Necessity of <p> tags for bodies of text

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I noticed today that I had forgotten to implement <p> tags in several bodies of text but they were still showing up and displaying how they should in the browser. It seems like having a body of text without tags would confuse the search engine spiders.


And to further the inquiry, if I put down <blockquote> before a body of text, do I need to also put in a <p> tag?

The same with <div> tags. If I put in something like this:

<div style=""> 
1st Body of text here

2nd Body of text here
</div>

should it be this?

<div style=""> 
<p>Body of text here</p>
<p>body of text here </p>
</div>

I think I am just confusing myself at this point