Paragraphs over 150 words are bad for blogs or internet articles but can be perfectly fine and in some cases preferred for academic writing. The previous paragraph you just read was 148 words which was very close to Yoast's 150 word limit for paragraphs. As you can tell it is a little harder to skim through it compared to shorter paragraphs. As you may have noticed, I made this paragraph right here a slightly longer paragraph just so you can compare it to the shorter paragraphs above. Whereas a person on the internet might have a shorter attention span and simply want to be able to skim the most important parts quicker and more easily. Also, people involved in academics probably have longer attention spans and don't need their paragraphs broken up in small chunks so they don't lose interest. Academic papers don't typically have ads, so there is no reason to try to make the text longer to fit more ads in.

If you are not writing a blog post or article published on the internet it may be best to write slightly longer paragraphs. Which is why some digital ad companies highly encourage smaller paragraphs. The longer the text, the more advertisements can be fit inside it. In the same way, many bloggers instead of condensing their writing into one block of text, will break it into lots of small paragraphs to make the text appear longer. Many students, if given the task of writing a 2-page essay will adjust the font-size, margins, spacing etc. Shorter paragraphs take up more roomĪnother benefit is the fact that it is able to take up more room on the page. Smaller chunks and lots of headings, make it easier on the brain to scan the text. The idea behind it is that shorter paragraphs allow you to more easily digest the text since you are able to break it up into chunks. Many times the paragraphs will be just one sentence. It is common practice among the blogging/SEO community to keep paragraphs short.

Yoast, who created one of the most popular SEO tools for bloggers even penalizes your SEO score if you have a paragraph more than 150 words. When to use short paragraphsįor example, if writing a blog article it is best to keep paragraphs short. The ideal paragraph length depends on the type of writing. However Google Docs, possibly the biggest alternative to Microsoft Word doesn't even have a paragraph count feature. This is consistent with how Microsoft Word counts paragraphs. Please note that each item in a bulleted list will count as a paragraph. How are paragraphs calculated?Īny time you start a new line containing text the paragraph count will be incremented. Click this to copy the text within the text box.

Next to this button is the Copy Text button. As you type you will notice the paragraph count being updated in real-time on the top left of your screen.Īs an added bonus, we included both the character and word count as well on the top right of the screen.īelow the text box to the right, there is a Clear Text button that will delete all the text within the text box. To get started, enter some text into the text box.