On a standard highway or street in the United States, there is often a limited width of space to deal with. This could result in having to deal with tight or skinny lanes, a low number of lanes, and in tight spots like in cities or mountains, the small width of space may cause traffic jams on an Interstate highway. But it is a requirement for all Interstate highways, alongside most US and state routes, to include shoulders on either one or both sides of the road, which is an empty lane only used for emergencies, to pull over, or to drive around something blocking the road. They are important for emergency vehicles to bypass traffic to respond to an emergency, and allows people to pull over on a paved road, instead of stopping in the middle of the road or pulling off onto the grass.

Now imagine a highway where shoulders existed not on the sides of the road, but rather right in the middle of the paved road, in between the lanes of traffic. 

Sounds messy, doesn’t it?

I bring up highway shoulders because they are similar to margins in paper writing. The text on a piece of paper does not go from the left edge to the right edge, rather there is a little bit of space between the text of a document/paper and the edge of the paper, hence the margin. Teachers and professors will often use margins to write comments on essays off to the side, not right in the middle of the main body of text. It makes for a perfectly fine amount of space for extra comments or corrections, just like shoulders make for a reasonable amount of space for pulling over or driving around a stopped vehicle. 

It’s been a while since I started using MLA format for my English papers, but when we were first taught it during 6th grade or so, I remember we all had the same question: Why do we need to double space our essays? What purpose does it serve?

I know most teachers will say that, on hard (printed) copies of papers, they can use the space in between the lines to write comments, and it makes it easier to read. But I’m writing this document with 1.15 spacing and I’m having no problem reading this text, and without my glasses I’m farsighted. 

While typing, I changed this document to double spacing to see any effects. It didn’t necessarily make it harder to read, but it made it more annoying to read. The whole document felt so bulky and seemed to be more of a nuisance than improving. The double spacing also made it harder for my eyes to tell where a new paragraph started, since indentations blend in with the spacing.

And then, there’s the idea that teachers can use those spaces in between the lines to write comments.

For one, that adds onto the clunkiness I felt when I turned this doc into double spacing. When a student gets back their paper with comments in between their lines, that would be overwhelming and confusing to read through. It also ruins the point of the margins on the paper. Teachers can very easily circle a sentence or phrase and draw an arrow that connects it to a comment written in the margin. With margins, comments are positioned next to the text and it makes it so organized on a piece of paper.

Just like how highways have shoulders for extra space in case of emergency, what the double-spaced format does, margins can already do it, but better. In other words, I think that double spaced formatting is like positioning shoulders so that they are in between each lane, and highways are created so there’s a lane, empty space, lane, empty space, lane, instead of empty space on the sides. That sounds like a mess, doesn’t it? 

Lastly, I will bring up the point that most essays are on computers and submitted digitally, rather than physically now. Commenting on Google Docs puts comments off and away from the papers, not on it. In an era where digitized essays appear to be the most common, double spacing is just nothing. Even for printed copies of papers, all that space culminates as the essay progresses, and all of it combined could equate to a full page. In an effort to save paper and trees, I say we get rid of all that unnecessary space and just stick to using the margins. 

I know I clearly don’t like double spacing, but I don’t want to treat it like their an English student’s worst nightmare, or treat it like how an English teacher probably reacted to my incorrect spelling of “their” earlier in this sentence, but I think the time has come that we realize double spacing is more of a burden than anything. I think it is time for MLA, APA, and Chicago formats, and any others that consider double spacing to be “professional” to remove the requirement. Using 1.15 spacing is spaced out enough to prevent your eyes from having a headache.