Paragraphing in Manuscripts for Submission

In manuscripts of yore (centuries ago), the text would appear in one huge unbroken block. At some point breaks in thought or theme came to be indicated in the line of text with marks of various kinds, which in late medieval times included a pilcrow (¶), essentially the same symbol your word processor hides at the end of a paragraph in your documents today. With the invention of movable type, printers introduced the practice of starting each new paragraph on a new line and indenting that line from the left margin, no doubt with the idea of making the text easier to read. Eventually, the pilcrow disappeared altogether from the printed page.

These days, it’s unusual to see content online that has been formatted into traditional paragraphs. Web designers seem to agree that on a computer screen, text is friendlier when there’s some space between paragraphs and all the lines begin flush left, as in this post.