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Re: TECHWR-L Digest, Vol 66, Issue 29; dealing with single- v double-space
Subject:Re: TECHWR-L Digest, Vol 66, Issue 29; dealing with single- v double-space From:wsfn <WSFN -at- rocketmail -dot- com> To:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com Date:Sun, 1 May 2011 07:11:34 -0700 (PDT)
There is a quick and easy way of dealing with consistent spaces. Search for period space and replace with period space space. NOW search for period space space space and replace with period space space until the counter reaches 0 (typically only once or twice unless you had a boss like mine who spaced paragraphs with spaces <gah>!). This quick and simple procedure is someting I use with documents being udpated by a group to keep the whole thing consistent at the end. No matter what the house style is you can adjust. I've worked too many jobs that require what I don't type with. It's easy to deal with.
~Faye
--- On Sun, 5/1/11, techwr-l-request -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com <techwr-l-request -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> wrote:
From: techwr-l-request -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com <techwr-l-request -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Subject: TECHWR-L Digest, Vol 66, Issue 29
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Date: Sunday, May 1, 2011, 1:55 AM
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Today's Topics:
1. Re: Advice on starting out; dealing with employers (Ned Bedinger)
2. Re: Advice on starting out; dealing with employers (Ned Bedinger)
Message: 1
Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 22:15:07 -0700
From: Ned Bedinger <doc -at- edwordsmith -dot- com>
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: Advice on starting out; dealing with employers
Message-ID: <4DBCEC5B -dot- 5000307 -at- edwordsmith -dot- com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
On 04/29/2011 08:17 PM, Gene Kim-Eng wrote:
> If you're writing for a use where double-spacing may still be required
> (it used to be expected in legal and DoD content, but I haven't done any
> work in either environment for nearly 20 years so I don't know about
> now), it's better to compose with it. It's easy enough to use search
> and replace or style sheets to replace period-space-space with
> period-space, but doing it the other way around raises the potential for
> period-space-space-space anywhere someone has already typed the second
> space in.
Another practical way to automate the task, if you program, is to search
for <period><space> and if found, conditionally check the character code
of the character immediately after it. An ANSI or ASCII <space> is
character code 32--if you find it but don't want it, delete. If you want
it but don't find it there, insert it. This is a nice macro to have in
the toolkit, especially as a polisher when your draft is going out for
review.
Ned Bedinger
doc -at- edwordsmith -dot- com
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 22:45:58 -0700
From: Ned Bedinger <doc -at- edwordsmith -dot- com>
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: Advice on starting out; dealing with employers
Message-ID: <4DBCF396 -dot- 5070900 -at- edwordsmith -dot- com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
On 04/29/2011 09:35 AM, Carter Campbell wrote:
> Chris Morton wrote:
>> [. . .]
>> One tip I'm going to offer right away is to eliminate using two spaces
>> after
>> punctuation in all further communications. Regardless of how you were
>> taught
>> in high school or college, this convention became an anachronism as
>> manual-
>> and non-IBM Selectric typewriters became relegated to The Antiques Road
>> Show.
>>
> Man, I can't believe that this keeps rearing its ugly head. I am not
> going to try to start this same tired old fuss-session up again (well, I
> guess I am, but only quickly)
Me too. :)
, but other than the result being "pretty"
> and that it's "just not cricket", do you think there might be another
> reason why you might want two spaces after a period instead of one?
We would agree that we would single- or double-space sentence ends in
the interest of keeping to an established style guide. But the perennial
argument for single-spacing, by typographers going back centuries, is
the claim that double spaces slow readers. It might as well be the claim
that two spaces take more paper and so increase publishing costs.
Whatever it boils down to, it is from a different age. Modern research
tells a very different story.
For example, here's research that finds reading being mediated by a
process in our brain that governs how big or small an area of text we
take in, and how long our eyes dwell on it. (see" Reading as a
Perceptual Process", ISBN 978-0-08-043642-5).
This process isn't well understood yet, but the study results support
the theory that the reading brain is slowed by what it doesn't
recognize. When a reader comes across something unrecognized (let's say
an unfamiliar acronym), the size of the text area taken in by the eyes
gets smaller, and the eyes dwell on it longer, Again, reading is slowed
while the eyes take in the unfamiliar. How spaces, whether em- or
en-dash worth, can be unfamiliar is a mystery to me.
>
> I would think that it would depend on your audience and not on your own
> delicate sense of style. There are groups of people with learning and
> reading disabilities (such as dyslexics) that find it difficult to read
> through or scan a document that looks as if it is rammed altogether.
> Since many of these people are taught to read patterns, they will look
> for a larger space between sentences to give them visual cues.
The effect on dyslexic readers sounds like a different issue, and a very
interesting one for tech writers to be aware of.
Dyslexics sometimes describe the difficulty of reading as "words jumping
around on the page." It never occured to me before that the patterns of
white space on a page could interact in some visual way to make reading
more or less difficult for dyslexics. Yow! I am all for doing whatever
it takes to get people in my target audience to read the manuals.
To me, the "rivers of white" don't jump out and disturb my reading, but
I can see that effect if I look for it. A page can look awkward if I
appraise it as an aesthetic object--if I see lots of contiguous white
space flowing vertically through the lines, it looks sort of loose and
sloppy. But I think the effect is harmless, the time needed to improve
it would be wasted, and I doubt that any but the pickiest of art-minded
readers, authors, or editors would obsess over it.
Still, it isn't hard to imagine contiguous white spaces appearing to be
in motion or otherwise interacting with the words jumping around on the
page. But if we're to produce dyslexic-friendly manuals, I feel like
we'd have to go m-u-c-h deeper into the questions about the needs of
that audience. I suspect that single- or double-spacing for the sake of
dyslexic readers would amount to a token gesture, at best.
<snip>
If, in your best estimates, you are in a domain that
> "would probably not have too many people who struggle to read", then one
> space would be just fine.
I must have been a mule skinner in a past life to think, as I do, that
this is a great rule. I'd love to see it applied. Hyah!
>
> It can also be argued that a work of fiction, which IS art (for the most
> part), should have one space, because two spaces breaks up the aesthetic
> of the page, but I don't think that we intentionally write fiction.
I think we prefer to say that we "synthesize information". Same
difference, sometimes.
Regards to all,
Ned Bedinger
doc -at- edwordsmith -dot- com
------------------------------
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