Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[fw]

Hello everyone.

How many spaces do you leave before the next sentence begins after a period(= a full stop) at the end of a sentence,? When I was a student many years ago, I was told to leave two spaces. I find, however, that I leave just one space just as I do now.

Best regards,
fw

[Alcarin]

One space is acceptable. I never used a double space on any reports that I do and single space after a period is never corrected. A matter of fact, I've never heard of a "double space after period" rule, so either your teacher was confused or the requirement on term papers in the United States has become extremely lax.

Don't worry about it and just keep with the one space,
James

[Lorikeet]

I learned to make two spaces after a period when I studied typing (yes, I even learned on a manual typewriter!). When I first started to teach typing to ESL students, I taught two spaces after a period. In fact, you can see that I still automatically make two spaces in my posts! However, I realize that some computer programs and HTML are based on one space after a period, so I now tell my students that one space is okay as long as they are consistent.

[doliver]

Manual typewriters usually used monospaced fonts: the amount of space generated after every letter, regardless of width, was the same. Accordingly, two spaces were needed after a period (or other end punctuation) in order to make a clear separation between sentences.

Computers normally use variable-space fonts: more space is generated after wide letters (like m) than after narrow letters (like i or l), and the amount of space after a period (or other end punctuation) is determined automatically, so it is not necessary to add extra space.

There are also other differences between typing based on manual typewriters and typing based on computers. When using a computer, for example, italics should be used instead of underlining, "curly" quotation marks should be used instead of vertical quotation marks, and separate characters should be used for the hyphen, en dash, and em dash.

See these URLS:

http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/spaces.html

http://www.webword.com/reports/period.html

http://www.getitwriteonline.com/archive/011803.htm


D. Oliver[/i]
_________________
Dennis Oliver
Estrella Mountain Community College
Avondale, AZ U.S.A.
http://www.emc.maricopa.edu