<p>Should I use one space after a period or two spaces?</p>
<p>One! It lets you type faster. 
Plus, it’s easier to spot one instance of accidental double spacing if you only use single spacing.</p>
<p>I learned to put two spaces.</p>
<p>Whatever you’re used to doing. I used to do 2 but switched to 1 a few years ago because doing so increased my typing speed.</p>
<p>@ZombieDante: I learned two as well, but slowly phased it out once I realized no one else was doing it and no one seemed to care. All those extra spaces for nothing! :(</p>
<p>My mom works for marketing somewhere and thinks that two looks like vomit. I tend to agree, but it’s an issue that many people I know disagree on.</p>
<p>I was told to do two in elementary school, but I started doing only one because it looks better and feels a lot smoother as I’m typing. Actually, if I remember correctly, I started doing one because a typing program in sixth grade deducted points for two spaces after a period, and I just got comfortable with one ever since.</p>
<p>@TitoMorito Yeah I’m not faithful to it because it is hard to remember sometimes. So I usually end up with one or two spaces randomly after periods in my paper lol.</p>
<p>It’s one. Here’s why: in the day of typewriters, everything was typed with fixed-width fonts. So the letter “i” took the same amount of space on a page as the letter “w” did. The fonts everywhere today are typically variable-width fonts, where the letter “i” takes much less space than the letter “w.” Courier (Courier New) is one of the only prominent fixed-width fonts, but fonts like Arial, Times New Roman, Tahoma, and Verdana are all variable-width.</p>
<p>Anyway, all typewriters used fixed-width fonts. Since everything took the same amount of space, it was difficult to see where the breaks between sentences were. The two-space rule was adopted to make it easier to read; in theory, your brain is better able to process the breaks between sentences with two spaces.</p>
<p>But here’s the thing: that rule is only useful with fixed-width fonts. Today, almost everything uses variable-width fonts. Putting two spaces does not help the readability of a paragraph today as it once did forty years ago. Fixed-width fonts went out a long time ago, but this tradition was left over. One space is just cleaner, easier, and more aesthetically pleasing.</p>
<p>One space is correct. Putting two spaces is a now-archaic tradition; just like the ampersand (&) is a remnant from Roman culture, there’s no need to put two spaces.</p>
<p>Source: [Two</a> spaces after a period: Why you should never, ever do it. - Slate Magazine](<a href=“http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2011/01/space_invaders.single.html]Two”>Two spaces after a period: Why you should never, ever do it.)</p>
<p>Omg I just got into a major argument with my mom over this! She said her English professor told her it was correct to use two spaces. I showed her this article and got her to admit she was wrong for literally the first time in my life! It’s a sweet moment.</p>
<p>This is exactly correct.(1 space)Two-spaces was the standard practice in typewriter days and many people who learned to type then still have that habbit now.(1 space)Indeed the practice is still taught in many keyboarding classes.(1 space)But it has never been the practice in professional typography and, with variable space fonts now standardly available to all of us, one-space should be the rule.(1 space)I believe MS Word has a feature you can turn on which automatically converts two-space sentence divisions to one-space in order to help those of us who can’t seem to break this habbit.</p>
<p>mmmgirl – same here – my mom has been on my case all thru high school for only using one space, so I showed this to her as well. Heh.</p>