According to MLA 6, after a period, with very few exceptions, one must put two spaces. However, with APA, AP, Chicago and a few other styles is is more up in the air. There is no right answer except in the world of common academic English writing.
heh, I just went around looking at all the reports my company writes, all double spaces. I checked the FDA site! and it has some with one space and some with two on the same page of regulations!
In publishing, doubling the space is frowned upon. Not many writers double the space, but when they do we have to edit it out for excerpts or whatever. It's time consuming to hunt for every sentence break and remove the extra space when we're manipulating the text on a small scale. It also becomes an issue when we need to move to copyediting.
Where I work we have guidelines for formatting all of our copy, and a no-double-spacing-after-a-period rule is one of them.
More importantly - and not as a rule - it can be perceived as a mark of inexperience. Not just for novelists, etc., but think of your CV. People who know better - and there are plenty - notice this kind of thing.
There is nothing better than seeing Scott accuse someone on arrogance
I'm sure that the double will go away over time, but I just do it out of habit now. I learned to type on a typewritter a long time ago, so it's just habit with me. I catch myself doing it on my phone sometimes.
I lost the habit when I first started dating (and later married) a graphic designer. Now whenever I double space, she threatens me with a cast iron frying pan...
In publishing, doubling the space is frowned upon. Not many writers double the space, but when they do we have to edit it out for excerpts or whatever. It's time consuming to hunt for every sentence break and remove the extra space when we're manipulating the text on a small scale. It also becomes an issue when we need to move to copyediting.
Where I work we have guidelines for formatting all of our copy, and a no-double-spacing-after-a-period rule is one of them.
More importantly - and not as a rule - it can be perceived as a mark of inexperience. Not just for novelists, etc., but think of your CV. People who know better - and there are plenty - notice this kind of thing.
You can't just do a find and replace on the DoubleSpace?
I have never heard about this before. Fuck you old people with your old-technology-based Twentieth-Century mannerisms. I shall keep using my single-spaced sentences!
Fight the power...except I am one of these people that don't want this fought. I am conflicted. Final answer, are you my student? If so, do what I say. If not, do what ever you want.
Follow the style guide of the place to where your words are going.
I'm partial to APA, but that is primarily due to it being the required style for almost every paper I ever wrote at RIT. My high school used MLA.
Double spaces do come out of me semi-automatically however. I have to consciously not do it. Kind of like how I lean into the wall in CounterStrike and hit the vestigal "Grappling Hook" key in Quake 3.
Fight the power...except I am one of these people that don't want this fought. I am conflicted. Final answer, are you my student? If so, do what I say. If not, do what ever you want.
I guess that means your students can't use LaTeX to type up their papers in, since LaTeX automatically converts double spaces to single spaces, unless you prefer single spaces, anyway.
I guess that means your students can't use LaTeX to type up their papers in, since LaTeX automatically converts double spaces to single spaces, unless you prefer single spaces, anyway.
I guess that means your students can't use LaTeX to type up their papers in, since LaTeX automatically converts double spaces to single spaces, unless you prefer single spaces, anyway.
My students don't know what that is I'm sure.
Perhaps. However, it's just an example as to why you shouldn't dictate a typographic style unless you know for sure all your students will be using the same exact tools with the same exact fonts installed. It's the same problem with dictating a certain font (say Times New Roman) and a certain font size (say 12 point). Times New Roman is only available by default on Windows, although there are similar fonts on Mac and Linux. Still, if you're going to mark someone down because they don't use Windows, that's not quite right. Similarly for fonts, 12 point in one font isn't necessarily the same size as 12 point in another font for various reasons. The classic example is that 12 point tends to at least appear much larger in Courier New than Times New Roman, probably due to the former's monospacing. The best you can do is try to offer technology/typography generic specifications such as word counts and such and offer guidelines saying "the font should look something like this and should be about the same size as this."
Perhaps. However, it's just an example as to why you shouldn't dictate a typographic style unless you know for sure all your students will be using the same exact tools with the same exact fonts installed. It's the same problem with dictating a certain font (say Times New Roman) and a certain font size (say 12 point). Times New Roman is only available by default on Windows, although there are similar fonts on Mac and Linux. Still, if you're going to mark someone down because they don't use Windows, that's not quite right. Similarly for fonts, 12 point in one font isn't necessarily the same size as 12 point in another font for various reasons. The classic example is that 12 point tends to at least appear much larger in Courier New than Times New Roman, probably due to the former's monospacing. The best you can do is try to offer technology/typography generic specifications such as word counts and such and offer guidelines saying "the font should look something like this and should be about the same size as this."
I agree. The font and size usually have several sizes, but it all depends on the age of the instructor. Some realize this, some do not. I agree with you that style for the sake of style is a bad idea, but in some ways it can not be helped. MLA requires all ELAR instructors to use MLA or else when audited it will be a major issue. Some of the format issues are not by choice but professionally mandated.
Sometimes I want to use a smilie at the end of a sentence and I'm conflicted between whether to put it before the punctuation or after. Then I punctuate the smilie itself so that it's associated with the preceding sentence and not the next one.
I agree. The font and size usually have several sizes, but it all depends on the age of the instructor. Some realize this, some do not. I agree with you that style for the sake of style is a bad idea, but in some ways it can not be helped. MLA requires all ELAR instructors to use MLA or else when audited it will be a major issue. Some of the format issues are not by choice but professionally mandated.
Oh yeah, I didn't think about formal style guides, mostly because we didn't have any when I was in high school or college (at least in the courses I took, anyway). It was a much more generic "rule of thumb" sort of thing as in: use a reasonable font, don't make it too big, etc.
I place emoticons outside of sentence punctuation but before the next sentence. I consider them an extension of the punctuation. ^_^
In the above, the punctuation consists of two items: a period, and a "^_^": both modify the sentence! ;^)
In the above, "!" and ";^)" are both modifiers.
My rationale is that the punctuation is the primary indicator, the functional indicator, and cannot be truncated. The emoticon is secondary, and could be truncated if necessary: it provides a sort of "sideband" of additional data.
AP style guide says to "use a single space after a period at the end of a sentence."
However, double spacing at the end of a sentence has always been one of those stupid tricks kids taught each other to add a bit of length to essays and such. Still wrong, though.
Comments
Where I work we have guidelines for formatting all of our copy, and a no-double-spacing-after-a-period rule is one of them.
More importantly - and not as a rule - it can be perceived as a mark of inexperience. Not just for novelists, etc., but think of your CV. People who know better - and there are plenty - notice this kind of thing.
I'm sure that the double will go away over time, but I just do it out of habit now. I learned to type on a typewritter a long time ago, so it's just habit with me. I catch myself doing it on my phone sometimes.
And these things creep in like termites sometimes!
Follow the style guide of the place to where your words are going.
I'm partial to APA, but that is primarily due to it being the required style for almost every paper I ever wrote at RIT. My high school used MLA.
Double spaces do come out of me semi-automatically however. I have to consciously not do it. Kind of like how I lean into the wall in CounterStrike and hit the vestigal "Grappling Hook" key in Quake 3.
So I'm probably unpopular now with Grover.
Though since my writing on the Internet is usually stream-of-conscious I'm more likely to start a new paragraph.
In the above, the punctuation consists of two items: a period, and a "^_^": both modify the sentence! ;^)
In the above, "!" and ";^)" are both modifiers.
My rationale is that the punctuation is the primary indicator, the functional indicator, and cannot be truncated. The emoticon is secondary, and could be truncated if necessary: it provides a sort of "sideband" of additional data.
However, double spacing at the end of a sentence has always been one of those stupid tricks kids taught each other to add a bit of length to essays and such. Still wrong, though.