Two Spaces After Period Apa

However as per a march 18th 2014 tweet from apa style which is the official twitter account for the publication manual of the american psychological association 6th ed authors can use one or two spaces.

Two spaces after period apa. This rule is often not enforced by professors. Spacing after punctuation marks is covered in section 6 1 of the apa publication manual seventh edition. Schmitt found that two spaces at the end of a period slightly improved the. However if your instructor or non apa publisher has other requirements e g to use two spaces follow their specifications.

The reasoning behind it is to aid in proofreading. Sarah is part of the official voice of apa so to my mind fairly authoritive. Although the usual convention for published works remains one space after each period and indeed the decision regarding whether to include one space or two rests in the end with the publication designer apa thinks the added space makes sense for draft manuscripts in light of those manuscript readers who might benefit from a brief but refreshing pause. Apa style recommends placing two spaces after a period that ends a sentence.

Use one space after a period or other punctuation mark at the end of a sentence when writing in apa style. Spacing after a period. Johnson becky bui and lindsay l. Note that she clearly refers to a draft manuscript.

The tweet reflects what i ve heard from most rru instructors which is that they aren t particularly concerned whether students use one or two spaces as long. After conducting an eye tracking experiment with 60 skidmore students rebecca l. You can read more about it in the apa style handbook on pages 87 88.