A paragraph is a series of sentences that are all about the same main point or idea. When you start a new main point or new idea, you should start a new paragraph. In a paragraph, the sentences all follow on from one another, separated by a full stop followed by a space. Don’t separate sentences in the same paragraph with a paragraph break, which makes the next paragraph start on a new line (you might know this as a return, enter, new line, or something else).

I’ve noticed some students starting to do something new with their paragraphs in essays.

They start every sentence on a new line.

To me, this looks like lots of very short, single-sentence paragraphs.

But I think the students intend for them all to be understood as the same paragraph.

Then, when the student wants to start a new paragraph, they put two paragraph breaks.

It probably has something to do with how people write on the internet, in direct messages, WhatsApp, or something like that. Perhaps this will become the new convention for setting out paragraphs in time. But right now, this is not the conventionally correct way to set out a paragraph. So please separate your sentences with a full stop followed by a space, and separate your paragraphs with a paragraph break.

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