India Uncut
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This blogspot site will no longer be updated, except in case of emergencies, if the main site suffers a prolonged outage. Thanks - Amit.
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
If Easter Island statues spoke
My review of Jared Diamond's
"Collapse" in today's Business Standard is here. Unfortunately, the website version of my piece has 24 paragraphs to the print version's eight. It reads terribly, so if you have the print edition handy, read my review there.
I hate one-sentence paragraphs, unless they're rare and for effect. Too many website editors seem to think their readers are stupid, and cannot fathom normal paragraphs. It's an arrogant attitude, and a misplaced belief. Paragraphs have a purpose, to contain modules of thought and narrative, and to break these randomly is silly. Thankfully in Cricinfo, where I've worked since 2001, one-sentence paragraphs are disdained, but on too many websites they're considered mandatory. It's received wisdom, and it's wrong.
Update (June 23): I've received a clarification that the wayward paragraphing on the website is due to a system malfunction. Fair enough.
"Collapse" in today's Business Standard is here. Unfortunately, the website version of my piece has 24 paragraphs to the print version's eight. It reads terribly, so if you have the print edition handy, read my review there.I hate one-sentence paragraphs, unless they're rare and for effect. Too many website editors seem to think their readers are stupid, and cannot fathom normal paragraphs. It's an arrogant attitude, and a misplaced belief. Paragraphs have a purpose, to contain modules of thought and narrative, and to break these randomly is silly. Thankfully in Cricinfo, where I've worked since 2001, one-sentence paragraphs are disdained, but on too many websites they're considered mandatory. It's received wisdom, and it's wrong.
Update (June 23): I've received a clarification that the wayward paragraphing on the website is due to a system malfunction. Fair enough.
