How many spaces after a period?
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My point was not that it's impossible to change from single sentence spacing to double, but that it's not the "dead easy" task previously claimed.
It cannot be completely automated correctly, and even the cases that can be automated are not all obvious. F'rinstance:
It cannot be completely automated correctly, and even the cases that can be automated are not all obvious. F'rinstance:
- You'll probably remember to check for the period/end-quotation-mark combination, but will you remember the period/end-single-quote/end-double-quote one?
- You have to check every question-mark/end-quote combination by hand, because the following word could be a dialogue tag (i.e. part of the same sentence) or the start of a new sentence.
- You have to figure out how to distinguish between periods that indicate abbreviations from those that end sentences.
Thanks. At least I know now how to replace the two spaces after the period with one. I was consciously using one space, but two crept in after many sentences in my MS. I might have made a mistake, or it might have happened when I joined paragraphs. I was getting worried since formatting guidelines on many sites insist on one space after period.
I have just finished formatting my MS. I wonder if it's worth making the effort to replace all the two spaces after period with a singe one to make it uniform at this stage. I have ellipses in quite a lot of places. And, of course, there are question marks and quotes to take care of.
I don't want to mess up my formatting. I've already had enough problems. For instance, text in sections and chapters copy-pasted into the formatted file acquired its own margins, para indents etc. I had a tough time correcting them. To be safe, I then checked the whole formatted file to see that the imported files didn't affect the existing text.
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I'm not quite sure why ellipses would present a problem, or any other punctuation mark, as long as you are replacing two spaces with one. Where would you have two spaces together that you would want to keep? I don't think I ever have run into that situation in a manuscript.
caw
Thanks. I got it wrong about ellipses. It isn't a problem since I haven't left spaces before, between or after the dots. You are right. I have tried replacing two spaces after the period with one. It can be done without a problem. And if I need to be uniform, I also must eliminate the extra spaces, if any, after the question marks, exclamation marks (not many), quotes etc that end the sentences.
It's just that I am nervous about tinkering with my formatted MS since I had nasty experiences before.
For instance, when I imported text into the master file, the 0.5" para indent became 0.48" in some places and 5" in some places, however many times I made 0.5" my default. And the widow/orphan control is another thing. I knew about these things earlier, but I didn't know such a setting existed in Word till a couple of weeks ago. My default is 'on' (the box is checked). But occasionally a single word from the previous paragraph appears at the top of a page. When I check settings at with cursor at that point, the box is unchecked. And when I go to other pages in the manuscript and open settings, the widow/orphan box is checked. I've decided to leave it alone. I don't have the courage to Contrl-A the whole MS and change the setting. And I am not sure it will work.
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Yes, Word does strange things sometimes, but you should format a document completely, and is safest to do the whole thing at once. Word may try to reset it to default settings afterward, but fight back and reformat it again.
I would not worry about this too much at all. Part of my job is to format manuscripts to prepare them for the copy editor, and you're not describing anything that I haven't seen in finalized, contracted manuscripts. As long as your manuscript is reasonably clean and legible, you really don't need to make yourself crazy over little things like this. It can all get cleaned up later, either by you or by someone else. Right now your only job is to make it readable.
If you feel you absolutely need to standardize your spacing, it's usually simplest to just search for double spaces and replace with a single space, rather than searching for a period plus a double space (so F+R for "_ _" rather than "._ _"). It's unlikely that you have any need for double spaces anywhere in your manuscript, and this will catch any quotes, questions, or exclamations that your earlier search missed.
Use whatever you want at home but be prepared to make it conform to the style of wherever you're submitting -- and for most places, especially online magazine, that is one space after the period. I work by day as a technical editor and I hate two spaces after the period with a burning passion because our house style (based on CMOS) calls for one and so I spend hours on every project confirming that the writers have not disregarded this simple requirement.
Don't make your editor hate you.
Don't make your editor hate you.
MAKE A COPY, try it on that, and see how it works.
Which is another way of saying, "NEVER SCREW AROUND WITH THE ONLY COPY YOU HAVE OF ANYTHING."
caw
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And I'd add, never have just one copy of anything either. At the end of each session, back your work up on a second drive, and to cloud storage too. And if you make a substantial change to your MS, change its name and keep the original too.
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This. Oh so very much this.
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
Hell, yes.
Many moons ago I remember playing text only adventures on the glorified calculators that we fondly called computers. It was a time when you went south, killed dwarf and got all. And you quickly learned to save your game just before doing anything risky.
So much so that one game (I can't remember which one) included a sidekick who constantly came up with wisecrack remarks. When you saved your game he would say something like: "Oooh, are we going to do something dangerous now?"
Word is usually pretty good at letting you undo an action if you've made a mistake. But the cardinal rule is always to make a copy before you start dicking around.
There's no debate about this question. There's only a right answer and a wrong answer.
The right answer is that there is one space after a period/full stop in English prose, with almost no exceptions*.
Moreover, it is not ok to leave 2 spaces in your MS because an agent won't care, or because it can be fixed in typesetting, or because it's all a matter of style, or because it's ok if you're consistent throughout the MS, or because you learned it once and can't unlearn it. All these rationalisatons take you a step further away from a professional, publishable MS. It's a fixable mistake, so not fixing it is a sin. Remove them just as you'd remove typos and spelling mistakes.
* A possible exception may be some forms of experimental fiction, or a novel like Tristram Shandy, where the wonky typography itself forms part of the narrative. But to say books like that are few and far between is to understate it.
The right answer is that there is one space after a period/full stop in English prose, with almost no exceptions*.
Moreover, it is not ok to leave 2 spaces in your MS because an agent won't care, or because it can be fixed in typesetting, or because it's all a matter of style, or because it's ok if you're consistent throughout the MS, or because you learned it once and can't unlearn it. All these rationalisatons take you a step further away from a professional, publishable MS. It's a fixable mistake, so not fixing it is a sin. Remove them just as you'd remove typos and spelling mistakes.
* A possible exception may be some forms of experimental fiction, or a novel like Tristram Shandy, where the wonky typography itself forms part of the narrative. But to say books like that are few and far between is to understate it.
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That's not what the experienced publishing professionals who have posted in this thread say. Can you explain what leads you to state this so definitively?
I've read that the standard now is one space instead of two and I JUST CAN'T DO IT! I keep trying to reteach myself to only include one space after a period, but those darn 8th grade typing lessons are so ingrained in me that I don't think I can unlearn 20 years of typing!
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I'm older than you and I relearned it. Takes a bit, but it's doable. I'm now to the point that when I look at my old MSS, I'm annoyed by all the extra spaces. Plus, there's always find and replace. Just type [space] [space] and replace with [space]. Pretty soon your eye will alert to the wider spacing and you'll correct yourself more automatically. 
Good luck and happy evolving!
Good luck and happy evolving!
Wow, I'm coming in late on this and I admit I'm gobsmacked. Do editors and publishers really want just one space between end-of-sentence punctuation marks? I mean, I'll do it if that's the way it has to be, but it feels so ... icky. Somebody set me straight on this.
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Yes, it's that simple.I'm older than you and I relearned it. Takes a bit, but it's doable. I'm now to the point that when I look at my old MSS, I'm annoyed by all the extra spaces. Plus, there's always find and replace. Just type [space] [space] and replace with [space]. Pretty soon your eye will alert to the wider spacing and you'll correct yourself more automatically.
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What do you mean by "between end-of-sentence punctuation marks"? If you mean between the terminating punctuation of one sentence and the start of the next, then a single space is mandatory, unless you self-publish, when you can do whatever you like.
As I think I've said before, I've never rejected a book because its author had put in two spaces after every full stop.
A single space is now the standard. It's helpful if you swap double spaces for single ones before you submit, but it's not the end of the world if you don't.
A single space is now the standard. It's helpful if you swap double spaces for single ones before you submit, but it's not the end of the world if you don't.
That's good to know. I'll make a note to do a full-document Find/Replace to remove double spaces before I submit. Probably easier than trying to train myself not to hit the space bar twice after each sentence.
Of all the publishing houses I've dealt with over the years, only one required two spaces between sentences. And that company is no longer in business. Every other company has specified one space between sentences.
I look at it this way. The maid in a hotel is required to clean your room. It's part of the job description. However, that doesn't mean you should take a dump in the wastebasket because you are too lazy to walk to the bathroom. That's just rude.
Don't purposefully leave errors in your manuscript because a copy editor down the line will fix them for you. You may like to think that a copy editor has an infinite amount of time to perfect your text, but the reality is that the copy editor (more likely than not a freelancer being paid a flat fee) has to work within a time frame to complete his or her projects and stay on track. If copy editing your book takes, say, four hours more than was anticipated because of formatting issues you could have easily dealt with yourself, you've already put that copy editor behind for the day. If a couple projects run long, then the copy editor can get behind very quickly.
I'm convinced. Already have a note to run a Find/Replace on all double spaces before I submit. To satisfy my curiosity, though: when did this change happen? When I was growing up, I was always taught to double space between sentences. But I gather the single space has been the standard for some time now?
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The dog chased the cat. The cat found a hole. The cat entered the hole. The dog could not reach the cat. The dog forgot about the cat when his owner threw a ball. The end.
(I'm sorry. I had to!)
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I had the same WHA?? My understanding is it's a function of word processing programs and proportionality of the letters. Or something technical like that. I've decided I have to go with "ours is not to question why" in this particular case. It's way over my head.