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Very short sections and subsections clutter an article with headings and inhibit the flow of the prose. Short paragraphs and single sentences generally do not warrant their own subheadings. Headings follow a six-level hierarchy, starting at 1 and ending at 6. The level of the heading is defined by the number of equals signs on each side of the ...
The length should conform to readers' expectations of a short, but useful and complete, summary of the topic. Few well-written leads will be shorter than about 100 words. The leads in most featured articles contain about 250 to 400 words. Lead sections that reflect or expand on sections in other articles are discussed at Summary style.
If a sentence contains a bracketed phrase, place the sentence punctuation outside the brackets (as shown here). However, where one or more sentences are wholly inside brackets, place their punctuation inside the brackets. There should be no space next to the inner side of a bracket. An opening bracket should usually be preceded by a space.
] The textbook Mathematical Linguistics, by András Kornai, suggests that in "journalistic prose the median sentence length is above 15 words". [9] The average length of a sentence generally serves as a measure of sentence difficulty or complexity. [10] In general, as the average sentence length increases, the complexity of the sentences also ...
All the sentences within a paragraph should revolve around the same topic. When the topic changes, a new paragraph should be started. Overly long paragraphs should be split up, as long as the cousin paragraphs keep the idea in focus. One-sentence paragraphs can be emphatic, and should be used sparingly.
In some cases, the spacing of the volume or work itself provides an indication on the recommendation for usage of sentence spacing. [5] A lack of guidance on sentence spacing is also notable for style guides in languages which did not adopt double sentence spacing to accommodate the mechanical limitations of the typewriter, and which conform to ...
A 1980 study split sentences into 1–5-word phrases with additional spacing between segments. The study concluded that there was no significant difference in efficacy, but that a wider study was needed. [113] Numerous other similar studies in 1951–1991 resulted in disparate and inconclusive findings. [114]
If a paragraph is preceded by a title or subhead, the indent is superfluous and can therefore be omitted. [2] The Elements of Typographic Style states that "at least one en [space]" should be used to indent paragraphs after the first, [2] noting that that is the "practical minimum". [3] An em space is the most commonly used paragraph indent. [3]