Bottom line

• Use short paragraphs.
• Start with an especially short paragraph.
• Use block (that is, unindented) paragraphs.

Use short paragraphs

Try not to have a page with long paragraphs, like this:

Instead, try for paragraphs that look more like this:

You may wonder if one-sentence paragraphs are okay. Absolutely—almost all professional writers use them frequently.

Start with an especially short paragraph

Let's look at the good example again:

Notice how short the first paragraph is. That's a trick most professionals know. Readers are much more likely to pick up a document with an easy beginning!

Use block paragraphs

I recommend block paragraphs for business writing. In other words, don't indent the first line of your paragraphs.

Here's a page without block paragraphing:

The left margin looks ragged, doesn't it? As a result, headings and bullets don't stand out very well.

To see the difference, let's look at the same page with block paragraphs:

Headings and bullets stand out, don't they?

Your next step

Now let's turn to headings.

Copyright 2007 by Edward P. Bailey
(all rights reserved)