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Two Spaces After Period Are Better Than One, Except Maybe They Aren't, Study Finds

posted by Fnord666 on Friday May 11 2018, @12:26PM   Printer-friendly
from the BBC-thinks-it's-a-paragraph-break-after-a-period dept.

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

In what may be one of the most controversial studies of the year, researchers at Skidmore College—clearly triggered by a change in the American Psychological Association (APA) style book—sought to quantify the benefits of two spaces after a period at the end of a sentence. After conducting an eye-tracking experiment with 60 Skidmore students, Rebecca L. Johnson, Becky Bui, and Lindsay L. Schmitt found that two spaces at the end of a period slightly improved the processing of text during reading. The research was trumpeted by some press outlets as a vindication of two-spacers' superiority.

Source: https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/05/two-spaces-after-period-are-better-than-one-except-maybe-they-arent-study-finds/

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday May 11 2018, @01:53PM (2 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Friday May 11 2018, @01:53PM (#678360)

    the correct amount of space between two sentences (which is actually more than one space, and less than two).

    Sounds like more study is needed. Who's ready to fund a multivariate examination of the topic: fixed vs. proportional, serif vs. sans, and a range of spaces between sentences between 0.5 and 3 in increments of 0.25?

    In monospaced font, the period is already generously padded with space...

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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Friday May 11 2018, @04:40PM (1 child)

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Friday May 11 2018, @04:40PM (#678456)

    No, they really don't need any experiment. Professional typesetters have been putting extra space between sentences in books for literally *centuries* now. This two-space thing only came about because of typewriters in the 20th century. Well, no one uses typewriters any more, and only programmers use monospaced fonts (and not for writing full sentences usually either), so the whole thing is moot.

    This is like doing a scientific study on whether a 1920 Ford Model T or a 1920 Oldsmobile (whatever) protects crash-test dummies better in a crash test. Who cares? They're both horrible compared to modern cars and no one drives those vehicles any more, so it just doesn't matter.