Posted by David Graham on 02/17/06 18:10

"PeterMcC" <peter@mccourt.org.uk> wrote in message
news:43f5e47f$0$9238$ed2619ec@ptn-nntp-reader01.plus.net...
> David Graham wrote in
> <Cd%If.46041$Rw6.5104@newsfe7-gui.ntli.net>
>
> > "David Dorward" <dorward@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> > news:dt00vt$dn$1$8300dec7@news.demon.co.uk...
> >> David Graham wrote:
> >>
> >>> I know it is very bad to have text in a page not contained by
> > something -
> >>> so text within a div usually goes inside a paragraph. Does text
> >>> withing a table cell also need to be housed in a paragraph?
> >>
> >> Probably not, although some tabular data consists, at least in part,
> >> of paragraphs.
> >>
> >>> Infact, with the exception of headings and lists and other less
> >>> used ones like cite, does text usually find itself wrapped up in
> >>> paragraph tags.
> >>
> >> No. Only text that is a paragraph should be marked up as such.
> >>
> >> --
> >> David Dorward <http://blog.dorward.me.uk/>
> >> <http://dorward.me.uk/> Home is where the
> >> ~/.bashrc is
> > Hi
> > So text consisting of just 3 or 4 words should not be marked as a
> > paragraph? Basically, what constitutes a paragraph - my CSE English
> > grade 2 is letting me down a bit!
>
> The paragraph is stylistic rather than grammatical.
>
> There has been a move towards shorter paragraphs in English over the last
> one hundred years. Shorter paragraphs are particularly prevalent in
> marketing/advertising copy - they are hoping to catch the casual reader by
> making the text less demanding - providing a resting place for the eye on
> white space between the paras and reducing the copy to bite-sized
portions.
> Since web pages are often working along similar lines, their paragraphs
are
> also usually shorter than in normal print such as is found in a novel.
>
> Paragraphs are often defined as one or more sentences that are connected
by
> their dealing with a particular aspect of their subject matter. This
doesn't
> really define their length though, since there's still an arbitrary
decision
> to be made about how large or small the sub-divisions of the subject
matter
> are to be.
>
> To find a quick example, I looked at the lead story ("PM: Guantanamo is an
> anomaly" - just chance, no politics intended) in the Guardian
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/
>
> The sentences per paragraph count on the first 10 pares is:
> 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 1, 3, 1
>
> It is sometimes said that it is ungrammatical to have a single sentence
> paragraph. That isn't true and it is quite possible to have a single word
> paragraph.
>
> Cheers!
>
> --
> PeterMcC
> If you feel that any of the above is incorrect,
> inappropriate or offensive in any way,
> please ignore it and accept my apologies.
>
It is some comfort to me to see that this is something of a grey area and
there are no fast and hard rules because I was thinking I just don't know
the rules
David

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