Do You Write Past The Right Hand Margin?

[Sandy1]

Hi,

 

For the stuff I write that's work-related I leave margins wide enough for marginalia and footnotes; and also work single-sided. Those measures leave me lots of room so that I can add stuff later on as needs be, hence avoid 'tipping in' pages which is frowned upon.

 

For personal writing, I make an effort to leave margins wide enough for comfortable handling of the sheet, so that if I happen to be using a less than robust ink it will not be smudged nor transferred to the readers' fingers; and avoid hyphenation. (I doubt that anyone adds marginalia etc. to my correspondence.)

 

Bye,

S1

 

​__ EDIT to add: Kindly consider what I call the 'tyranny of the page'. To give me a blank bit of paper is just a start - a landscape sheet from an A4 can evolve to an A3. Lots of room to roam. I welcome a blank A0; and more than a few of my friends have received personal letters written on a few such large sheets, rather than a sheaf of A4s. No origami was involved, just the ISO standard for folding. Perhaps the recipients thought, "Crikey mate, what's wrong with a post card? We don't need to paper the ceiling"

Edited June 11, 2016 by Sandy1

[ac12]

Depending on the paper, but generally I write as far to the right as I can.

In fact on some paper, I write past the left margin also.

Why waste paper. No one else cares that I ignore the margin lines.

Edited June 11, 2016 by ac12

[Pravda]

For personal use, I guess no harm done to be economical and not run out of journals too soon. But I imagine for students in school, they should leave the margin for the teachers' comments.

[ardene]

Most ruled paper I've seen throughout Europe has margins only on the left side.

[inkstainedruth]

When I'm writing in my journal or for myself I don't worry much about margins, particularly the right margin. When I'm typing or keyboarding, I tend to pay more attention, because if I was writing something for possible publication, there is often a word count requirement, and estimating that is easier on a standard 8-1/2"x11" size page with 1" margins and a set number of lines per page (the average word length in English, according to my mom -- for whom, as an author, this sometimes made a difference -- is five letters).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[PurplePlum]

Ive never seen paper with a right margin, only left. Id love to see this if someone had a min to snap a picture.

 

Ive spent my life adhering to the left margin on paper. Normally I buy unmarginned paper, however recently I bought a good quantity of Rhodia lined paper on sale and with this Ive started ignoring the margin and am writing the full width of the page. Im not writing numbered or bullet pointed sections, only free-flow writing, so no need for margins. The width of the margin in itself annoys me, why make it so wide on Rhodia? - much writing space lost on pricey paper. I write large too, so five words a line adhering to the margins would be my limit. This wouldnt be economical and the writing would look stunted, and lose that lovely flow you get with cursive writing, if my hand needs repositioning every five words.

 

At the age of 40 Ive become a paper rebel 🤗

[Karmachanic]

Layout margins on four sides.

http://retinart.net/graphic-design/secret-law-of-page-harmony/

 

De Honnecourt 1/12 Harmonioliciousness

[XYZZY]

I currently only use blank paper, or dot grid, so it's moot.

 

Whatever grade I was in when we first used notebook paper (2nd?), a teacher explaining the paper to us described the red vertical line that makes the left margin, but also pointed out that the left margin line from the other side is always visible on the right and needed to be heeded. But if I recall correctly (long ago, so don't count on it), her "rule" for the right margin was that one should never start a new word after that line. Probably at the time we weren't familiar with using a "-" to continue a word on the next line and this was her way of helping us avoid that problem.

 

But different teachers had different rules that needed to be followed.

[abstract49]

In 6th grade [first of two schools I attended that year; we moved in November], our teacher had us make an underlay with the right hand 1/4 - 3/8 inch blacked out with pencil.

 

I've always tried to leave a little bit of a right hand margin, just because I think writing to the edge looks a bit careless.

[Astronymus]

Writing over the margin is messy. The margin is there for comments.

 

The page looking cleaner is a side effect. A good writer knows when to change line or to divide a word, before writing over the margin.

[Bookman]

With fountain-pen writing, I like a wide margin. The writing is too easily smeared with moist fingers from sweat, condensation on the vessel of an ice-cold beverage, inadvertent moisture from just having washed the hands or handling something in the kitchen, etc. I try to maintain an inch all the way around on an A5 or larger.

[GardenWeasel]

If I paid for the paper, I’m using every bit I can! Specially with Tomoe River paper. . That stuff is expensive.

[Aminah]

As a child of the 1960s we were taught to stay within the margins. As a now older lady I believe it to be neater than writing to the edge of the paper. It simply looks best to have that frame.

Edited October 28, 2018 by Lyric