I have a quick question about the spacing in the essays. Some of my friends and techers said that they double spaced between every sentence. I read about this on the internet and it’s kinda confusing, so what should I use for the online common app essay? double space between sentences?
thanks
<p>No don't double space between sentences. I've never heard of anyone doing it before.</p>
<p>if you're talking about the space between the period and the start of the next sentence, that's definitely two spaces.</p>
<p>It is a matter of how old you are. All those whose first "computer" was a manual typewriter learned to double space after a sentence. It was necessary because the fonts were never that great or accurately spaced, and if you single-spaced you could sometimes end up with visual overlap between sentences. The modern "typewriter," which is your computer with Word, does not require it and, in fact, you can sometimes screw up a document by doing double rather than single space. Thus, the rule now is to single space.</p>
<p>yes, i'm talking about:</p>
<p>sentence1. sentence2 (two spaces between the period and sentence2)</p>
<p>OR</p>
<p>sentence1. sentence2 (one space btw the period and sentence2)</p>
<p>Can anybody who actually knows this answer me??</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>You should use one space after the period at the end of a sentence. Two spaces were commonly used in the days of typewriters but the norm now is one space only. If you look at a paragraph done both ways you will see that when you use two spaces after a sentence things look somewhat off balance, because the spacing at the end of the sentences doesn't match the amount of space between words.</p>
<p>"Can anybody who actually knows this answer me??"</p>
<p>I already did, as has mattmom.</p>
<p>My high school English and History teachers have always required two spaces between sentences on essays and term papers. Anybody else have the same requirement? Now I'm curious what the standard is in college and the workplace.</p>
<p>Check what an authority has to say:</p>
<p>I always have used two spaces in between sentences. I just think it looks alot cleaner. Well I also still put a comma after sincerely (Sincerely,) at the end of a letter, even though my business writing prof said they don't do that anymore. Old habits die hard for me. Either way I don't think profs would care/notice.</p>
<p>The problem is that there are still a lot of profs and adults that learned typing rules before the computer, and most of them are past the stage of teaching old dogs new tricks. They in turn tell younger persons that it is the rule, who then pick up the habit, believing it so. Those who continue to use it and insist upon it have long lost sight of the fact that the supposed rule they learned existed years ago only because of inferior equipment. </p>
<p>What do colleges believe is the rule? Look at what they do, not what someone might say. Go to any known college's web-site and find any page that has written sentences coming one after another. You will find that they use single space.</p>
<p>It is also interesting that those above who say they use double space used single space for their posts.</p>
<p>whoa. this is a whole new concept. i have never heard of typing like: "sentence 1. sentence 2."
everyone i know presses the spacebar twice in between sentence for formal writing.</p>
<p>oh, and i did double space in my post above. i guess cc automatically gets rid of it.</p>
<p>Drusba, the single-space rule was the way in typesetting long before there were fonts for computers. And the software on CC condenses a double space to a single space after a period. Really. In fact, I just checked, and CC will condense <em>three</em> spaces to a single space. So someone can write with a double space and it still will come out with a single space. </p>
<p>My rule of thumb is to see what it looks like in the final form and then choose accordingly.</p>
<p>They take any amount of spaces and condense it into one space. For example, I put five spaces after this word see!</p>
<p>Well, case settled. Everybody knows CC can't be wrong. ;-)</p>
<p>will they really care that much?</p>
<p>No, they will not care at all, but learning to discuss something common and insignificant as if it were of great important and esoteric, like we sometimes do here, is a skill that you will definitely need to master for college.</p>
<p>I love coming in here and chatting about insignificant things, takes my mind off of more important things.</p>
<p>You know, I always just assumed it was two spaces after a period. I've never even considered anything different. My thumb just does it automatically.</p>