Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

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

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Two Spaces After Period Are Better Than One, Except Maybe They Aren't, Study Finds | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 81 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Friday May 11 2018, @02:52PM (3 children)

    by hendrikboom (1125) on Friday May 11 2018, @02:52PM (#678401) Homepage Journal

    Let me ask the TeX experts. What do you do if you want your document to contain a symmetrical double quote? Like the ASCII double quote. TeX seems to convert them to an asymmetrical one.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  
    Total Score:   2  

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 11 2018, @03:49PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 11 2018, @03:49PM (#678427)

    Search around for TeX "straight quotes" or "dumb quotes". I got a few results, but there doesn't seem to be a "canonical" way, everyone seems to have their own, and it's always clumsy to use and/or has some caveats. The best I've seen seems to be the macro "\textquotedbl", but the required includes mess with some other stuff.

  • (Score: 2) by melikamp on Friday May 11 2018, @06:46PM (1 child)

    by melikamp (1886) on Friday May 11 2018, @06:46PM (#678522) Journal
    ``like that''

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 11 2018, @08:52PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 11 2018, @08:52PM (#678566)

      That is the preferred way to get asymmetrical, "smart" quotes, literally the opposite of what GP asked for :)