" to distinguish, but I don't think that solves the entirety of the problem. Really, there should be another section on electronic media to explain this difference of style between the media.
Dirk Mcbratney (talk) 17:32, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Since rewritten. -- Beland (talk) 22:37, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Block paragraphs only for business letters? 

message: I'm writing a book, and I plan to publish it someday.
Now, I read on the internet that before you publish the book, you have to convert it to something else. (I forgot the name, but you go to a certain site and it does it for you.), then print it.
Well, does this formatting thing automatically indent it for you? Or do I have to indent it myself?
Also, on OpenOffice, is Default formatting okay to use? Or should I use text body? 24.179.27.28 (talk) 20:45, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question... 

message: What are “keyboarders” and “typists”? "Keyboarder" sounds like slang to me. What's the significance of mentioning them? These terms need more explanation, or replacement with more meaningful words. Chris Page (talk) 09:00, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. -- Beland (talk) 21:37, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

text: Typist use to be several kinds of jobs when typewriters were still primarily used. The term is still often used for certain jobs despite typewriters no longer being used. — al-Shimoni (talk) 15:19, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  What are “keyboarders” and “typists”? 

message: There's almost certainly more to add from The History of the Modern English Paragraph. -- Beland (talk) 22:10, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Good source 

message: Folks in this thread seem to think that:
* Classical Arabic didn't have paragraphs, but modern does, starting in the 1900s; one writes:
There were other ways to accomplish the same thing, though. Recipes are exactly the sort of self-contained units that need to be separated, so careful writers ended them with a conventional phrase -- perhaps a "micro-colophon" -- such as "and it comes out excellently, God willing" or "eat it in good health."
* Korean and Japanese started out without paragraphs
* Chinese has had paragraphs for a long time
If anyone can track down reliable sources for these claims, that would help fill out this article.  We might also have some luck looking at machine translations of Wikipedia articles in other languages, or at primary documents for good examples. -- Beland (talk) 22:29, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  In other languages 

message: Hello, I was just browsing and noticed that citation #2 ("A paragraph consists of one or more sentences.[1][2]") now leads to a 404 page. I figure someone who monitors or edits this wiki entry and/or has better knowledge of Wikipedia's citation rules can take care of it. :) 35.40.189.42 (talk) 19:04, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Invalid Citation