I suspect your post is a satirical response to the question at hand. At least, I hope it is.

Apart from satire, one shows wisdom by avoiding dogmatism about paragraph and sentence structure. Much of it depends on context.

The paragraph length I'd choose to develop an idea in an academic journal and in a popular magazine would differ.

Having said that, I find even in the academic literature, and such publications as The London Review of Books (which I love), that paragraphs often are way too long; judicious editing would benefit both the paragraphs and those who read them.

Among novelists some writers craft long and complex paragraphs, while others limit their length. Similarly with sentences.

Since context is about purpose and place, readers and their needs, and generally agreed upon boundaries beyond which off-topic material resides, I'd submit this is unlikely to be the most appropriate place for discussions about Proust (or Daniel Silva's most recent espionage novel, The Fallen Angel, which is excellent indeed), or even posts such as this one on writing style.

Daly


reverendmartian wrote:

I disagree, and, I think, so would Jacques Barzun, author of "Simple & Direct," the
pre-eminent tome on rhetoric for writers. Dean Barzun favored compound and complex
sentences because complex relationships cannot accurately shown by using simple
sentences. They need to be linked or subordinated in one sentence if possible. Ditto
about your prescription about short paragraphs. Paragraphs have to do with
developing ideas; and I would argue that you are not seeing all the relationships
among ideas in a paragraph comprised of a few short sentences. If an idea truly has only
one facet, then it is simple and self-evident and probably unworthy of any
exposition, short or long. Check out the length of Dan Dennett's paragraphs in any of
his books---typically 20 or more long sentences, all of which hang together nicely.
On balance, I would rather be convicted of being long-winded than simple-minded.
Besides, your criticism is paradoxical on an outliner software forum in which some
topics are regarded as being so complex we need a computer to help us break them down
into their constitutent parts. If a topic could be sufficiently covered in a few short
sentences and a few short paragraphs, we presumably could keep all of that data in our
heads rather than commiting it to paper, digital or otherwise.

My complaints about
some posts from some newcomers are that the posts are irrelevant to the forum's raison
d'etre and ostentatious
displays of verbosity. More than that is better left
unsaid.