I’ve to two term papers left for this term and revising Sara and my 4C’s paper left to do. One term paper, due Monday, is coming along nicely but slowly. It’s supposed to be 12-15 pages, and I’ve got about 8 page, but I’m not too happy with where it’s going right now. The argument I’m making (it’s on zines and blogs) isn’t coming to clear to me. The other paper, due Thursday (but I’d like to finish it Monday so I don’t have to worry about it while in New York), is barely started and I have a lot of reading to do for it, but I have a better idea of it’s argument. Our 4C’s talk is close to being finished, but needs to be cut a bit (it’s still too long) and polished.
I thought about going and seeing 300 (who doesn’t want to see the most talked about sexist, racist, homoerotic, homophobic movie of the spring?), but I think it’s probably a bad idea for this weekend. I already rented Network (1976), which I’ve been wanting to see for over a year now, so perhaps that will be my de-stressor for the weekend.
I’ve noticed that quite a few people whose work I read still put two spaces after periods at the end of their sentences. When I first took grad courses while teaching middle school, I discovered APA required single spaces after the period because word processors recognized periods and automatically made the space slightly larger. I was surprised because no one had ever told me this, and while I was resistant to the change, I started single-spacing after all my periods immediately, and have been for four years now. I recently checked out the rules in MLA, and they have the same rule, but it seems like everyone I know still double-spaces (after colons too). A friend of mine (a senior in graphic design and employee of the school’s newspaper) and I recently commiserated over our annoyance at writing that still double-space after periods. I wonder why these (rather minor) things don’t ever get brought up when new technologies arise and organizations that make documentation and writing regulations change their rules. I think the Associated Press has gone with the single space for quite a while to save space and make text look less spaced out.
Well, with that digression, I’m going to go back to work. Thanks for the distraction, oh blog.
I double space after periods. I’ve just done it ever since I took typing (on a typewriter!). Plus, I know from my years in editing how that is something that gets changed in the production process, so it’s kind of irrelevant which way you go in the writing process (to me).
That’s true, it is irrelevant before publishing. However, I’ve been editing a few things for newsletters, so it’s kind of on my mind as something that would just be easier to do when one writes the work.
And I’m anal retentive about stupid things. 🙂
I cannot break that habit. Someone told me a few years ago that single-spacing was in and double was out, but I’ve never changed. Michael, I’m curious: why is it a big deal?
I suspect that those of us like Nels (generally older, though I cannot speak for Nels on that part) learned the double space and just out of habit keep on. I’m curious what difference this makes? Unless one has to tighten a line for justified margins? The double space makes reading a bit easier. And it duplicates the reading rhythm from poetry where a period equals a line break – a pause longer than a comma. Though some of my poet friends argue that one should read (aloud) enjambed lines as if there were no break, but I try to indicate, even if slightly, the break so that listeners can hear it if they are paying attention.
Really, for me, it matters as a manner, as I said above, of anal retentiveness. For publishing, though, as I said above, most word processors and publication programs recognize a period and make the space bigger after the period anyway.
For AP, as I said above, where space and visuals is everything, it matters for tightening the line so it doesn’t look like it has too much white space in it. When you look at a newspaper from further back, it should look like a series of black or gray lines, not black or gray lines with white spaces in it (thus, also, why you don’t seem many emdashes in journalism).
I don’t think double spacing makes the reading easier. To me, it looks awkward and all spaced out. Also, the period serves to create the break in the reading rhythm, not the double space. But really, I was just venting a frustration here (rooted in my type-A virgo-influenced personality, I’m sure). As Nels said, it doesn’t matter much for writers until they get to publishing (when the editing process does the work).
I actually think a period without a larger space after it looks really dumb, and the lack of extra space between sentences makes it harder to know when one starts and one ends.
Especially if the last word in your sentence is the abbreviation “St.” as in street. Without a larger space after it, it looks like it is “Saint (whatever the first word of the next sentence is)”. That’s just one example I can think off the top of my head, but even if it didn’t exist, I would still feel that way.
I go as far as to us NBSP after a period in HTML!
I came here looking for a CSS way to make that space larger automatically 🙂