The One Space vs Two Space Debate

Man! I opened up a can of worms at work by sending out a seemingly innocuous email regarding the fact that most current publishing standards reflect the fact that placing two spaces after the punctuation of a sentence is unnecessary.

Here is the email I sent out:

Here is an article for all of you who learned to type on a typewriter. It discusses the use of typing a double space after the end of a sentence and how this practice is no longer necessary and can even be detrimental to the appearance of text.

Here are some of the responses that I received:

• Wow, bryan, thanks. Really interesting.
  This is gonna be a tough one for us old timers…..
  No double space after a sentence!?!
  That borders on heresy!

• I know!! I have to delete spaces on [name removed]’s stuff ALL the time.

• That’s interesting!  Allow me to introduce someone who still does that consciously and purposefully regardless of the popular tide “to achieve a noticeable separation between sentences.”   I’m usually trying to make the prose easier and quicker to read by making more obvious breaks than you see here: “on a typewriter. It discusses”. 
  So the article went to length to say why it’s done but didn’t say a thing about why it’s undesirable or wrong.  I am curious what reasons for not doing it are better than my reason for doing it.

• I completely disagree with her contention that a single space provides a clear visual separation between sentences with proportional fonts.  The truth is that two spaces distinguish a new sentence from simply a new word.  There was and still is a need to distinguish between a space and a new sentence.  Even her example does not make her point.  A double space makes it easy to pick out sentences; one space does not. The only reason the extra spaces are distracting in her example is because she highlighted them.  She may be a professional, but that doesn’t make her “right.”  

• I will accept that the industry standard has become one space.  I do disagree with the reasoning, though, and my fingers disagree with the habit!  Oh, well.  Thank you for the information.

• I admit it.  I was one of those who always put two spaces between sentences.  Now I know – no longer needed.

• Well I may be old-fashioned (and yes I did go to typing class), but I really think it is easier to read text that has two spaces between sentences.

• It is just us old Fogeys who do not want to change our ways.  I think it depends on what you are doing.  For the sort of reports I work on, which are not right justified or in columns, i.e., pretty old school, double spacing does make it more readable.  

  Having sentences bunched up. Like this makes it harder to read. At least I think so.

  Whereas double spaces.  Like this.  Makes it easier.  At least I think so.

• I have to say we used the APA standard in school and that was this year to do all formal papers. It was a change from doing the two pace that I was formerly taught. I think with the changes in using computer to store and transfer data it was the best choice to keep modifications to a min. IMHO But I could be wrong.

• I meant to reply to your first email, "Right ON."

  Of course, I’m new fashioned… and in the writing/publishing field.

  Just the other day found myself deleting the extraneous space from something my boyfriend wrote. I tried to show him the article you sent, but he didn’t want to hear about it.

  My vote: NOT two spaces!

• I’m glad to see it’s not just me.  Sorry Bryan.  I know your sources may condsider one space standard, but perhaps they didn’t ask the mass base of readers which spacing they found easier to read.  Of course, most graphic typesetters tend to put only one or two sentences in a paragraph anyway.

• I can see how that’s the case for reports with long paragraphs, but as someone who never used a typewriter and has worked for newspapers, I have to agree with Bryan, one space is the standard.

  So for anything that goes to publication, someone has to delete all those extraneous spaces.

It’s not really wrong to double-space, just unnecessary. A single space following punctuation IS the standard in several publishing standard guides (AP, CMOS, MLA, APA) and the issue is generally a pet peeve of anyone who does any sort of graphic design, page layout or publishing. It can make formatting copy trickier than it should be, especially when changing justification on paragraphs. I know, search and replace can generally make things pretty painless, but why not have people provide good clean copy to begin with. My email wasn’t meant to serve as a formatting ultimatum. I didn’t realize that little email would spark such a debate. At least now I know people read my emails.