Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

60%
+1 −0
Q&A Are paragraph spaces used for emphasis?

"Am I allowed ..." No. If you do this, the Writing Police will come to your house, break down the door, and arrest you. Seriously, what do you mean by "am I allowed"? Who is going to stop you and ...

posted 6y ago by Jay‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T10:25:13Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/40913
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar Jay‭ · 2019-12-08T10:25:13Z (almost 5 years ago)
"Am I allowed ..." No. If you do this, the Writing Police will come to your house, break down the door, and arrest you.

Seriously, what do you mean by "am I allowed"? Who is going to stop you and how?

The real question is, "Is this a good idea?"

There appear to be two issues here: 1. Should you put space between paragraphs? And 2. Should you make a sentence its own paragraph for emphasis.

The answer to #1 is a matter of formatting style. You have to do SOMETHING to show where new paragraphs begin. Sometimes people put space between paragraphs to separate them. Sometimes people indent the first line of each paragraph. Occasionally people put the paragraph symbol, ¶. The first two methods are used routinely and are understand by pretty much anybody who can read English, and are pretty much interchangeable. The only time it matters is if there is some other sort of formatting you are using that makes one or the other difficult to read. Like if you want to use some blank space to show breaks between sections, then also using it to separate paragraphs could make it unclear whether any given break is a section break or a paragraph break.

As to #2, emphasis, like any technique for emphasis, you should use this sparingly. If you are speaking quietly and suddenly you shout, it gets the listeners attention and lets them know that what you said so loudly is important or exciting (at least to you). But if you shout constantly, it's just annoying.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2018-12-27T22:35:03Z (almost 6 years ago)
Original score: 6