... And another issue I'd like right of reply on, please - perhaps a touch more
contentious, as I do have differing views on this:
[Michael Edwards:]
>> They are the only specific things Patrick said. He made other vague
>> references to "established style", but gave no indication of how I
>> departed from that.
[Patrick Hubers:]
>I did not, please read again.
My apology, Patrick: I was only paraphrasing the general effect anyway. I
shouldn't have used the quote marks to imply a direct quotation.
You said, "There is a long established tradition of formatting emails", and
later, "You choose to use another method", "... the described style" and
(referring to my own style), "... is not what others will be accustomed to".
These quotes are obviously contrasting two differing methods; to save words, I
swallowed all this up in the phrase "established style", to indicate the
standards which I was apparently departing from; and I called the reference
"vague" because I did not know at the time what this was referring to.
>Unless you're referring to the word "etc."
I guess that was a part of it; it implied further, unspecified things.
>Here's an etcetera, if you want: you start each paragraph with an
>indentation. That's fine with written letters (depending on what you
>learned at school I guess),
Hmm, this is a little more tricky. I'm happy to comply on the attribution
business, but I will take a little persuading here.
I certainly did learn this in school - two, probably three, *different*
schools in different Australian states - and lots of other places later in life,
too. It's difficult to see any reasonable objection to it, though.
I do have a bone to pick on this, actually, although I think it's trivial
to object to it. Why is a style that is acceptable in one type of writing not
acceptable in another? If you don't like it, it shouldn't be fine in written
letters, either. But to continue...
>but paragraphs in email messages are usually
>separated by an empty line. Makes them easier to read.
Well, that *is* picky. But I do have reasons for my way of doing this.
I actually find indented paragraphs easier to pick out. Your way, empty
lines are so common they lose any meaning, and everything merges together down
the entire document, regardless of its structure, change of topic, etc. I have
always disliked this style because of its lack of clarity and structure.
Look at almost any printed book - most of them indent, and use empty lines
for other purposes (which I will come to in a minute). I find the minority of
books written the other way more distracting. A number of books I have on
writing technique mention indenting as the standard way to start a paragraph,
and don't restrict it to handwritten material; many books don't even mention the
other way as a variant or alternative. I was taught the indenting method at
school.
It's a rock-solid, well-established method. Maybe it's not been
fashionable these last several years, but you can't say it's wrong. If I bowed
to pressure to follow fashion as a matter of course, I'd probably have to keep
changing parts of my style every few years, and I'm not interested in doing that
without good reasons.
I happen to believe non-indenting is not the preferred method for general
use (and I have books on writing which would support this), but a variation used
mainly in formal business letters (which I do not write), and a relatively new
fashion which arose on the Internet, perhaps partly (I surmise) because H.T.M.L.
short-sightedly did not provide any easy way of indenting. (I've written web
pages, and it is an continuing nuisance to use " " all the time.) But I
don't come on the list and complain at people who use a style I regard as less
preferable. (I'd have my work cut out for me, wouldn't I?)
Empty lines: I have read books on writing that specifically state that an
empty line is used to indicate a change of topic or point of view (a broader
change than that for a new paragraph), like I just did now - or, in fiction, to
indicate the passage of time or a change to a new group of characters.
I use empty lines in e-mail or in other writing for these purposes, and it
helps me structure my argument clearly, provides a sense of dividing text into
portions on more levels than just that of the paragraph, gives broad signposts
to what I'm saying; and I take care to plan these as well as I can. I also use
the empty line in e-mail to separate writing by different people.
If I used an empty line between every paragraph, it would make the device
completely useless for the first of these other purposes, and much less
effective for the second.
Well, well, blow me down - the things that bother people!
I'm a little bothered, actually, by the general climate to this debate
which seems to urge an unquestioning conformity to very fussy rules which are
simply personal matters of style that can go a number of alternative ways - a
kind of peer pressure that says might is right, and uses numbers to try to pull
into line people who choose to do some things differently. Sorry, but I don't
work that way myself.
(Referring to the connection that was made with detail-consciousness in
engraving: they are things I *choose* to do the way I do - not because I'm
careless about detail. No-one's paying me to write e-mail a certain way. If I
do engraving, that's a totally different matter, and I will do my best to do
what the customer wants.)
Perhaps I'm an old-fashioned individualist (I sense that's less approved of
in today's world), but I just don't set such a strong store on total conformity
to an arbitrarily decided way of doing something, and am not very responsive to
peer pressure as such. And I find the advocated collection of practices on how
to set out e-mail less clear, and I will always prefer a slightly unconventional
clarity to a conventional style I find less clear.
Thanks for your opinion about paragraphing, Patrick. But I think, until I
come across reasons that persuade me that changing is a good idea, I'll keep
using my style of paragraphs and empty lines. The way I use empty lines to
structure my arguments is too intrinsic to the way I write and think for me to
sacrifice it without good reason.
Is there anything else? No? Perhaps we can move on now, then. I'll try
to make my attributions clearer. But I need a little more persuasion about the
indenting - or shall we just leave it there, and be a little more tolerant of
each others' styles?
(Thanks, Keith, for pulling me up before. The posting I was about to
submit when you intervened was a little more heated and defensive; I think I've
done a bit better now at explaining my stance calmly and rationally.)
Regards,
Michael Edwards.
_______________________________________________
Finale mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
