Never Put Two Spaces After A Period

Illustration by Slate. Can I let you in on a secret? Typing two spaces after a period is totally, completely, utterly, and inarguably wrong. And yet people who use two spaces are everywhere, their ugly error crossing every social boundary of class, education, and taste.* You'd expect, for instance, that anyone savvy enough to read Slate would know the proper rules of typing, but you'd be wrong; every third email I get from readers includes the two-space error. A Slate Plus Special Feature: Never, ever use two spaces after a period: Listen to Mike Vuolo read Farhad Majoo’s classic takedown of an enduring typographic sin. What galls me about two-spacers isn't just their numbers. Typographers, that's who. Every modern typographer agrees on the one-space rule. Type professionals can get amusingly—if justifiably—overworked about spaces. This readability argument is debatable. But I actually think aesthetics are the best argument in favor of one space over two. Is this arbitrary?

Revolving around the Writing Revolution - Lingua Franca I’ve been following a raging debate in The Atlantic over the pedagogy of writing, a subject dear to my heart but clear as mud when it comes to formulating a position. The leadoff to the online debate, which continues through mid-October, was an article by the education reporter Peg Tyre about a new approach taken at Staten Island’s New Dorp High School. The follow-ups—more than a dozen as I write this—have been from people who have a stake in this matter of writing instruction. They range from the “Freedom Writer” diva Erin Gruwell to the president of Hampden-Sydney College. I recommend the series to Lingua Franca readers and hope that many will use this forum to articulate their takeaway from the debate; comments on The Atlantic site itself seem to be article-specific. Most people who write about writing are both passionate and competent writers themselves. That observation took me back to the original article, the only one that seems not to have been written by an advocate. Why not?

How to Build -- and Keep -- an Engaged Audience [INFOGRAPHIC] Every web publisher — and especially content marketer — yearns for an engaged and loyal audience. But with the sheer volume of noise, clutter and — well, content — online it can be hard to figure out how to reach people and keep them coming back for more. The content marketing agency BlueGlass knows a lot about how to do this well. Here are a few quick tips: Make sure you have a gripping headline, keep your copy to the point, make sure to provide value and promote, promote, promote. Why are these approaches so important? Check out the infographic below for the fuller picture. 750 Words