Single Spaced Essay: How to use Spacing Size in Word

When writing an essay, formatting it correctly is of utmost importance. You have to get the spacing correctly according to the style of writing and your professor’s preference. Essays, research papers, books and articles all need their own style of spacing.

If there are no clear guidelines from your lecturer, it can be difficult to know how to format your essay in terms of spacing.                 

Most essays need 1.5 line spacing but this will always depend with your tutor’s instructions. Even though double spacing is common in most essays, there are professors who prefer single spacing.

Adequate spacing between lines makes it easy for your grader to make corrections by including his or her comments. This is more helpful if the grading is on hard copy.

Moreover, having enough space in between the lines gives electronic graders an easy time when reading on the screen.

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What Is A Single Spaced Essay? 

A single spaced essay is simply an essay that you write with a single line style of spacing.

There are few colleges and universities that accept this spacing. Yet on the face of it, most readers do not appreciate single spacing.

Tutors who prefer more words to appear on one page recommends this style of writing. In Microsoft Word, single spaced essays have a line spacing of 1.15.

Both readers and writers dislike single spaced essays because of poor readability owing to the fact that there is little space left in between the lines. For professors, they usually find it difficult to include comments, or point out specific problems that writer needs to correct.

If the corrections are put, the student will also find it difficult to to follow the recommendations.

Texts that appear with congestion in the format of styling are obviously hard for the audience to read. Single spaced essays leave no blank space in between making the texts not to appear reader-friendly.

Without a doubt, the drawbacks of single spaced essays surpass the advantages. Therefore, this style of spacing in essays is highly discouraged.

Difference between Single and Double Spaced Essays

Spacing is basically the blank space you leave between lines in a document. When typing on Microsoft word or any word tool, it is possible to establish your own spacing between the lines. Writers have the option of single spacing, double spacing or selecting their own custom spacing style.

Essay writing involves single spacing and double spacing in most cases. Single space has a space of only 1.5. It is a very small space that you leave between the lines of texts you write.

In double space, there is enough blank space that equals the height of a line found in a text. The blank line is found in the rows where your words appear.

If you are typing your essay on a word processor or manually writing it by hand, there has to be enough space in between lines. Adequate spacing promotes good readability. Too little space in between makes the texts to appear clogged together.

This will definitely give the readers a difficult time. On the other hand, leaving too much space will also create a bad appearance. Pages will appear blank thereby discouraging your audience from reading.

This means that a writer has to establish the right spacing that is neither narrow nor wide for readers.

Most essays follow single or double spacing. If you don’t like the two, you can opt to use your own custom spacing between the different lines of your text. Your custom spacing will look better if you use the right font.

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How to Write a Single Spaced Essay  

Single spacing simply refers to the space you leave between the lines of your paper. When you write your essay using the single spacing style, the typed lines are congested. This is because the white space you leave between the lines you have typed is too small.

As such, lecturers do not have enough space for inserting the comments that will help you in doing your corrections.

This is the main reason why most professors discourage the use of this type of spacing.

The white space between lines is very important for a tutor when it comes to editing of marks and writing comments.

Some professors prefer single space for various reasons. Writing with this type of style is not difficult. However, if you have included another type of spacing after typing, there is no need to panic. There are formatting changes you can make to take your essay back to single space.

These are changes you can make at any stage of the writing process. Nevertheless, bear in mind that how to effect these changes is not the same. Word processing programs are different and each has separate methods of changing spacing styles.

If you are using Microsoft word, the following steps will apply to arrive at a single spacing:

• Start by highlighting the text that you have already been typing. This step is only necessary if you have already typed your texts. If you are yet to type anything, skip it as there will be nothing to highlight.
• Proceed to the page layout tab after selecting your text.
• From the page layout proceed to the paragraph segment. Here, point to the arrow appearing at the left corner. A new window will appear after clicking on this arrow.
• Click no the spacing tab that appears.
•  Here, you will be able to locate the line spacing menu and pick single from the available options.

This is a process that applies to Microsoft Word 2010. However, most of the versions of Microsoft Word will still use the same process to arrive at single spacing.

The process is slightly different if you are using Mac. Open the pages word processor and highlight the text that you want to change to single spacing. Click on the blue button that appears at the top corner of your Mac’s window. The button is called the inspector.

A new window will open and you can easily locate the Spacing section to change your text spacing into single.   

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Tips To Make Single Spaced Essays Interesting

Many students tend to underrate the significance of using the right spacing. Also, after choosing the spacing style they want, a student may not know that there are more touches that can make the essay more engaging.

Below are helpful tips that can make your singe spaced essay interesting:

• Make use of short sentences that will give the reader an easy time. Since you are using single spaces between texts, shorter sentences will enhance readability. Short and precise sentences will make your single spaced essay to be more charming to the audience.
• Make use of simple words that readers can understand easily. Because single space already causes problem with reading, the use of simple words helps readers to maintain interest in your essay.
• Use proper structure that will make your essay reader friendly.  This is one of the ways to make a single spaced essay attractive.
• Make your essay relevant and precise. Professors detest irrelevant essays and you are likely to score less on your essay. Relevancy gives a writer authority over the topic in discussion.

The single spacing also needs the correct font size. The font size you choose can affect readability of the texts. Formatting styles such as MLA will require a 12pt font when you are single spacing.

12pt size of font will be clear and visible to the readers when single spacing is used.