How do you *say* this?

[sholio]

You know, I just posted the formatting guidelines for sga-genficathon and I've realized that I can't come up with a good way of saying "leave an extra carriage return between paragraphs". For one thing, no one calls it a carriage return anymore ...

- Double space between paragraphs?
- Leave a blank line between paragraphs?
- Leave an extra return between paragraphs?
- Separate paragraphs with a blank line?

Which of the above makes more sense to you? Or do you have a better way of saying it? You know what I'm talking about, right ... standard Internet text format, separating paragraphs with a blank line rather than indenting them. I don't want people thinking they have to do something special when I'm just asking them to do what they probably always do when they post a story ...

ETA: Thank you very much to everyone who's weighed in on this! It helps a lot. :)

Comments

[holdouttrout.livejournal.com]

Maybe: "Use standard internet formatting. Double space between paragraphs..."

To me, "double space" is the clearest.

[sholio]

See, I wrote "double space" at first, but I work in typesetting, so to me double spacing refers to the space between each line of text, not each paragraph. I realize this might be one of those occasions where I'm tripping myself up with something that 99.9% of Internet users won't have a problem with ...

I think the way that you've phrased it sounds pretty clear to me, though.

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

I think you might be right about overthinking that because of your background. And I'd agree that carriage return might confuse more.

Blank line works, but I do like double space (and as someone said if you add, no indent at beginning of paragraph, it's clear that the extra line is the paragraph break).

Then again, what format are you getting these in? On LJ that's the only way to write pretty much, right? Are you getting text files??? html?

[sholio]

I'm asking for text files, but I expect that most people will probably be writing in Word and reformatting for LJ.

Since I'm an inveterate hand-coder who does most of my writing in a bare-bones text editor, I'm probably not the best person to be telling other people how to code their files. :D I actually don't even have a clue how most people post to LJ; I've never even used the RTF editor, and while I understand that you can copy directly from Word into an LJ window, I don't even have Word myself. So I'm not really sure what the average LJ user is used to doing with the LJ posting interface.

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

Then it might make sense to actually ask for a text only file, no extraneous formatting, or something.

Word creates tons of gooblygook!

What you need is a simple text file with bold and italics hard coded, right? And the blank line between paragraphs :)

I write everything in my little online text window myself...

[sholio]

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm asking for -- plain text, no smart quotes, bold and italic hard-coded.

I'm just not sure if people are going to see that and run screaming for the hills. On the other hand, I was pretty flexible about formatting last year, and the result was that I spent a lot of time reformatting files and stripping out weird Word symbols and just generally wanting to tear my hair out. After seeing the SGA Big Bang guidelines last year, I feel a lot more confidence about asking people for a specific and clearly defined format.

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

I personally prefer clear guidelines. And it's not like we can't do that formatting!

But then I'm always on the simple is better front :)

[holdouttrout.livejournal.com]

I hand-code and work in text editors most of the time, too. I can't stand not doing it, now, to the point where uploading stuff to FFN is too much work. :-)

[dovil.livejournal.com]

Manual typewriters need to come back and this would make things a lot easier. Except for the problem that manual typewriters sucked.

The first option sounds the best, I think.

[sholio]

Yeah, it's what I started with, and then circled around back to eventually (but I added "standard Internet formatting" as per holdouttrout's suggestion just to be crystal clear ... I hope).

I feel so old when I think "carriage return" and then realize that most people don't even know what that refers to. XD Not that I want to go back to manual typewriters, mind you. I like having an undo key.

[sheafrotherdon.livejournal.com]

Double space to me would suggest i should leave *two* lines between a paragraph. You know, just to confuse things further.

[sheafrotherdon.livejournal.com]

Blank line! Hard to misunderstand that, whereas I think the others could cause confusion.

[sholio]

See, when I put "leave a blank line between paragraphs", it sounded to me like I was asking them to do some kind of special formatting that they wouldn't normally do.

You know how, when you stare at a word too long trying to figure out how to spell it, it gets to the point where none of the spellings look right? I think I'm to that point ...

[sheafrotherdon.livejournal.com]

Hee! Yes, I totally understand. But I don't think anyone will be particularly confused by you saying leave a blank line - especially if you phrase it as something like 'leave the usual blank line between paragraphs' or something of the sort?

[sheron]

i think everyone will know about the carriage return.

I like #2: "Leave a blank line between paragraphs" if that's a no go.

You might also want to mention not to make "tab" infront of each first paragraph i.e. no

" blah blah blah
blah blah blahblah blah bla"

stuff

[sheron]

to me "double space" is confusing because I think of it as a SINGLE space....but I'm sure you'll get people to understand it.

[sheron]

that "blah" example had spaces in front of it....eaten by lj

[aelfgyfu_mead]

Any one of the options you give should do. They all seem clear to me.

[zillah975]

I like "Leave a space between paragraphs," but could you just include an example?

[longtimegone]

I agree re: "space between paragraphs". Also, mentioning to that means to not start the paragraph with a "tab" might clear it up for those still confused.

If all else fails, an example would do the trick!

[ldyanne.livejournal.com]

*giggles

Actually "leave an extra carriage return between paragraphs" does work for me because I'm just that old. But I think if you say leave a blank line between paragraphs that works, too.

[wraithfodder.livejournal.com]

Weird. I just used that phrase today at work with 'put in an extra carriage return'....

Hmm, let's see... I go with #2 or #4.

[sholio]

Yeah, I think "double-spaced" means something different to those of us who used to work with typewritten manuscripts. But I think we're a minority among the online population. :D

[splitbeak.livejournal.com]

My teachers always used to say skip/leave a line between paragraphs.