Writing and Wrapping

A common occurrence, an extremely common occurrence, so much so that it is certainly happening at the moment, and had to happen before you could read this (assuming you are), is, well, it is, well, in a word, wrapping.

(You may now skip to "a short summary.")

What is wrapping, and what does it have to do with writing?

Definition (and then a real answer):

Wrapping is the processs of rearranging text so it fits within a window--typically accomplished by insertion of line breaks.

For an actual answer, wrapping has absolutely nothing to do with writing in the traditional sense. It is only on a computer where writing is done by typing and is read by a machine, first the keyboard and then the computer, that wrapping stops being the least of our concerns, and begins to be the greatest.

Imagine you have a paragraph, a rather long one. It seems proper to divide, and so in a moment, you have inserted your cursor at the proper place, and you press the 'return' key. Immediately you have divided the single paragraph into two new paragraphs, like this:

First paragraph: I went over to the beaver's house.[RETURN]Second paragraph: And then I had a meal. I think Reddy Fox ate more than I. :-(

And, it is changed automatically to:

First paragraph: I went over to the beaver's house.

Second paragraph: And then I had a meal. I think Reddy Fox ate more than I. :-(

Beautiful! Splendid! Just so!

Wasn't that easy? And what in the world does wrapping have to do with beavers and foxes?

Just this: Wrapping is only good on one paragraph at a time. Before you can wrap text properly, it must be properly divided into paragraphs.

Yes, I said, "Before you can wrap text properly, it must be properly divided into paragraphs."

Do I need to say it again? Remember, "BEFORE YOU CAN...!"

So, how are paragraphs divided, and how do we ensure that we separate them correctly?

In the case above, a simple 'return' was enough. Unfortunately, you were probably thinking about working in fancy, modern word processing software. In that situation, as soon as you press return, you see your results.

But in plain text, the standard for the Internet, e-mails, and any sort of material intended to be read (and what I am using right now), it is not so easy. (Well, as matter of fact, it is easier, but I'll explain that later.)

Suppose you do type a return, and your line is now broken onto the next line. How can you tell the difference between that and a space which looks like a return because the wrapping process broke the line there in order to make it fit? (After all, you can't _see_ a linebreak.)

You can't. Probably the computer can't either, because it probably substitued a linebreak of its own for what used to be a space.

Therefore, we need to differentiate further. You can insert not one, but two returns. Or, for neater, more book-like formating, you can prefix new paragraphs with a couple spaces. Or, like I often do, you can do both.

So there are actually three ways of overcoming the problem.

The bad news is that many folks decide to make their own lines fit, even when there are no new paragraphs, and even when the computer would have done it automatically. When someone else looks at the message, chances are that they will see a copy that was re-wrapped all over again! Horrors!

Have you ever seen an e-mail like that? I'd guess you have, and it's not a pretty sight, not at all.

So, what you should do (the short summary):

  Nicely indent your paragraphs.
Not like this.
  But like this, or...

You may add an extra line, or...

  You may do both!

Now, it's up to you to decide for yourself which style you like better. (Personally, I use all three; indentation with spaces is simple and handsome, and in many cases the extra lines make text more easily read.)

It makes sense to preserve your writing works in a format that is really worth its salt. Text, the "Plain Jane" of modern computers, is very versatile, and does not lose its value (as do things written with old software, or any software which might ever become old)

Moreover, properly formatted text may easily be prettied-up for any number of applications in which beauty is good, the "better half" of the art of writing.

I won't make you repeat that, but anyway, I hope you remember.