128 | JADE
JAMES HARTLEY
This I changed to:
Might be of interest so some of you.
Please see below and forward to others who might be
interested.
More information on support for students with caring
responsibilities can be found here:
(web address)
And I explained my rules to the author and asked for comments.
She replied:
Hi Jim,
Thanks for this.
I might use it for some e-mails (but not for all).
It does look neater and easier to read but…
… by giving each sentence a new line it is hard to distinguish
(especially for more complex exchanges) which
sentences are part of the same thread.
Let me know what you find from others’ comments too –
that will be very interesting!
I proceeded to repeat this routine with 12 more authors, mostly in
the UK, and 8 of the total of 13 replied. Overall, 1 of these was critical,
2 were lukewarm, 1 said he did it already, 1 said that she would try
it, and 8 were positive. In short 10 out of the 13 respondents were
positive.
Stage 2: Three rules for clarifying space
More rumination on my part led me to change the rules. It became
apparent that many people rattle out e-mails without much thought
about their presentation. It would be simpler, therefore, to suggest
that they continue to do this first, and then insert the spacing. So
my rules became:
1. Write the text as usual.
2. Edit the text so that each new sentence starts on a new line
(unless it is very short).
3. Edit the text to insert a one-line space between paragraphs.