The default emacs behavior for the forward-paragraph and backward-paragraph functions is to hop between blank lines in a source code file. This breaks in java-mode in the presence of javadoc @clauses. I sent a pull request to the js2-mode project (which also supports javadocs, and thus the same error occurs) but it was rejected since they told me it was an emacs bug. Here's the pull request I sent the js2-mode authors: https://github.com/mooz/js2-mode/pull/147 Here's the video explanation I gave the js2-mode authors: http://youtu.be/cXerimuxNK8 Thanks!