As clearly stated in Note1 of Post 2, you cannot type the << >> which, in any event, appear as « » when inserted via 'Insert Merge Field'.
A series of consecutive (not nested) IF tests coded along the lines of:
{IF«Borrowers_State»= "CA" "CA Paragraph"}{IF«Borrowers_State»= "NV" "NV Paragraph"}{IF«Borrowers_State»= "AZ" "AZ Paragraph"}
could handle every state in the US.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]