Comments on: How Many Spaces After a Period?

By: Gothiclovesick

Gothiclovesick — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 15:29:13 +0000

THANK YOU!!!

By: Mike M. Lin

Mike M. Lin — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 17:02:44 +0000

“Stop with the two spaces”

I do use the two spaces when I stop my sentence ;)

By: greg

greg — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 20:29:48 +0000

Wow i thought only me and my girlfriend had this debate. She has never heard of the 2 spaces, I grew up with it since elementary school, and I had never heard of only putting one after a period. I dont know about the better breed of education thing, but I will stick to the two spaces anyways. It makes me think I’m using that much more space. Yep I’m that lazy, every little bit counts.

By: Scott

Scott — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 05:18:51 +0000

Nope. Double spacing is NOT current MLA style. The current MLA guideline says:

“Publications in the United States today usually have the same spacing after a punctuation mark as between words on the same line. Since word processors make available the same fonts used by typesetters for printed works, many writers, influenced by the look of typeset publications, now leave only one space after a concluding punctuation mark. In addition, most publishers’ guidelines for preparing a manuscript on disk ask authors to type only the spaces that are to appear in print.

Because it is increasingly common for papers and manuscripts to be prepared with a single space after all punctuation marks, this spacing is shown in the examples in the MLA Handbook and the MLA Style Manual. As a practical matter, however, there is nothing wrong with using two spaces after concluding punctuation marks unless an instructor or editor requests that you do otherwise.”

By: jaime

jaime — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 01:48:09 +0000

“double-spacing is the mark of good breeding and higher education.” ???

I am so glad I don’t double space. :)

By: Ranjit

Ranjit — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 00:15:34 +0000

double space writing is the proper MLA format. 2 spaces after a period and one after a comma. it makes your report look better and professional

By: law student

law student — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 20:22:14 +0000

While discussing this during an informal editing meeting the other day, one of my colleagues notified me that “double-spacing is the mark of good breeding and higher education.” That settled the debate for me. Her comment was sufficiently snarky to make me value my public school education even more. If double-spacing puts me in her camp, I’m sticking with the single.

By: kevin

kevin — Fri, 04 May 2007 20:49:13 +0000

I don’t mind so much when people don’t care. It’s the people who insist on doing it the two-spaces way that drive me nuts.

By: Steph

Steph — Fri, 04 May 2007 18:00:15 +0000

As a person who switches between academic & web spheres, I always mess it up. I type so fast that I throw in 2 sometimes when I should have 1, and vice versa. My friend is a writer and when we work on projects together, she’s always reaming my extra spaces. It’s a tough habit to break. I just realized I even typed this entry with two spaces between each sentence (not that you’d see it). Gah!

By: Josh

Josh — Thu, 03 May 2007 06:23:47 +0000

Amen! Preach it brother!

I think I stopped using double spaces around the same time I stopped using cursive. It’s a totally useless rule, and as you pointed out, it won’t even work on the web, where I do most of my reading and writing.