In response to a post we made to the APA Style Blog questioning the Manual’s change to two spaces, Sarah Wiederkehr responded, “You have hit the proverbial nail on the head – improved readability was the impetus behind the new ‘two spaces after a period’ style recommendation in the Publication Manual. Believe it or not, there is a strong faction of readers out there who prefer this spacing; in fact, many in the legal community require it” (link).
Leaving aside the question of what it means that “many” in the legal community require two spaces, we wonder how strong the faction favoring two spaces is in the community that uses APA style. Admittedly, we’ve only talked to a few of our colleagues so far, but none has thought the change to be for the better. In fact, most have been dismayed.
John & Dan
Other worldly! Maybe space cadets somehow got control of the manual.
I think I’ll just follow the convention of one space following a sentence-ending punctuation mark and let editorial powers that be add a space if they want. I’m too old for this foolishness.
JK
Sing it, brother! I’m not about to anger my space bar with the additional abuse.
I’m glad to know that I’m not the only one that views the new convention as some sort of unintentional hallucination on the APA’s part.
“Many” in the legal community prefer it because they must very often use Courier New font. It’s monospaced.