paragraph, fills between forty and fifty lines of a newspaper column.
Such paragraphs seem heavy and uninviting. Moreover, the casual reader
cannot readily comprehend and combine the various thoughts in so large a
group of sentences. Although there is no standard column width for
magazines, the number of words in a line does not usually exceed eight.
A paragraph of 250 words that occupies 30 eight-word lines seems less
attractive than one of half that length. The normal paragraph in
journalistic writing seldom exceeds 100 words and not infrequently is
much shorter. As such a paragraph contains not more than four or five
sentences, the general reading public has little difficulty in
comprehending it.

The beginning of the paragraph, like the beginning of the sentence, is
the part that catches the eye. Significant ideas that need to be
impressed upon the mind of the reader belong at the beginning. If his
attention is arrested and held by the first group of words, he is likely
to read on. If the beginning does not attract him, he skips down the
column to the next paragraph, glancing merely at enough words in the
paragraph that he skips to "get the drift of it." An emphatic beginning
for a paragraph will insure attention for its contents.

REVISION. It is seldom that the first draft of an article cannot be
improved by a careful revision. In going over his work, word by word and
sentence by sentence, the writer will generally find many opportunities
to increase the effectiveness of the structure and the style. Such
revision, moreover, need not destroy the ease and naturalness of
expression.

To improve the diction of his article, the writer should eliminate (1)
superfluous words, (2) trite phrases, (3) general, colorless words, (4)