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Double spacing after full stops

Mon Jun 14, 2004 2:21 pm

You know the rule in grammar where you double space after the fullstop? Well I've had teachers tell me this, but no one does it! Does anyone know that actual rule and what really should be done? I don't hear many people talk about it anymore, and teachers who insist on checking essays for grammr don't care if you don't double space after full stops.

Mon Jun 14, 2004 2:24 pm

Do you mean like you hit the space bar twice after the sentence? My friend, who is a grammar and literature whiz says it's one space after a comma and two spaces after a sentence. I'm not sure and the teacher doesn't care either way.

Or are you saying the format? Double spaced? We have to do that all the time. Like the lines are skipped and there's an empty line between each line with words on it.

Mon Jun 14, 2004 2:29 pm

doublespace after fullstop = two spacebar presses after every fullstop.

Mon Jun 14, 2004 3:00 pm

I was always taught to use 2 spaces after full stops, and my mum used it for 40 years as a secretary, so it must be some kind of standard

Mon Jun 14, 2004 3:06 pm

Teachers taught me the same thing as well, so I guess I've grown accustomed to it. According to random stuff I've looked up, both are accepted as correct. However, the two spaces after a period was more used in the "typewriter age" because it made it look neater with all the abbreviations that were used at the time. Now, word processors have made it to where spacing looks neat even with using only one space after the period.

Personally, I use two spaces. I just think that there should be some difference between the spacing with the period and the comma. Anyway, that's how I was taught in school and how I started using it in reports and homework. I don't understand why you guys don't use two spaces after the period; it makes your reports longer. :)

Mon Jun 14, 2004 3:36 pm

I always use one space O.o;;.

Mind you, I know someone who doesn't space at all! :shock: Horrible. Horrible. Borrible!

Mon Jun 14, 2004 4:23 pm

In my primary school when I was there, I was never taught that, so when I got to secondary school, I just did single spaced, but then everybody was telling me to do double-spaced out of nowhere, so I don't know.

Mon Jun 14, 2004 4:34 pm

Electric Dj wrote:In my primary school when I was there, I was never taught that, so when I got to secondary school, I just did single spaced, but then everybody was telling me to do double-spaced out of nowhere, so I don't know.


Really? I don't see why it matters so much. The teachers here don't seem to mind, and only once did anyone tell me it was two spaces after period. How confusing.

Mon Jun 14, 2004 4:35 pm

I use two spaces, mainly sub-consiously because I was told that since I was 4. If I'm trying to cram a lot of words onto one page I sometimes decrease it to one space, but I usually don't need to do that.

Mon Jun 14, 2004 4:35 pm

Um...
in an ICT course I had to do for a modular course at school, they made us use two. However, I only use one. Two looks weird to me :P

Oh, and my computer underlines 2 spaces as a grammatical error. Or at least, it used to. Now I only use one, so I don't know.

Mon Jun 14, 2004 4:42 pm

I always learned you should use double spacing after full stops. But I don't... it looks better to me to use single spacing. I don't care whether it's gramatically correct or not unless I'm being tested or something.

Mon Jun 14, 2004 4:48 pm

Well, I may have exaggerated it a bit, not everyone. But a few people did. And I find this strange because, I didn't even used to put a space after a full stop, this was when I was a kid though, and the same people are the ones who told me to put a single space after a full stop. They really confuse me, but no-one says anything about it now, and a doule-space looks too big, so I'm sticking with single space. More natural.

Mon Jun 14, 2004 5:30 pm

I've always done it. Always. Now I've hit the point where when other people don't use it, it looks messy or unprofessional to me.

Also, many programs, such as Word Perfect, automatically create two spaces after a period.

Mon Jun 14, 2004 6:10 pm

I've never done that, and I've never had someone tell me that I should. When I was younger though, I would always hit the space bar three or four times after a period.

Mon Jun 14, 2004 6:10 pm

I've taken 2 keyboarding classes and its always 2 spaces after a period. Sometimes I'll just put 1 space but I think the right way is 2 spaces.
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