4 ms·

One sentence per line makes prose feel sanctimonious, even self-aggrandizing. I find this dude's writing un-readable for exactly this reason. All of his article

One sentence per line makes prose feel sanctimonious, even self-aggrandizing. I find this dude's writing un-readable for exactly this reason. All of his articles are like HTML versions of the Ducks Go Quack TED Talk [0]. I just roll my eyes. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tom6_ceTu9s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tom6_ceTu9s

kuhzaam 4y ago
In his defense, he is saying to write "one sentence per line" only _while_ you are writing/editing. He says this is "for your eyes only", and that you'll recombine into paragraphs afterwards. I think the idea is that, if your sentence can stand up to the added scrutiny you'll give it while seeing it sitting all alone, then it is worth keeping. Otherwise it is a wasteful sentence. Anyway, I do agree that the actual "one sentence per line" prose that is so pervasive on places like LinkedIn is awful.
- Semiapies 4y ago
  At this point, I think it's wasted breath to try to respond to the people who skim over articles without comprehension (or who don't appear to read the articles at all) and who instead just respond to the title.
  - preseinger 4y ago
    I understand the difference between one line per sentence at the source level, and at the presentation layer. As far as I can tell, articles on sivers.org demonstrate both.
Enginerrrd 4y ago
I think the advice is still useful for editing. Personally, I'd add the extra step of re-consolidating the sentences into paragraphs after going through this editing phase though. That said, I do a lot of technical writing and I often find paragraphs with fewer sentences are my better written paragraphs.
- __MatrixMan__ 4y ago
  I'd argue that the job of clumping adjacent sentences together into paragraphs is a job for whatever builds/renders the writing, not for the writer.
  - preseinger 4y ago
    (laughs) what?? Paragraphs — like punctuation, grammar, syncopation, etc. etc. — express semantic intent. They're not, like, type faces. They're one of the tools that ·authors· use to communicate meaning.
CoryAlexMartin 4y ago
I also find his writing very unnatural and hard to read. It makes me seriously doubt his method, which he claims he's been using for twenty years. The first thing that stood out to me was the robotic nature of his writing. It seems like he's going so far out of his way to remove "unnecessary" words from sentences, and remove "unnecessary" sentences from his paragraphs, and to stringently vary his sentence lengths, that he winds up writing unnatural language. If you write in a way people aren't accustomed to, your readers are going to have a harder time understanding you. "Sometimes short. Sometimes long." "Cut three lines. Paste them up above." This isn't how English is used.

kuhzaam 4y ago

In his defense, he is saying to write "one sentence per line" only _while_ you are writing/editing. He says this is "for your eyes only", and that you'll recombine into paragraphs afterwards. I think the idea is that, if your sentence can stand up to the added scrutiny you'll give it while seeing it sitting all alone, then it is worth keeping. Otherwise it is a wasteful sentence. Anyway, I do agree that the actual "one sentence per line" prose that is so pervasive on places like LinkedIn is awful.

Semiapies 4y ago
At this point, I think it's wasted breath to try to respond to the people who skim over articles without comprehension (or who don't appear to read the articles at all) and who instead just respond to the title.
- preseinger 4y ago
  I understand the difference between one line per sentence at the source level, and at the presentation layer. As far as I can tell, articles on sivers.org demonstrate both.

Enginerrrd 4y ago

I think the advice is still useful for editing. Personally, I'd add the extra step of re-consolidating the sentences into paragraphs after going through this editing phase though. That said, I do a lot of technical writing and I often find paragraphs with fewer sentences are my better written paragraphs.

__MatrixMan__ 4y ago
I'd argue that the job of clumping adjacent sentences together into paragraphs is a job for whatever builds/renders the writing, not for the writer.
- preseinger 4y ago
  (laughs) what?? Paragraphs — like punctuation, grammar, syncopation, etc. etc. — express semantic intent. They're not, like, type faces. They're one of the tools that ·authors· use to communicate meaning.

CoryAlexMartin 4y ago

I also find his writing very unnatural and hard to read. It makes me seriously doubt his method, which he claims he's been using for twenty years. The first thing that stood out to me was the robotic nature of his writing. It seems like he's going so far out of his way to remove "unnecessary" words from sentences, and remove "unnecessary" sentences from his paragraphs, and to stringently vary his sentence lengths, that he winds up writing unnatural language. If you write in a way people aren't accustomed to, your readers are going to have a harder time understanding you. "Sometimes short. Sometimes long." "Cut three lines. Paste them up above." This isn't how English is used.