Hello all!
Are we suppose to include the double space after the period when transcribing news print? On this page I was working on, the first half of the transcription has double spaces, and the second does not.
I don’t know if we’ve had this question before! Thanks for raising it.
As a transcriber, don’t worry about replicating spaces after period in from the original document. In handwritten documents there is no standard spacing to follow, and even in printed texts, the author’s use of spaces would be considered formatting, which we don’t try to replicate in our transcriptions. So I recommend using just a single space after a period, since that is the contemporary standard, but either one or two spaces should be accepted by reviewers.
(that said, I imagine a lot of our detail-oriented reviewers would have a hard time not editing a mixed-spacing page to standardize it! 
)
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Gotta say-- I try to do the single space, but those of us who learned to type on manual or even early electric typewriters (i.e., before word processors) were taught 2 spaces after a period-- and it’s hard to break muscle memory! So some of us are asking for grace and mercy here, haha
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I hear you, Sara! Such a hard habit to break!!
Sophie-- I also want to share what I do about spacing etc when I review. If the spacing, indention, other formatting won’t confuse the reader down the road AND if all the words, spelling, line breaks, transcription guides are followed, I ACCEPT-- even if the formatting isn’t my preferred style. But… If I find transcription guidelines unfollowed, misspelled words, no line breaks, etc. I re-open, correct and at the same time change the formatting to the way I think will be most helpful to future readers/researchers. Thanks for asking the question!
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