How Many Sentences Are In A Paragraph?

sentences in a paragraph

How many sentences are there in a paragraph?

If you think ten sentences is a good formula, it’s time to think again. Today’s readers prefer much more space.

Short paragraphs are becoming the standard now for today’s online readers.

It doesn’t matter if it is a blog post or a Kindle ebook.

Online and screen reading

Attention span is the key to online screen reading.

Reading on a screen has changed the way people read and understand a text.

You can measure a good piece of writing for online reading by the number of sentences you link together.

Too many sentences in one solid block can be difficult to read.


How long is a paragraph?

long ruler

Your English teacher in high school probably told you the general rule of thumb for how many sentences make a paragraph.

It was was a distinct section of a piece of writing and dealt with a single theme and was somewhere around five sentences long.

But it was not unusual to write ones that occupied a whole page.

A good paragraph can use as many sentences as necessary to cover a topic in full. It applies to both fiction and academic writing.

Start with a sentence that introduces the topic.

The sentences after it expand on the topic, until the last. However, the sentences together deal with only one idea.

For fiction, educational, academic, and business writing, construction is often between 3 to 8 sentences long.

You could also say that it is around 100 to 250 words long. Another measure is about a third or half a page.


How many sentences in a paragraph?

book paragraphs

The definition by the Cambridge Dictionary makes it very clear. One sentence can qualify as being a complete paragraph.

A short part of a text that begins on a new line. It consists of one or more sentences dealing with a single idea.

The Merriam Webster dictionary gives us a very similar definition of the number of sentences in a paragraph.

A subdivision of a written composition that consists of one or more sentences. It deals with one point or gives the words of one speaker, and begins on a new usually indented line.

You can see that both dictionaries make the point that the only essential feature is that it starts on a new line.

It means that there is no hard and fast rule. Single sentences can be, by definition, paragraphs.

It depends on what and where you are writing. Your decisions will be quite different for an academic essay, a business report, a blog post, or an email.

Newspapers have always used much shorter paragraph construction than say, magazines. It is because news readers tend to scan, while magazine readers look for more depth in what they read.

How long should a paragraph be? You might be a purist, but very short is becoming more prevalent now because they are much easier to read and understand.

For online readers, a long sea of text can be difficult to read and follow on a screen.


Please, give me shorter paragraphs!

short paragraphs

The topic sentence that you so carefully wrote will be lost in a lump of text. It will be almost impossible to digest on a screen. Long paragraphs are difficult to read and understand. The words tend to merge together in a sea of blocked text. It makes comprehension difficult. It requires far more concentration to read. Start a new one and space out your text to make it easier for your readers. It might be okay when students write essays. But for screen reading, you should always avoid using a lot of sentences without adding line breaks. How many sentences you use should be about how readable your text is for a reader and not about old fashioned rules.

paragraph warning

You can see the warning above. The writing assistant program I use when I write blog posts doesn’t like that last long paragraph.

It pops up a warning for me anytime I exceed 90-words. But I am always surprised that it says that it should typically be one to five sentences.

How can you possibly fit five sentences into a paragraph consisting of only 90 words?

But that is today’s rule for online writing.

Keep your paragraphs short and more readable.


Paragraphs for ebooks

ebook paragraph

You can breathe a sigh of relief if you are writing and publishing paperbacks or hardcover versions of your book.

Reading on paper is different from online reading. It is the same as it has been for centuries. You can write three hundred word paragraphs, and your readers will love you for it.

Nothing has changed for readers who like to crack the spine of a good read.

But for an ebook, you should think about changing your formatting to help your readers.

You should give careful thought to how many sentences you group together.

Give your ebook readers plenty of space. Break up your text into smaller and more digestible chunks.

Add more line breaks than you usually would do for a paperback. It will make your ebook much easier to read on any screen or device.

Reading ease depends on the device or app a reader is using to read your book.

People read ebooks on so many different devices, ranging from quite small to medium screens. Your text will flow to suit the size of a screen.

They might need space to scroll down a page with their thumb as they read, or to tap to turn pages.

You will certainly have long compound sentences in an ebook manuscript. But try to limit them to only one or two sentences.

As a guide, limit a paragraph in an ebook to no more than six to eight lines of text.

Before publishing an ebook, you should check how your book looks and reads on a small screen.


Article writing

Single or two-sentence paragraphs are now almost the norm for web pages, blog posts, and online news articles.

I am sure you have noticed this when you are online reading.

Popular mainstream newspapers are following the rule. Look at this article in the New York Times. Not one is more than two sentences long.

NYT article

As you can see, this news article is written using a collection of sentences that look like paragraphs. But at most, there are only two sentences grouped together.

Let’s go to the other side of the Atlantic. The Independent newspaper uses similar formatting. It writes most of its articles using single sentence paragraphs.


Another excellent example is Deutsche Welle in Germany.

It breaks up text in its articles into small one or two sentence chunks. It also uses left and right-aligned images to break up the text even more.

As you can see from the image below, it is an excellent example of easy screen reading.


Blog writing

Take a look at some of your existing blog posts and check how you format your text.

It will only take you a few minutes to add more line breaks and perhaps insert a few headings.

One other factor to consider is your font selection. You should use a standard serif or sans serif font.

Also, set a size that is easy to read on a laptop or phone screen. Arial and Times in 15 or 16px or 12 to 13pt are always easy to read fonts.

Most newspaper websites use serif fonts. For blogs and content articles, sans serif is often the preferred choice. But there is no right or wrong choice.

If you are curious, I use Raleway, which a Google Font. It is similar to Arial and Helvetica. The font size I use for content text on this blog is 17px.

Once you make these simple changes, you can quickly republish your post or article. It will be much easier for your blog visitors to read on any device.


The new short paragraph rule

For online writing, one of the best writing tips is to use a heading to help group your information.

A good heading briefly introduces the topic. After that, you start with a topic sentence.

You can follow this with related single sentence and separate them with line breaks. But, only group two sentences as long as they are relatively short.

Sentence spaced paragraphs are still concentrating on a single theme and should always have a concluding sentence.

Good construction for online reading makes it much easier for a reader to absorb and understand what you write.



How many sentences make a paragraph? Not as many as there were years ago.

The long-form might not be dead yet. But it is definitely going out of fashion. Or perhaps, it has been refashioned.

Check your online article and blog post reading ease. Write paragraphs that are split into small sentence chunks under a new heading.

The sentences can then develop the topic just the same as an old fashioned boxed paragraph.

The only difference is that a good piece of writing for screen reading gives a reader much more white space. It helps their eyes navigate the text more easily.

If you are writing blog posts, online articles, or ebooks, think about your readers and your formatting.

Make it as easy as you can for them to read and enjoy your writing.

Give your readers the space they need to be able to read comfortably on any size screen or device.

Derek Haines


2 thoughts on “How Many Sentences Are In A Paragraph?

  • July 14, 2020 at 6:03 pm

    Splendid , this is very helpful indeed .
    Thank you

  • June 21, 2019 at 3:26 pm

    nice article! on point….


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