When I was in school, I was always taught that you are supposed to do a double space at the end of a sentence before going on to a new sentence.  I recently was told though that I am only supposed to use a single space after the end of the sentence.  Which is correct?

Example:

The sky is blue. It is a lovely day.

The sky is blue.  It is a lovely day.

The 1st example shows the sentence with a single space at the end and the 2nd one shows it with a double space.  I am willing to adjust everything I was taught and start using a single space, but I just want to know which is proper?

I've only ever done it with a single space (British English here, don't know which side of the Atlantic you are on). The style guide for written documents that my employer uses specifies a single space. I have read some writing books that mention it when talking about manuscript formatting and said that it didn't matter as long as you were consistent throughout the manuscript.

Hope that helps

I've always used single as well as in terms of print, publishers like to use up all the space they can.
British English here too, but most style guides say one including Chicago Manual of Style. I think two spaces were used when typewriters were used because of the spacing on the typeset.

Here is a link to an explanation:
http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/OneSpaceorTwo.html

Okay here's the deal.

Single space is for writing normal. Double spacing is supposed to be used in essays and reports. Not just the line spacing too, you're supposed to put two spaces before a sentence but really that's the stupidest requirement in history.

Easier to space like normal then find ". " and replace with ".  ".

Maybe I will retrain myself just to use single spaces from now on.  It is going to be a hard habit to break because I have always used double spaces after periods.  The double spacing between lines in writing is very stupid and I never use it.  I always thought that was just a school requirement so that people could edit your writing.

I remember having to double space lines at university when submitting reports and stuff, but I don't remember having to double space for sentences. Not for editing, though, because that was the finished version we were handing in. Hmmm...

Actually, if I'm writing long-hand I still do write double spaced with lines so I can go back and edit my work (though as I said on this thread about writing by hand, http://www.creativeburrow.org/writingchat/writing-by-hand/ it's not entirely successful!)

Schools teach you all wrong and then you have to go back and learn the right way to write when you are an adult.  You would think that by the time you get to the college level, they would teach you to write the way the real world writes.  It is all so confusing.  As you can see in my post right here that I am still using double spaces in between my sentences.  This is going to be a hard habit to break.

I'm pretty sure agent's ask for that too so they can put notes between the lines if the work is any good.

I agree Rosyrain, they screw up math too. The order of operations for example (BOMDAS/BODMAS/ETC) will get you 2 different answers if you don't understant the correct way to do it (which they don't teach in school).

I have never even considered that there was a specific way that it was supposed to be always done. Most of the time, I use a single space, but if I want to put more of a break between two sentences, then I use a double space, and sometimes even a triple space. If it is something that doesn't need a whole new paragraph, butit does need some distinction, then I give it extra space.
Of course, I haven't had to write any college essays or anything like that where it made a lot of difference, so I just made up my own rules.
Now that I know how it is supposed to be, I will try harder to do it the proper way.   At least, most of the time......

I never knew there was a proper way to do it either and I always thought the point was just to separate sentences from each other. I used to think my grammar was wonderful and now I have come to the conclusion I am only a B student. On the plus side, I am becoming a better writer each and every day so I guess that counts for something.