I use just one. It was beaten over my head during college because I was going for a career in publication design. So all brochures, reports, etc were all single spaces.

I used to do the two space thing but broke the habit rather quickly after my professors kept asking why I had so much white space between sentences.

One when writing for a publication (news story, etc.), two in other instances.

I was always taught to put 2 spaces and I always do.

Ms. MysticCat, with a journalism background, and I have to agree to disagree on this one.

I'll concede that one is the norm for newspapers and other print media -- it enables to them to get more copy on the page.

But otherwise, use two spaces. It's easier to read.

With computer programs automatically spacing everything, it's no longer necessary to add 2 spaces after a period.

...says the former high school journalism teacher.

:)

Ditto.

Funny, I was just thinking about this the other day (when writing a cover letter). I used to put two on important documents (i.e. thesis, or a cover letter). But, I stopped when I noticed no one else seemed to be doing it....

I'm surprised no one else has said it. I was taught 2 spaces.....when I was 10 years old in the 5th grade. But when I took a technical writing class, and the issue was brought up our professor said that 2 spaces is no longer necessary because of the types of fonts available today. She said (and I forgot the technical term for it) that each letter used to take up the same amound of space width-wise (ie: the letter "i" was just was wide as an "m" and because of that, two spaces was necessary to break up teh sentences and make it easier to read.) It was 1 space after a comma, semi colon or colon, and two spaces after a period. But she said that today it was no longer necessary because of the types of fonts that are available. So i use 1, always.

You're talking about proportional and non-proportional fonts. In non-proportional fonts, which is what all typewriters use, each character takes up the same amount of space.

Computers make proportional fonts (or typeset fonts) available, so that the "i" (or the "." or the " ") takes up less space than an "M."

But I don't buy your professor's reasoning. Because a "." takes such a small amount of space in a proportional font, I think the use of two spaces is more, not less, necessary to facilitate ease of reading. I know I find a proportional font harder to read if there is just one space at the end of a sentence.

FWIW, my word processing program, by default, puts two spaces at the end of a sentence -- even if I only type one space, when I start the next sentence, it will add a second space automatically. This default option can be turned off, of course, or changed so that two spaces become one space, but one-space-to-two was the default.

In my office it's always one space. The reasoning I'm always given is along the lines above. The 2 spaces was for old typewriters and word processing, but now we only need one. When you see two spaces in a doc now I think the extra space looks odd and doesn't make it any easier to read. It's also considered "old-fashioned" in my comapny's industry (brand strategy).

Did she mention that letters were automatically "kerned?" (I'm trying to jog your memory...)

Also interesting to note that HTML does not process more than one space in a row unless you use special characters . . . so nearly everything you read online will only have one space regardless of the author's original format.

I have a question, too. It is about the apostrophe after an "s".

I learned that the apostrophe after the "s" shows the ownership held by more than one person. For example:

The Jones' dog died yesterday.

So because of this I have a pet peeve that has developed. When I see a "s" with an apostrophe after it just because, it bothers me. For example:

Mr. Jones' briefcase was left the building.

I'd love your feedback on this.

Oops let me go edit. Come back in a minute and tell me what you think.

Isn't this correct though? We're talking about a briefcase and Mr. Jones owns it... so therefore there would be ownership.

I know what you are saying though about the "s."