Saturday, August 18, 2007

Since when?

Did you know that recent APA requirements for paper writing have banished the two spaces behind the period? Did you know that I cannot quickly break this habit of probably ten to fifteen years simply because some nerdy grammar guru decided that one space and not two was more to his liking? Do you have any idea how many sentence I am going to have to go back and change in this fifteen page paper because I automatically tap my space bar twice at the conclusion of each sentence?

To recap:

This MBA program has reaffirmed my hatred of animated emoticons and caused further distress by altering my decade old typing habits. That and I can tell you exactly why Global Communication makes wise business decisions despite communicating them poorly - they used two spaces after their sentences instead of one and then laid off employees using :(

3 comments:

JR said...

Oddly, I feel the reverse. Having typed in AP style for so long, I have completely abandoned the double-space technique after each sentence and often notice when text is written with double spaced. It drives me mad.

When I do some freelance, one editor has a nasty habit of returning copy to me with double spaces, so I go back and adjust every single one. It's like an OCD thing.

It shouldn't be though, nor for you, since most applications have a "find/replace" function that takes care of our sorrows. Double space can easily be turned into single space (though not the other way around, unless you want two spaces between each word).

Jan said...

Hopefully, the instructor will be more concerned with the content than the spaces between sentences.

dani said...

When writing a paper I use two spaces after the period. However when I do any print design (newspapers, magazines, brochures, etc.) It has to be one space after the period.