To space before a bracket or not to space?

Subject: To space before a bracket or not to space?
From: Geoff Hart <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Thu, 13 May 2004 09:46:18 -0400


Sameh Saeb wondered: <<A friend of mine who writes for a teen magazine has run into a problem concerning whether to leave a space before and after brackets or not. The editor requires her to not leave a space before and after the brackets, basing her (The Editor) conviction to some mystery style book.>>

If you mean that there should be no space before "(Editor" or after "Editor)" in your message text, the editor is wrong. I've read more widely than most, and have never seen that style. One good solution in matters of style is to ask the editor in question to name the style guide in which this rule is proposed. ("I'd like to study the style guide you're using so I can do a better job of following it.") If they can't produce the style guide, ask them to provide an example in any published work. This usually resolves the problem.

But I think Dick was correct in his response: The editor probably means that you shouldn't pad the words inside the brackets with extra spaces, such as ( Editor ). This may be a typographic glitch (poorly designed fonts) rather than actual extra spaces or more interestingly, it may be a problem with software such as MS Office, which occasionally accumulates bizarre "autoformat" features. For example, many versions of Powerpoint automatically insert a space after a single quote (') so that "don't" becomes "don' t". This one used to drive me nuts in presentations produced by authors using the French installation.

--Geoff Hart ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca
(try geoffhart -at- mac -dot- com if you don't get a reply)


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References:
To space before a bracket or not to space?: From: Sameh Saeb

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