Hammering on about Paragraphs

[Judy Perry]

You know, this whole business about indenting versus blank lines, arrogant
higher ed educators and the like takes me back a few years when I was
finishing my second master's degree and was positively hounded over similar
issues.
Over the various years and degree programs, I've had to "learn" the
following approved "styles" (formatting techniques):

Turabian
Chicago
MLA
AP
APA
Whatever the style was for scientific/technical writing
Whatever the style was for legal writing
Harvard

And -- you know what?  I can't really keep any of them straight.  For the
life of me it just isn't clear why higher ed places such emphasis on where
to put commas, dates, and other things over what really ought to be more
important, namely, CONTENT.

Maybe we can start a new thread on how formatting styles are like various
religions?

Judy
http://revined.blogspot.com



On Sun, Dec 21, 2008 at 1:05 PM, Sivakatirswami <katir at hindu.org> wrote:

> Richmond Mathewson wrote:
>
>> JLG wrote:
>>
>> "I'm not sure what "identifying" means in this case, nor what identifies
>> one method as British and the other as American. All the American books I've
>> seen have indented paragraphs with no space between."
>>
>> -----------------------------------------------------------
>> RANT WARNING
>> -----------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> That's odd;  when I was at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale
>> I was told by several professors (I use the small 'p' deliberately) that
>> Indented paragraphs were 'British' and unacceptable. I was also asked by
>> one "professor" (of Old English, no less) why I couldn't spell English
>> correctly! I remember on that day I hopped in the car and went out and
>> sat...[snip).
>>
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------
>> RANT ENDING
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>
>>
>
> This one just pushed my buttons....
>
> Having been involved in "American" book publishing, editing and magazine
> printing since 1972... = 36 years (wherein our editor's always, with glee,
> change "colour" to "color")  I can't help but cringe and weigh in here: your
> Profs at USI Carbondale were lost in Ivory Tower Arrogant Intellectual
> Polemic Madness, a disease that runs rampant, unfortunately...to set up such
> a contrived polarity.
>
> Not that I'm against educators in higher education, but over the years one
> just gets sick of these kinds of assertions as they so often pollute
> discourse that should otherwise be grounded in empirical observation and
> objectivity, by the very ones whose careers are supposed to be based on
> their empicism and objectivity. Instead we just get minds filled with books
> that were regurgitated content of other books, that were regurgitated
> contents of other books, that were regurgitated content of other books...
> (don't get me going...)
>
> Whether you use indented paragraphs, block (flush left, one blank line)
> paragraphs or "run in- in-line" paragraphs broken with just an old para
> sign... is a typographic design decision and has nothing to do with national
> literary conventions. "Indented paragraphs were 'British' and unacceptable."
> is such a classic statement of the ignorance of many academics about the
> real world. Just look at the "American" books and zines in any Barnes and
> Noble store for verification.
>
> It would be just "wrong" for RR to set up any kind of conventions based on
> such vacuous criteria.
>
> Sivakatirswami
>
>
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