Editor’s Choice – May 2019

By Mary Charlebois
ITWPA Member

Spaces, you know, the thing that occurs when you hit the space bar on your keyboard. They are an essential part of written language. However, those spaces, when misused, can drive an editor loopy.

To make an editor smile, avoid these two space bloopers –

1. Double spaces after punctuation
   A teacher may have taught you that technique in Typing 101, but it’s way out of date in the digital age.
   Typewriters (a device now called a boat anchor), generally used a mono-spaced font where every character uses the same amount of horizontal space. Adding two spaces after punctuation made paragraphs more comfortable to read.
   TODAY computer generated type adds extra space where needed for readability.
   a
2. An extra space before hitting the Enter key for a new paragraph
   I’m not sure why folks do this, it’s a frequent blooper, but unnecessary.

Most editors and proofreaders find these extra spaces a pain because they must be removed. Make us smile, leave them out.