Thanks for responding, Burak! I used to teach business writing, and short paragraphs are definitely recommended for that type of writing, and for precisely the reasons you mention.

How did publishing in journals and magazine benefit my career as a writer? I started publishing in those venues in the 1990’s while earning an MFA degree from Vermont College of Arts. At that time, my career goal was to obtain a full-time position teaching at a college, and ultimately I reached that goal. The publications (and the degree) definitely helped.

Later, my goal was to get a full-length poetry collection published, and having individual pieces published in literary journals helped that to happen, and probably also helped me win a book competition.

Now, my goal is to make a living as a freelance writer, and again, having a base of publications in literary journals (which don’t pay much, if at all) helped me get published in better paying markets like O, which pays writers $2 per word. And getting published in O will probably help me get published in similar magazines.

That’s a long answer (in longer paragraphs!), but the short answer is that publishing in those venues gives you credibility with academia, with book publishers, and with higher-paying magazines.

My current goal is to get an agent for my memoir. Wish me luck!