Please use paragraphs in longer posts

Yup paragraphs provide strong structure and eliminate chaos by providing single minded and organized focus to what you are trying to get across to the reader but don’t make your sentences to short either because that can be frustrating to read don’t get me started on punctuation because without it it makes it a place for good ideas to go and die and I know it’s hard escpeially if your typing on a phone instead of a keyboard but please make the effort so we can all appreciate your contribution

Allan!!! 🤣😂

Ha ha! That made me laugh, Allan!

please remember to hit "return" every so often.

Paragraphs are not 'random' spacing

A paragraph is a series of sentences that are ORGANIZED and COHERENT, and are all related to a single topic.

https://wts.indiana.edu/writing-guides/paragraphs-and-topic-sentences.html

Now Joe, you're raising the bar pretty high for this group! "Organized and coherent" is asking a lot! ;-)

Yes!
Please use punctuation!

I also never read any of the posts that have no punctuation or paragraphs.
I'm sure those people are posting really helpful info, but I don't want to painstakingly search through it for some tips in the middle of it all.
Thank you.

If I really want to read a post sans paragraphs, I will copy and paste it into a Word document and add returns to my hearts content. Otherwise, those long posts with no paragraphs are an automatic TLDR.

I wonder if some people are only hitting return once instead of twice, and not looking at what they wrote in the Preview field to see that there isn't a paragraph where they actually meant one to be.

I love lots of space, even between two sentences.

I agree. I won’t read one long paragraph post, or a post without punctuation.

My pet peeve here are people who don’t proof-read before, or after, they post. You can easily edit after posting. Amazes me how many here don’t proof-read.

My pet peeve here are people who don’t proof-read before, or after,
they post.

My pet peeve is people who criticize other people’s posts. 😊

People come here looking for information. They are not submitting legal briefs. Not everyone has great spelling, grammar, or computer skills. I know most of you mean well, but it’s topics like this one that discourage some from posting.

Carrie, i don’t mind misspellings, i don’t mind bad grammar (mine isn’t great), i don’t mind not capitalizing or no apostrophes (i do it all the time) but i want to understand what someone is trying to say. Sometimes people leave out words or say “”do” when they meant “don’t”, etc. Re-reading what you just wrote is super easy and useful even in texts, emails, every day life.

I agree with Susan. It's easy (I think) to tell if the writer does not speak English as a first language and so grammatical and punctuation errors can be overlooked. But when it's obvious that the author hasn't proofread what they just wrote, that is a problem.

Too many people post on Twitter (or whatever) where they are only allowed a certain number of characters. That means that they don't use punctuation or split what they've written into paragraphs. This is NOT Twitter!

I agree with Susan. Sometimes I'm amazed at the typos in my own posts.

My pet peeve here are people who don’t proof-read before, or after,
they post. You can easily edit after posting. Amazes me how many here
don’t proof-read.

I won't judge anyone but myself, but I get embarrassed when I go back and read my own comments and see mistakes. Usually it's not stupidity but f#%$&^# spellcheck on my phone. I'm guessing 98% of my mistakes are when I comment using my tablet or phone. I'm much better and patient on a keyboard.

Yeah, I'm not going to get caught up in the school house etiquette of spelling and grammar ... I'll just continue to post away in blissful ignorance.

Well, that bans Bill Shakespeare and Geoffrey Chaucer from ever posting on these boards again.

If I really want to read a post sans paragraphs, I will copy and paste it into a Word document and add returns to my hearts content.

Omg Prophet, now that is dedication !

It is much easier to catch the mistakes that other people make than to catch your own. When you proofread your work you already know what you intended to say and that is often what you will ‘see’.

I read an article that said if you want to catch your errors you should try to make your work as unfamiliar as possible. Change the font or background colour, or print it out and edit by hand.

Pretty sure I would rather spend time thinking through an answer that might be of help to some people, even at the cost of having errors in my work.

*colour, instead of color; because I am Canadian :-)

Omg Prophet, now that is dedication !

Kim - I've only done it twice, both times were for otherwise excellent trip reports that I really wanted to read.

Paragraphs are not 'random' spacing. A paragraph is a series of sentences that are ORGANIZED and COHERENT, and are all related to a single topic.

Joe, I do know that - I'm currently wading my way through 16th century historical documents and research papers for a history class I'm taking at the university here, and some of the them are just as difficult to go through due to long paragraphs and the use of old English. I expect that there. But these are short informative or questioning social media posts, not historical papers. They are meant to give or gather quick information and I'm assuming each author wants her or his post or comment to be read. Hence my post... 😊

I turned off auto-correct, made me crazy because it would often put in the wrong word.

Reminds me of the old story: A minister, a priest, and a rabbit walk into a bar. The bartender asks the rabbit: "What'll you have?" The rabbit replies: "I don't know, I'm just here because of auto-correct."

;-)

LoL Dick!
See how just one letter changes everything, my point exactly.

or the classic about whether a panda is a serial killer or just hungry -

eats shoots and leaves

Dick, I have never heard that one before. That is hysterical! 🤣

phred, I’ve seen that before on some grammar memes, but it’s a good one, too.

There’s nothing like grammar to get some people going with puns and jokes. Don’t get me started on the Oxford comma.

"Eats, Shoots and Leaves" is actually the name of a delightful book by Lynne Truss about the use of commas and other punctuation in our writing.

I recall an old favorite... Let’s eat grandma or Let’s eat, Grandma. Punctuation saves lives.

escpeially if your typing on a phone

Proofread, Allan!

Lola once posted a comment with several words in the sentence that made absolutely no sense. I PMd her about it, and she admitted that she was typing German names, and her autocorrect changed them into the closest words in English to the German words she had actually typed.

Eye halve a spelling check her,
It came with my pea sea.
It plane lee marks four my revue
Miss steaks aye kin knot sea.

Eye ran this poem threw it,
Your sure reel glad two no.
Its vary polished in it’s weigh,
My checker tolled me sew.

ODE TO A SPELL CHECKER
by Jerrold H Zar

Proofread, Allan!

because I was on my phone there were more but I decided because of the nature of the post Id leave it i didn't want to appear like a total idiot just a partial one

Here's my original attempt before spellcheck got it's hands on it;

Bedard I was on my phone there were more but I decided because of the nature of the post I'd leave it I current wasn't to Sierra like a total oddities just a partial one

In reading the forum posts, especially the long paragraphs, I can see that the forum is full of bright ideas and convincing arguments and stories of places that defy my experiences and knowledge of the world despite my best efforts to be well informed: the page after page after page of posts, opinions, controversy, suggestions all begin to weave together like an endless adventure of what was and what could be; forests of tangled experiences, like those that grew around the castles in fairy tales, in the abandoned quarry by the road, where bullfinches sing from the thickets, their barrel chests a bright plum colour; rotting tree trunks at the top of the yard that had never been ripped out, and were now crumbling and full of red ant nests; the edges of the common land where the cows grazed, scruffy and half-wild; and even the fields of barley and oats were speckled with poppies and weeds, the pastures were full of thistles, and the hay meadows, by late June, were full of wild flowers.

I'm just here to say Mister E, you win. Total respect for you.

Each poster probably receives two email notifications from me when I reply because I typically post an answer. Then two minutes later, they receive that second notification because I caught an error.

ponygirl813, I confess to plagiarism.

I'm for proof reading.
At least just take a glance to see if the formatting has deleted your carefully placed newlines.
It is not neccesarily logical to the new poster, that they must put in two newlines in the source to start a new paragraph.
Note: this is sritten as for paragraphs with single newline spacing.

Paragraphs, punctuation, and spelling. If you want your post to be read, it would be best to consider these things. If you don’t care, why post? Also, who wants to be thought of as such a dolt that they cannot adhere to better writing.
People should take a certain pride in writing well.

People should take a certain pride in writing well ... who wants to be thought of as ... a dolt

It's a travel forum, it's not a prelude to publishing a thesis ... sheesh!
.
I no longer do emails, I'm into iMessages and SMS ... the format is grunty and I like it.

... the format is grunty and I like it.

I had to look that one up! I like it.

Most RS posters are garden-variety Americans but English isn't the first language of everyone in the community. As long as I can understand the question or suggestion, I'm good to go.

Hello? I'm not sure where all the hate came from, but my motivation for writing it was not to turn people into perfect writers. My sole purpose was to let others know that reading posts with long paragraphs and little to no breaks is difficult to read and many people, including me, pass these posts by. So if someone was looking for more viewers for their post, they might want to take that into consideration. That's it. I don't care if you use crappy grammar, or if your spelling is bad. I can make my way through that. I just find it very hard to read large blocks of text with no break.

I just read through a long one-paragraph post this morning. I’m in this forum looking for (and hopefully sharing) helpful, informational content. That particular one was much appreciated. Please keep sharing, readers, in any format!

No hate intended from me mardee. Just sticking up for the grammatically and formatting challenged. 😊

My fear is that a new forum member will read through this thread and think twice about posting their question. I would hate for that to happen.

Two short paragraphs.

Calibri and Arial walk into a bar. The bartender looks up and snaps, "Hey, you two turn right around and walk straight back out. We don't serve your type in here."

My fear is that a new forum member will read through this thread and think twice about posting their question. I would hate for that to happen.

Imagine if they had bad grammar and asked a question that's been asked before and were trying to do too many day trips to cities that need 10 nights and were not packing light!! 😧🤪

Calibri and Arial walk into a bar. The bartender looks up and snaps, "Hey, you two turn right around and walk straight back out. We don't serve your type in here."

Isn't that discrimination?

Gundersen!!!!! 😂 🤣
(Graphic Designer was one of my hats in the past. I think we're posting in Helvetica.)

Calibri and Arial walk into a bar. The bartender looks up and snaps, "Hey, you two turn right around and walk straight back out. We don't serve your type in here."

Was the bartender named Georgia? 😉

Imagine if they had bad grammar and asked a question that's been asked before and were trying to do too many day trips to cities that need 10 nights and were not packing light!! 😧🤪

Ha ha ha, roubrat!!!! Yeah, I think everyone on this forum tends to get a little judgy from time to time, so maybe I got a bit defensive here.