So I dropped a big bomb on my students today. We're in the middle of an extensive writing project and I started noticing a trend that I wanted to clear up before they got too far into their writing.
I told them that there is a double space between sentences when you type.
You should have heard the belly aching, whining, and disbelief. Some refused to believe that this could be true. They demanded to know why a double space was necessary. (A good question that I did not have an answer to.) I told them I would have said something sooner but I assumed they all knew. That's when one of my favorite spunky students piped up, "Mrs. Jaeger, you know what happens when we assume..."
So, there you go. Double space after your end punctuation. Lives have been forever changed.
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4 comments:
lol :)
Did the kid finish with you it makes an ass out of u and me
Yeah...kids never double space...they always act like it is a new concept--even in the 8th grade...on our fourth and fifth writing assignment. TIP: Make sure they understand that double space is a setting--not hitting enter twice between the lines. This will save you some griping when they have to go back and edit. Trust me!
I never understood why they teach the double space after a sentence in k-12? Is there an academia style that calls for that, like APA or MLA? I can't remember doing that with MLA. I remember doing the double space after a sentence in k-12 but not after that. In the media and other writing-intensive comm. professions, the double space is a typo...we generally find those mistakes with less-seasoned writers coming out of college, where I guess they must have done it too. I'd like to know what the "educational" reason is for using two spaces.
Callina--it is MLA and APA--but totally irrelevant. Double-space between lines in MLA too, but weird if you have the newest windows system. We have it at school and the kids have to use the 1.5 setting (which is totally hard to find)
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