The Web and HTML have robbed us of double spaced sentences and indented paragraphs.

According to the Modern Language Association*, writing should be double spaced and paragraphs should be indented.**

More and more written content has moved to the web. By now, it is the most important medium for disseminating information to a mass audience. When writing text that will be rendered in web browsers (HTML), whitespace at the end of each sentence is condensed into single spaces.*** So even if you type two spaces at the end of each sentence, you get a single space when the text shows up in your browser.

So I could type "Hello    World.", and I would get "Hello World."

The same thing applies to indenting paragraphs. When HTML is rendered, you lose the indentation at the beginning of your paragraphs.****

If you use a Rich Text Editor to create your content, then perhaps it adds double spaces and tabs for you by inserting gross   after the white space between sentences. This gives you the double spaces or indentation, but makes a real mess of the actual text in your content. Many content management systems and online editors do this also.

Consider the differences between traditional print media and online media. For example, compare the writing in the New York Time's print newspaper vs. it's online edition. The print version follows traditional writing style and uses indented paragraphs and double spaced sentences. The online version does not. On The Web, the loss of this whitespace is how almost all writing is now presented. Since this is becoming the idiom for writing on the Web, can't we just ditch the double space and indentation style and still be "correct"? (whatever "correct" is)

Who needs rules anyway? After all, The message is the medium.

* MLA documentation style is widely adopted in high schools, colleges, and publishing houses. It has been a standard guide for over half a century.
** Even though this style is supposed to apply to research papers, it is commonly taught and applied to most standard typed writing.
*** You can preserve spaces and indentation with preformatted HTML
**** You can actually do indentation with with some CSS tricks: http://www.w3.org/Style/Examples/007/indent