SiteOne Space, Not Two
For my e-book Editors Unleashed: Magazine Editors Growl About Their Writer Peeves, one of my editors told me about a pet peeve that many of us commit every few seconds: She hates it when writers insert two spaces after periods. The “two spaces” rule is a holdover from the days before proportionally-spaced fonts, but many of us are total squares and dutifully but misguidedly stick two spaces after each period. This means that someone at the magazine has to go through and remove all the extra spaces, and if your editor is like my editor, it makes her want to strangle the writer. Train yourself to insert just one space after periods unless the magazine’s style guide specifically calls for two spaces. (If you forget, use the Search/Replace function in Word to replace two spaces throughout the document with one space.) [lf]
17 Responses to “One Space, Not Two”
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Lori
Said this on January 6th, 2008 at 12:13pm:As an editor and project manager, I say yes, it is annoying, but a simple search and replace or running a macro like Jack Lyons’s File Cleaner (http://www.editorium.com) will take care of that problem in no time.
Derek
Said this on January 6th, 2008 at 5:47pm:I’m so square. Really square. I like the word square, though. It’s going into todays vocab.
Misti Sandefur
Said this on January 7th, 2008 at 12:04am:As the editor of Coffee Break for Writers, I stated in my guidelines for writers to write their articles using AP Style rules, however, one of the AP Style rules is to put two spaces after the period. Therefore, I added to my guidelines that when following the AP Style rules to ignore that rule and only place one space after the period. As a writer, when I read other publications’ guidelines and it says to follow the AP Style rules, I do read-on to see if they say to ignore this rule or any other rule.
So read those guidelines carefully, friends. If they follow rules of a certain style guide, they may outline a few of the rules to ignore. 
Melissa
Said this on January 7th, 2008 at 4:00am:Guilty as charged. When I started high school, I dutifully retrained myself to use only one space, having read the new style manuals. On my first paper, my freshman English teacher circled every single space after a period in red pen, and so I trained myself back (I do think it’s easier to read for academic purposes). Never managed to switch back again, but I should be better about remembering to search and replace (although I have to confess, since it takes only 5 seconds, I don’t see it as a strangle-worthy offense…).
Joanne
Said this on January 7th, 2008 at 12:22pm:Oh, I’m horrible about this, so I always do a search/replace function when I finish anything. Putting in the two spaces is a habit I just haven’t been able to break, not since doing so was ingrained into me by my eighth grade typing teacher in 1980. (Is the class called “keyboarding” now?)
Cal
Said this on January 7th, 2008 at 1:27pm:Rare is the publication or editor who provides style sheets, detailed or otherwise. The advice you give here is good, but I wonder whether it just feeds writerly paranoia, in other words we’d get more assignments if we were just doing *every little thing* Right.
Melissa Donovan
Said this on January 7th, 2008 at 11:46pm:I’ve been trying to rid myself of this habit for while now, but my fingers just seem to automatically type two spaces after every period, and it’s proving to be a hard habit to break! I’m starting to think a better habit would be to run a find and replace in Word to turn those double spaces into singles, and I wonder why the editors you’ve spoken to don’t just do the same thing since it only takes about two seconds.
Andrew Weaver
Said this on January 8th, 2008 at 2:48am:Guilty as charged.
creativelyselfemployed.com
Said this on January 8th, 2008 at 8:19pm:I do one space automatically and wish it would carry on with others. But that’s what editors are for!!
Dorothy Stahlnecker
Said this on January 8th, 2008 at 10:21pm:Guilty and I should be charged with adding … and I don’t know why. Must be something artistic in me. Whats wrong with just writing the way we want? If your able to get the point isn’t that most important and my style, part of my writing?
My first time here.
Dorothy from grammology
remember to call gram
http://grammology.com
JenWriter
Said this on January 9th, 2008 at 11:43pm:Nah, I’m a one-spacer.
I used to do some freelance editing for a client that insisted on using two spaces, and I had to remove that devilish extra space every time. However, I was getting paid to do it so I didn’t really mind.
Dallas McCoy
Said this on January 10th, 2008 at 7:22am:I saw the ccomment, “guilty as charged” and will try to remember
Angela Klocke
Said this on January 10th, 2008 at 4:34pm:It took FOREVER for me to break this habit several years ago.
AJBaltazar
Said this on January 11th, 2008 at 4:38pm:As a freelancer, who has worked on staff as an editor, I can say that every little thing you can do to make your editor’s life easier, matters. I often check with editors to find out exactly how they like a piece. A couple that I write for want my work single spaced with no gaps between paragraphs. It is just one less step for them and endears them to you a little more. And I always, always, do a Find and Replace for double spaces when I’ve finished a story because I’ve seen the art department do it, since it can make the difference between a widow/orphan and none.
Melissa
Said this on January 16th, 2008 at 9:57pm:More time consuming to fix and more common, in my experience, is when writers insert a blank line in between every graf.
Are we too rough with forum newbies? - Page 2 - MacNN Forums
Said this on January 28th, 2008 at 1:34am:[…] Originally Posted by boots Whatever. People can read the style guides and see that your being a pedantic … something or other… and are actually wrong in being so. So long as I continue to publish, I’ll listen to my "editors," not some schmo on a bulletin board who appointed himself grammar and style Nazi. And I’ll let my "editors" know that they’re sloppy. They’ll get a kick out of that. As an editor, I’d just like to weigh in: Don’t put two spaces. Here’s a randomly Googled reference that backs me up. […]
Are we too rough with forum newbies? - Page 2 - MacNN Forums
Said this on January 28th, 2008 at 3:05pm:[…] Originally Posted by boots Whatever. People can read the style guides and see that your being a pedantic … something or other… and are actually wrong in being so. So long as I continue to publish, I’ll listen to my "editors," not some schmo on a bulletin board who appointed himself grammar and style Nazi. And I’ll let my "editors" know that they’re sloppy. They’ll get a kick out of that. As an editor, I’d just like to weigh in: Don’t put two spaces. Or tabs. Or forced line breaks. Or any other attempt to second-guess the computer’s attempts at automatically formatting your text. Here’s a randomly Googled reference that backs me up. […]