Double-spacing. Why? Why? It’s so ugly.
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Jessica Smith
Oh, here our aesthetic sensebilities WAY differ. To me, there is nothing prettier than a simple, sweet font — say, Bookman Old Style or one of its ilk — in 9 or 10 point and 1.5-spaced. But I would take 8 or 9 point double-spaced over 12 point single-spaced any day.
What I will NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER understand is the overwhelming populatity of the horrid Times New Roman.
It’s less a matter of prettiness than readability and usefulness. Double spaced manuscripts are easier to edit because there’s space for proofreading marks and corrections in between the lines. For dense writing, like legal briefs, it’s easier on the eyes. Without double-spacing, you often lose track of which line you’re on, and start reading the same lines over an over…
I second what Maureen says. I remember turning my first paper in English single-typed with font size 10 (because we French people don’t type our essays, we handwrite them. And when it says “15 page paper,” it means “at least 15 pages long. Write a 60-page paper if that amuses you.” But I digress) and the horrified look of my freshman comp teacher. Although she did like the paper, she kept calling me a “sick, mean bastard” (but she liked that quality) all semester.
But no, I don’t understand the popularity of Times New Roman either. Or Arial. I use Garamond, Georgia or Palatino for my serif fonts.
easier on the eyes… when reading long documents. but what about when looking at the paper from afar?
anyway, reading all this poetry for the anthology, lots of people double-space and i think it looks stupid, esp. with short lines. but contests and such often say “double-spaced!” in their entry requirements (i avoid those contests). line breaks are important! you can’t just go around willy-nilly double-spacing things!
but even in academic papers, i prefer single-spacing. i like to see the ideas grouped together as tightly as possible. but i’m usually not dealing with papers with small mechanical errors that need to be proofread.
françois… hand-writing essays?! i don’t know whether that’s crazy or wonderful…
and Ray, i wouldn’t talk about 12pt TNR. It’s 10 pt Garamond all the way for me. Single-spaced!
French schools are totally old-school. Even for my exams in med school, everything was handwritten, from math problems to anatomical descriptions. No multiple choice questions. But two years in med school totally fucked my handwriting.