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One
Space or Two
Whenever I conduct
a grammar workshop, a participant will invariably ask, “How
many spaces should you leave after a period?” The answer
is one — for a computer. (You use two spaces after a
period when working on a typewriter.)
It is
amazing how concerned some people are about this issue. Frankly,
I don’t seriously believe a reader will be distracted
from your work whether you leave one or two spaces —
just be consistent. However, some people do tend to focus
on this item. That’s probably why you have a feature
on your software program to assist you.
Click
on Tools / Options / Spelling and Grammar / Writing Style:
(set for Grammar and Style) / Settings / spaces required between
sentences.
You then have three
options: check for one or two spaces or don’t check.
I would recommend setting the feature to either the one or
two spaces. That way, at least, your material will always
be consistent.
Here’s something
interesting though. People often wonder why grammar changes.
One of the reasons is technology.
We were taught
to always put a punctuation mark at the end of every sentence.
But what happens if the sentence ends in a website or an e-mail
address. If I add a period, I may confuse my readers about
the address. Therefore, in these specific instances (websites
and e-mail addresses) I would not put anything at the end
of the sentence. Hopefully, I am at the end of a paragraph.
Any questions,
please contact me at www.jwatsonassociates.com
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