Paragraph

Would someone. Please. Explain the concept of the paragraph. To Bill Plaschke. DAVID SHERR Santa Monica

National Novel Writing Month is over. Let National Novel Re-Writing Month begin! Actually, there is no official, organized Revising-Your-Novel month. But if there were, and if everyone did the truly writerly thing and revised their novels obsessively, I'm not sure there's an Internet big enough to contain all the words it would produce. As it is, National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo for short) produced 3.3 billion words, according to its website , and probably more than 35,000 drafts of novels that are at least 50,000 words each (the final count won't be in for a week or so)

Although I concur with Bob Oates' pro football column ("When They're Telling Us the Story, Why Can't They Tell Us the Score?"), I feel he did not go far enough. He should ask the same question of The Times sportswriters. One must often wade through paragraph after cute paragraph before getting to the facts. JERRY SEGAL, Woodland Hills

Tiger Woods will return to competition on perhaps the biggest stage in golf -- the Masters. The humbled golfer, whose winter of discontent included revelations of multiple affairs and subsequent therapy, ended weeks of speculation this morning with a five-paragraph statement sent to media outlets. "The Masters is where I won my first major and I view this tournament with great respect," Woods began. "After a long and necessary time away from the game, I feel like I'm ready to start my season at Augusta.

The prologue to "Shifting Realities in Global Power" by McManus and Wright (World Report, Dec. 11) was so riveting and so well written that I fully expected the last paragraph to read, "For answers to such questions, please turn to Page H2." Would that the new world could be that simple. REG JONES Corona del Mar

The presidential inauguration occurs only once every four years. I could not believe that TV Times (Jan. 17-23) not only did not devote its cover to nearly a week of history and entertainment, but limited its coverage to a paragraph. Some people buy the Sunday Times only for its TV magazine. What a disappointment! Jean Beaver, Cypress.

I read Jerry Hulse's Travel Tips each Sunday and I often cut out and save some of the useful tips and recommendations. However, I have absolutely no use for any reader recommendation where the price is not included. Apparently, many people do not read the last paragraph. Thanks for the many tips. RUBEN HOLM Irvine

I have been an admirer of your column for some time. The Oct. 17 one in The Times about the Thomas-Hill controversy is deserving of a literary award. It expresses my sentiments completely--especially your last paragraph. MIMI BIRNKRANT, Newport Beach

In one paragraph Steve Lopez describes how he turned away from a dog swimming toward his boat for help (column, Sept. 11). If there was room for only one more and he had a choice between a kid and the dog, that would be one thing. But that wasn't the case. He just let the dog fend for itself and probably drown. Then in the very next paragraph he calls himself a dog lover. Like a lot of people who use that expression without really thinking about it, he's not a dog lover. In the appropriate situation, he might be a dog liker.

Thank you, Ellen Goodman. I would like to see her article blazoned on the front page of your newspaper. It is a comfort to read what you've been feeling so clearly illuminated. The clincher paragraph: "As for Barbara, well, I'll quote the words another 'political philosopher' found on a placard in New Hampshire: 'We like you, Barbara. But you're sleeping with the enemy.' " LORETTA CHULJIAN, Los Angeles

Prospects for an initial agreement on ending North Korea's nuclear arms program were clouded today as talks entered a fourth day without an accord on how to compensate Pyongyang for moving to disarm. Envoys to the talks, from North and South Korea, the United States, Russia, Japan and host China, have agreed on most of a plan that would oblige Pyongyang to shut down nuclear activities in return for economic and security assurances.

In one paragraph Steve Lopez describes how he turned away from a dog swimming toward his boat for help (column, Sept. 11). If there was room for only one more and he had a choice between a kid and the dog, that would be one thing. But that wasn't the case. He just let the dog fend for itself and probably drown. Then in the very next paragraph he calls himself a dog lover. Like a lot of people who use that expression without really thinking about it, he's not a dog lover. In the appropriate situation, he might be a dog liker.

WHAT a beautifully written paragraph in Scott Martelle's Aug. 14 article ["In Sleepy Hatch, a Red-Hot Time," Western Travel]. If Martelle were in my English class, he'd get an A for his lyrical words in the 12th graph: "Where the freeway keeps an aloof distance east of the river, 185 follows the Rio Grande in an intimate tango, dancing cheek to cheek for a few miles before twirling apart, only to come back together for a kiss." What a picture! And what a neat article about Hatch.

Each Sunday I read The Times' comics (a.k.a. Opinion pages). Usually this is at breakfast. Most of the time this usually demands an infusion of antacid. On April 3, however, I was unusually surprised, sort of. The article by Karin Klein, "How I Gamed the SAT," was great until the last sentence. While I was reading it, I took her examples and was grading the article according to her scale. Until the end of the article, I had given her a 5, maybe a 6. However, she inserted a left-wing wacko commentary in the last paragraph.

Re "The Lobotomized Weasel School of Writing," Commentary, May 20: I vehemently disagree with Crispin Sartwell's characterization of the five-paragraph essay as "hoo-ha." While he explains that writing "ought to nurture and give shape to thought," he fails to understand that this essay format allows for the organization of thought, thus allowing for coherent shape. Writing an essay is much like giving a presentation to an audience. The presenter needs to clearly and simply introduce the subject or argument, then enumerate and develop subtopics that provide supporting information.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Friday sought to rebut allegations that for months he withheld information about the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by their American guards, saying the U.S. military had "told everyone in the world" about the inquiry in January. Rumsfeld was referring to a single-paragraph news release issued along with two others on Jan. 16 by U.S. Central Command.

Re "The Lobotomized Weasel School of Writing," Commentary, May 20: I vehemently disagree with Crispin Sartwell's characterization of the five-paragraph essay as "hoo-ha." While he explains that writing "ought to nurture and give shape to thought," he fails to understand that this essay format allows for the organization of thought, thus allowing for coherent shape. Writing an essay is much like giving a presentation to an audience. The presenter needs to clearly and simply introduce the subject or argument, then enumerate and develop subtopics that provide supporting information.

Re "Burbank Airport Panel to OK Early Morning Reno Flights," Sept. 21. We note your reporter's comments in paragraph six, "Local residents already expect a crush of flights when a proposed replacement passenger terminal is built." Please note, the crush of flights will come whether the new terminal is built or not. . . . It's happening already. By the way, this was also outlined in the airport environmental impact study, a key document that further confirms that the arguments over airport "expansion" are more political than factual.

Re "In Housing Density, It's Too Close for Comfort," Sept. 15: If it was staff writer Jennifer Mena's intent to elicit the reader's sympathy, she probably relied on a largely misled Times readership to swallow yet another helping of perceived and implied, though not necessarily expressed, inequities of a mean-spirited, prejudicial and oppressive phantom system bent on trampling on the lives of a downtrodden, underserved minority. Without fail, and in classic L.A. Times fashion, the reader's mind is numbed and manipulated in paragraph after paragraph with an ever-louder heart-rending staccato drumbeat and pictorial fusillade of pathos, in the process of which journalistic integrity is sacrificed in favor of heavy doses of sycophancy.

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