The changing password

As insecure as this is, at work I used to keep a diary with a dozen passwords in the back which I rotated each month as my password expired. Again. And again. Then Microsoft made my life more complicated by requiring capital letters and stupid symbols to be included in my passwords. I changed my dozen passwords to include that idiocy (which is now a debunked security measure, thank goodness; Xavier, 4 January 2019). Worse, more lately Microsoft has refused to let me reuse a password which I have used before. Sigh. As a result I have had to keep a list of all the passwords I'd used, so that when I proposed a new one, I didn't get told I'd already used it.

I still had to find a way to record my passwords, because I couldn't remember them otherwise. Even more insecure, I needed a way of carrying my passwords with me, so that I could access things from my phone, from my laptop, and from my PC. I have no idea how many times I've forgotten a password, and had to have it reset, for any number of sites.

I do at least, have different password that every single site that I access. This was largely because I suspected I may have been hacked last year: and many of the low risk sites I accessed used the same password. Now I use a variety of password lengths, and every single one is different. I am starting to think that I need to use a password manager, as it becomes very difficult to remember what belongs with what site. where I live does not lend itself to two factor identification, due to dodgy connectivity.

And then, earlier this year, I read a post on TechRepublic about Microsoft no longer requiring users to regularly change passwords (Bayern, 6 June 2019). Wow: now that will be a major removal of stress. But it will require us to set good passwords. And good password is long. LONG.

A sentence, perhaps.

If there is a security breach and passwords are stolen, then we need to change our passwords. If there is no security breach, then there is no reason to create change, simply for change's sake... particularly when we then do things which void any security we may have had. Like writing passwords down, and leaving that list on our desks.

The reasons that Microsoft gave for no longer requiring this was productivity. Apparently three quarters of customers said they found the number of passwords they had to remember was stressful, so they either only slightly changed passwords, or they changed them and forgot them. To prevent a loss of productivity from forever having to remember our access codes, we write our passwords down, and leave that somewhere convenient (just as I have done in the past).

TechRepublic quotes Avivah Litan, who says that removing password expiry is "a feasible and very welcome plan. Forcing users to change their passwords periodically works against security—it means consumers have to write them down to remember them and it does nothing to stop hackers from stealing current passwords," continuing with "Hackers generally use stolen passwords very quickly, and password complexity does little to prevent use of stolen passwords either, since hackers can just as easily capture or steal a complex password as they can a simple one."

However, it does mean that we have to take action quickly in the case of a data breach. but we don't have to worry until that happens.

Excellent.


Sam

References:

• Bayern, M. (6 June 2019). Windows 10 passwords won't expire: Why Microsoft says this will make your account safer. Retrieved from https://www.techrepublic.com/article/windows-10-passwords-wont-expire-why-microsoft-says-this-will-make-your-account-safer/
• Xavier, J. (4 January 2019). The Ultimate Guide to Strong Passwords in 2019. Retrieved from https://blog.fleetsmith.com/password-security-guide/

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The difference between managing and doing

In Aotearoa New Zealand we have a long tradition of self-sufficiency. We think that we can turn our hand to anything, learn anything, nut out anything if we just put our minds to it... and that if we can't do things one way, then we can come up with a work-around to meet the same outcome.

This is a very pioneering point of view, largely developed from Aoteraoa being so isolated in the bottom of the South Pacific. The thousands of kilometres of ocean, the lack of minerals, the lack of established technologies, and attitude of 'make do and mend' drove us to develop our own low-tech solutions. Our solutions tend to be those that will work "for now", and we will do something permanent later. Often, the 'later' never happens: in 50 years we still using the "for now" solution. These values of self-reliance and "she'll be right" have become embedded in the New Zealand psyche.

Self-reliance could be what has encouraged many New Zealanders to work for themselves. "She'll be right" may be a contributing factor to New Zealanders' impatience with planning, and future proofing and investing in good technology. I think we Kiwis have a horror of over-engineering solutions.

And it is this combination mindset of self-reliance and "she'll be right" which I suspect doesn't work well when it comes to managing our businesses. We think we can do it ourselves. Of course we can! Right? We came up with the business idea: of course we can manage a business! It can't be that complicated, right? How hard can it be?

Our unique skills lead us to over-simplify and create our own bottlenecks. We under-invest, we under-plan, and we under-monitor. We create business drama which is entirely our own fault, but it is not just process and plant that we over-simplify.

We think that managing people is simply giving everyone "a fair go", not realising the depth of skill and understanding to be developed in management and leadership. We think that theory is boring, instead of theory being a rule of thumb to aid us in our work. We think the components of theory are unnecessary, instead of thinking that theory components are like recipe ingredients which, once we know them, can be swapped to create customised outcomes. We think we can do things by the seat of our pants as we ride the wave of emergency; instead of taking a planned approach, with fewer crises, less turnover, and less burnout.

As a nation, I think we lack a professional - or professionalising - attitude. We don't really respect the learning required to do any piece of work properly, to future-proof it, to really think through functioning, planning, monitoring, and control. We want to get on with the doing.

Management is considered a profession in many countries, but not in New Zealand. Kiwis think managers are people who prevent them from doing their jobs. Worse, we promote good technicians into management positions, and rarely train them how to manage. I went looking for research on this topic, and was unable to find anything. Either I don't know the appropriate search terms, or it is a space which need some research.

Something to think about.


Sam

Silver Fern used in the image by Bamse, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5160357

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Lorem Ipsum: filler text in Word

A few years ago, I wrote a brief blog post explaining how to insert pig-Latin text into MS Office documents (here), but thought I would expand on it.

Often called "Lorem Ipsum", filler text is used to show what a layout or template will look like in its finished form, before you have any actual text to put into the file. I remember getting sheets of Letraset transfers which used this text... ah, the days before computers were ubiquitous.

To get a Lorem Ipsum phrase, you simply type into Word or Publisher or Adobe programmes the code "=lorem(5,10)" which will give you five paragraphs of filler text spanning ten lines.

So why "Lorem Ipsum"? Well, apparently the use of these phrases arose from the early stages of typesetting in the 1500s, where a printer wanted to show off their variety of typesetting faces. Walsh (1996) says that:

Richard McClintock, publication director at the Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, [...] had enlightening news: "Lorem ipsum is [L]atin, slightly jumbled, the remnants of a passage from Cicero's "de Finibus".

"Dolorem Ipsum" means "pain in and of itself", from a once very widely-known treatise by Cicero, de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum. The actual phase is "Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit...", which translates as (Walsh, 1996):

"There is no one who loves pain itself, who seeks after it and wants to have it, simply because it is pain" (McClintock, n.d., attributed to Pali, as cited by Walsh, 1996)

However, this is not what it actually means, because the Lorem Ipsum Latin is all up the pole, actually translating as (Flood, 2014, citing Boparai):

Rrow itself, let it be sorrow; let him love it; let him pursue it, ishing for its acquisitiendum. Because he will ab hold, unless but through concer, and also of those who resist. Now a pure snore disturbeded sum dust.

Can we assume that because everyone who was learned at the time knew their Cicero, that was why this text was chosen to showcase the printer's talent? If so, then it is a bit like the grocer's apostrophe... Here, let me show you my Latin knowledge... oops (smirks from all the learned people who truly knew their Latin). However, as Lorem Ipsum only got popular last century, I wonder how much of this story really is accurate.

Ah, well.


Sam

References:

• Flood, A. (2014). Lorem ipsum translated: it remains Greek to me. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2014/mar/21/lorem-ipsum-translated-latin-placeholder-text
• Walsh, N. (1996). What does `lorem ipsum dolor' mean? Retrieved from https://nwalsh.com/comp.fonts/FAQ/cf_36.htm

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Logging into MoodleCloud

As mentioned previously, I am doing some work in setting up a MoodleCloud site as learning support and additional resourcing for my post-graduate supervisees. Having set up my free account, when I went to log back in, I suddenly realised that I had no idea what my user name was.

To the best of my recollection, at no point in the registration process was I asked to provide a user name. I assumed that my username must be my email address. I tried to log in. Not my email address. I tried the name that I had registered under. Not that either. I tried the name of my site. Nope.

So I clicked on the helpful link provided, "Forgotten username or password?" and was sent a password reset link. I was dubious as to whether this would be at all helpful, as I would only be changing my password, and would still not know what my user name was.

However, I went through the process and found, when I went to log on again, that the user name "admin" was automatically entered. Having done some reading since, the username "admin" seems to be the default for all MoodleCloud sites (Reid, 2017).

Not only is this not a very secure username, there appears to be no way to change the username. I will be investigating whether this can be altered as time goes on.

It has certainly encouraged me to set a very complex password!


Sam

• Reference: Reid, C. (2017). How do I log in to my MoodleCloud site? Retrieved from https://support.moodle.com/hc/en-us/articles/115008889787-How-do-I-log-in-to-my-MoodleCloud-site-

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Creating your own learning site

One of the fabulous things about teaching in an institution is access to the systems to set up online learning, such as Moodle.

In my teaching, I use Moodle all the time as an information bank. I create and use glossaries to store participant questions, and to provide a searchable way for learners to find answers to their burning questions. I can write an introduction so that learners know what each element is for, then link to different websites, pdfs, files, or videos which will increase their understanding, or smooth their path to mastery.

However, what I wasn't aware of is that, as a private individual, I can create my own Moodle site, using MoodleCloud (here). I had thought that - while Moodle is open source software - that you had to be running your own server in order to have a Moodle site. Instead, MoodleCloud acts as the cloud server for your site, meaning that any of us with the patience to learn the software can set up our own courses.

Whether that is showing people how to navigate a new HR system, or setting up a bug reporting service, or creating our own courses, MoodleCloud can help us get it done.

I am currently setting up one of the free MoodleCloud sites to share resources with my post-graduate supervisees, supported by a glossary to answer many of their common questions. In taking this approach, I am showing a philosophical difference to some of my fellow supervisors, who don't think we need to provide such resources to assist Master's students. However, I feel that, as I have many of the resources already developed from my undergraduate teaching, there is no harm in making them available to help post-graduate learners plug knowledge gaps.

By creating my own MoodleCloud site, my supervisees can access all of the material I have developed, in an environment they are familiar with, while my resources remain separate from the "official" Moodle site.

The development will take some time, and, as there is an overall size limit of 200 MB on the free sites, I have to get quite clever about linking my materials in from off-site. I am considering setting up a separate Google drive to host these additional resources, but I haven't quite decided yet. I will need to do some more research. Additionally, the sites don't look that flash. It seems likely that there are an underwhelming number of plug-ins activated, probably to keep the platform more stable, but it does make the site very plain.

I am looking forward to exploring the site's potential.

I will keep you posted on progress :-)


Sam

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Watching the tide go out

I have a 'soft' rule that each new thing coming into the house needs to have two things going out so there is a net decrease on possessions. I am not making this a revolution, but an evolution; as and when I feel ready.

To do that, I try to go through one 'space' each week in the house. That 'space' might be a single drawer some weeks, or half a room in another. This also applies to the office.

When parting with things, I am not rushing into divorce. Instead, I put the items into 'the waiting room', which is an intermediary space for me to think about it until I am happy that I have disconnected from them emotionally (my 'waiting room' is the spare room). Then I can decide objectively what the next best place for those things to go is.

Where things go to from the waiting room is varied. I pass things which I am not using to friends, volunteer groups or charity shops. I will try to sell some items if, (a) they have resale value, and (b) I have time. That is where the waiting room comes in handy: if I hear that someone needs something, while I am thinking about when and how to part with an item in the waiting room, I can give that thing to meet a specific need. This is the most rewarding aspect of purging possessions.

Additionally, I am trying to purchase as much as possible myself from second-hand sources. This is shifting my mindset to 'renting' items, as opposed to owning them. If we rent them, we know it is temporary. When we own them, we have a much more permanent mental hold on them.

My aim is to end up with fewer possessions, as naturally as the tide turns, over time. To have some empty spaces, and to not feel a need to rush in and fill those spaces with stuff. To break with unnecessary buying.

It is quite liberating, knowing that the high-tide mark is a millimetre further out each week.


Sam

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LinkedIn group managers

For those of us who are still involved with LinkedIn groups as administrators or 'managers', removing administrators or managers is easy: we simply go into the "Manage Group" button on the top left-hand side of our screen, then go to the Admin tab (also on the left-hand side, and click the menu button at the right-hand end of each administrator's details, and select "Remove Manager Permissions" (see the accompanying image for details).

However, discovering how to add new administrators or managers is not quite as intuitive. What we have to do is to go to the list of members, ie, the members tab in the management view, search for the member we want to add, then at the end of the prospective administrator details, select "Make Manager".

If we go back to the Admin tab, we should then see that person in the updated list of managers.

However, if we are a manager, and want to change the group owner, we can't. Only the group owner can reassign the ownership of the group.


Sam

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Working overtime

Participant average weekly work hours (StackOverflow, 2019).

Most people who work on projects will be familiar with being under the pump towards the end of the project when everything is rush-rush-rushing towards delivering before deadline... and avoiding late penalties. Everyone on the team throws all they have at completion, including late nights and weekends, in order to get the job done.

This project focus applies to many fields, including software development where 100 hour weeks is not uncommon (Heath, 6 August 2019).

We know that prolonged overtime makes us less productive. We know that we start to lose our edge if we try to keep working punishing hours without a break. We know that error rates increase the longer we work.

With huge hours, we might also assume that people might start to lose job satisfaction, but that doesn't seem to be so, according to the latest StackOverflow (2019) survey of 90,000 developers. The survey appears to find "no significant spike in job dissatisfaction among devs working 60 hours a week, with satisfaction levels not really dropping off until developers hit 80-hour weeks" (Heath, 6 August 2019).

But there might something more going on behind the prima facie apparent high satisfaction with huge hours. It appears that 52% of developers don't average more than 44 hours each week, and in fact 65% of developers work 44 hours each week or fewer (see accompanying image).

Only 2% of developers work over 70 hours a week, and this tiny group may be skewing the results. Heath (6 August 2019) reports:

Julia Silge, data scientist for Stack Overflow, says a complicating factor in interpreting the data is that "some of the types of developers who work long hours are also among those who earn the most and also have the highest job satisfaction". The Stack Overflow survey found these high earners typically reported being "very or highly satisfied" with their role, as was the case for 77% of senior executives, 70% of engineering managers, 69% of site reliability engineers, 68% of data scientists and 68% of DevOps specialists.

So. Some love the long hours, and their love of their work keeps them engaged.

It is always wise to cross-tab the data :-)


Sam

References:

• Heath, N. (6 August 2019). Are developers honestly happy working 60-hour weeks? Why it's bad news whatever your programming language. Retrieved from https://www.techrepublic.com/article/are-developers-honestly-happy-working-60-hour-weeks-why-its-bad-news-whatever-your-programming-language/
• StackOverflow (2019). Developer Survey. Retrieved from https://stackoverflow.count.co/share/ZoZKhHvXIurDk0WARlhOD

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Adobe's content preparation message

Earlier this year I had a stealth update from Adobe which created a really annoying problem. On opening a pdf file, a "Content Preparation Progress" box would appear, which would lock me out of the file until it had finished 'processing'. As soon as I made another change to the file, or went to the next page, it would appear again.

Not a terribly productive thing to have happening.

One user worked around this by simply opening all pdf files in Chrome, which worked perfectly for viewing files. Unfortunately, this fabulous solution did not work for files which needed editing.

There were three other solutions proposed:

1. Go to Edit | Preferences | Accessibility
2. Under Other Accesibility Options, untick "Enable assistive technology support".
3. Click OK (Adobe Support Community, 1 February 2019).

1. Start AdobeUpdater.exe in ...\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\ Updater 5
2. In the update screen, click Preferences | untick Automatically Check for updates
3. click OK (Adobe, 17 December 2015).

1. Go to Edit | Preferences | Reading.
2. Under Screen Reader Options, select "Only read the currently visible pages"
3. Click OK (Adobe, 22 March 2016).

Each of these three solutions seemed to help some people, which I guess depended on which version of Adobe Acrobat you had (I am running Acrobat 2017).

After about 24 hours, however, I found that the problem simply disappeared. I assume that Adobe tracked down the problem and stealth installed a patch.


Sam

References:

• Adobe Support Community (1 February 2019). Turn Off Content Preparation. Retrieved from https://community.adobe.com/t5/Acrobat/Turn-Off-Content-Preparation/td-p/10329458
• Adobe (22 March 2016). Hide the message Content Preparation Progress when opening a PDF file. Retrieved from https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/kb/message-content-preparation-progress-opening.html
• Adobe (17 December 2015). Disable automatic check for updates | CS3. Retrieved from https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-suite/kb/disable-automatic-check-updates-cs3.html

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Downloading shared Gdrive files

If you have had a document shared with you, but are frustratingly unable to download it, then this is the fix for you.

Google drive and docs are great for sharing materials with others, but sometimes we forget to tick the buttons that enable others to actually download the file. Viewing content can be particularly difficult on a phone, or on a mini tablet, and when someone has gone to all the trouble of sharing their file with us, it feels like we are being nagging ninnies by going back and saying "but I can't download the file".

However, there is a VERY easy fix. We can simply change the suffix of the link we have been sent. If we open the link, then replace the end of the original link (for example):

/edit#slide=id.p

with

/preview?usp=embed_googleplus

Once we have done that, refresh the screen. In the new view, we need only go down to the settings (gear) icon at the bottom of the browser window, and select "More". From there, select the download formats available.

Too, too easy.


Sam

• Reference: Norris-Karr, R. Z. J. (2017). Comment on How to download View only Google Sheet - easyway16: Or you can replace '/edit#gid=' with '/preview?usp=embed_googleplus' a the end of the link. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/MGs1zxqGpLM

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Everything was better when I was growing up...

Going to Hell in a Handcart (Soyer, 24 July 2017).

We humans are really strange creatures.

I have been watching the rise of a fascinating fashion trend, 'grandpa' fashion. Macklemore's (2012) hit song "Thrift Shop" nailed it with "Imma take your grandpa's style [...] Can I have his hand-me-downs?" (and for those of you who are bemused by 'imma', it is short for 'I'm going to'. No. Don't roll your eyes and say that "people used to be able to speak the language properly when I grew up").

We catastrophise other's behaviour, using time as a measure of quality. To see this in action, talk to an elderly person who likes to grumble. You will note that they seem to think that the world is going to hell in a handcart. Morals, language, manners, ability to park a car, or how much things cost, are "nothing like they were in my day". They are correct to a certain value of correct: but it is the world which has moved on, while they have not.

We want to hold onto what we know as 'good' (ie, we know the rules, so we feel comfortable), and shift we don't like as 'bad' (ie, we no longer know the rules, so we feel uncomfortable). Douglas Adams had something really useful to say on this, in his last book, the Salmon of Doubt:

"Anything that is in the world when you're born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. Anything that's invented between when you're fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things" (2002, p. 95).

The rules governing human behaviour - how we speak, how we smooth public and private interactions, travel from place to place and make purchases - are constantly evolving. The progression is largely glacial, so we don't notice this slow shift from within in our lifetimes. Change is happening, but we generally can't see our stodginess until we interact with much younger people. Then the shift becomes very visible.

Over a hundred years ago, Kenneth John Freeman, a Cambridge scholar of Greek education 500-300BC, paraphrased what we assume to be voices of ancient Greek scholars on "the youth of today" (1912):

"In the period of juvenile emancipation and increasing luxury and indulgence for children which marked the closing decades of the fifth century, it became customary for conservative thinkers to look back with longing, and no doubt idealising, eyes to the 'good old times'." (Freeman, 1912, p. 71). [The next few pages call witnesses to these views: Aristophanes, Isocrates, Plato, and Xenophon].

"The counts of the indictment are luxury, bad manners, contempt for authority, disrespect to elders, and a love for chatter in place of exercise. […] Children began to be the tyrants, not the slaves, of their households. They no longer rose from their seats when an elder entered the room; they contradicted their parents, chattered before company, gobbled up the dainties at table, and committed various offences against Hellenic tastes, such as crossing their legs. They tyrannised over the paidagogoi and schoolmasters." (p. 74).

There we go: we humans ARE crazy. We long for the golden age when we knew all the rules and we could hang onto our 'truth'. Even the great thinkers did it, over 2000 years ago. The truth has probably moved on a bit since 300 BC.

And that is why grandpa style has slowly grown into the trend that it is today. The young people are now starting to drink the Kool Aid, and believe that everything was better for their grandparents.

Imma take your grandpa style (Macklemore LLC, 2012) and raise you one.


Sam

References:

• Adams, D. (2002). The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the galaxy one last time. Macmillan
• Freeman, K. J. (1912). Schools of Hellas: An Essay on the Practice and Theory of Ancient Greek Education from 600 to 300 B.C. (published BA dissertation, 2nd ed.). Macmillan and Company Ltd.
  NB: Paidagogoi held a combination role of "nurse, footman, chaperon, and tutor" (p. 66)
• Macklemore LLC (29 August 2012). Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Thrift Shop Feat. Wanz [Video] https://youtu.be/QK8mJJJvaes
  
• Singer, M. (2 September 2019). Millennials everywhere are now dressing like their grandparents. https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/fashion/115456253/millennials-everywhere-are-now-dressing-like-their-grandparents
  
• Shariatmadari, D. (15 August 2019). Why it’s time to stop worrying about the decline of the English language. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/aug/15/why-its-time-to-stop-worrying-about-the-decline-of-the-english-language
• Soyer, F. (24 July 2017). Going to Hell in a Handcart [Tweet]. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DEuTXCXWsAEPy25.jpg

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PowerPoint font issues

For some time I have been having a problem with one particular file in Microsoft PowerPoint. A message box would appear on saving the file - the message box illustrating this post - saying that I had a problem with some fonts used in the file.

Needless to say, I ignored the message for quite a while, then when I had some time I went looking for a solution.

Firstly I assumed that the fonts named must have had expired licences, or - possibly - licences incompatible with Windows 10 (Microsoft, 26 March 2015). I checked all the fonts named, and downloaded new versions of each, uninstall the old version, and installed the new. I expected my problems to go away, however, even after a reboot, I got the same message.

Knowing that all fonts were indeed legitimate, I went looking again. I found a post by PPTools (30 November 2016), which suggested doing a "save as" on the file, clicking the tools dropdown at the bottom of the "save as" dialogue box, and selecting "save options". Then:

• Click Save on the left side of the dialog box that appears.
• Under "Preserve fidelity when sharing this presentation" on the right, put a check next to "Embed fonts in the file" then choose "Embed only the characters used in the presentation (best of reducing file size)" or "Embed all characters (best for editing by other people) .
• Click OK and continue saving normally.

All of the "general failure" errors went away. however, I still had my "font not available", and "licence restriction" errors occurring.

To repair these last two errors, I went through the document until I found the slides containing both those particular fonts. I think what had happened was those two font licenses had expired, and PowerPoint had not 'seen' the new installed fonts. It was still assuming that the fonts were expired. I simply had to highlight the expired font, and then select the new font immediately below it in the fonts list.

Now my file saves perfectly.


Sam

References:

• Microsoft Support (n.d.). About font license restrictions. Retrieved from https://support.office.com/en-us/article/about-font-license-restrictions-6be9f366-e722-4751-90a8-165e9c37e985
• Microsoft (26 March 2015). Replace fonts not working in PowerPoint 2013. Retrieved from https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2013_release-powerpoint/replace-fonts-not-working-in-powerpoint-2013/be88dccb-4572-4bbf-b1fc-c3b9834c3a13?auth=1
• PPTools (30 November 2016). Embedding fonts. Retrieved from http://www.pptfaq.com/FAQ00076_Embedding_fonts.htm

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Writing paragraphs

Azariadis (2011, p. 6)

When we are creating argument, the key tool we use for this is a paragraph. We often don't tend to think about a paragraph having a structure, but these frameworks are powerful. There are a number of different ways to structure paragraphs, but in this post, I will explore the "standard" approach.

Paragraphs should contain at least three sentences. They should be written with a lead-in, topic sentence, followed by a number of detail sentences with each explaining detail of - and linking the elements of - the topic sentence. Each paragraph then ends with either a concluding sentence, or with a bridging sentence which takes the reader to the next paragraph. Diagrammatically this looks like the image accompanying this post.

A paragraph should not be only one sentence long: all you can do in a single sentence is to introduce the argument yet to come... and then nothing happens! As an old lecturer used to say, "You're not a journalist: a one sentence paragraph is a heading" (ha ha, that made me laugh: little did he know, my first ambition was to be a journalist!).

On the other hand, neither should a paragraph drone on for too long, as the reader needs to be able to "take a breath" before starting on the next idea. As we are writing, we need to consider the amount that our average reader will be able to absorb in that "breath". There is a fine line between bite-size, digestible paragraphs for the reader, and textual overload where each paragraph must be attempted multiple times.

We want the utmost clarity in communication, with the most nuance, for the least effort on the part of the reader.

So tricky.


Sam

• Reference: Azariadis, M. (2011). Graduate Research School Seminar: Editing for Academic Writing. Retrieved from https://slideplayer.com/slide/4234375/

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