Space after <a> tag in text output

Hi,

I am processing a XML file to generate 'text' output. Here's a sample code:
Original XML file has
<articledescription>
   <p>Vivek is a <a href="http://www.sas.com/">SAS</a> employee.</p>
</articledescription>

To process this I am writing the content of <articledescription> into a
temporary XML file using
<redirect:write select="$xmlfile">

Then I read the temp XML file and apply template by:
<xsl:apply-templates select="document($xmlfile)" mode="proc-txt"/>

While I do that all of my tags are being processed OK. But when I come across
<a> tag, the space between </a> and the next word appears as a first character
on the next line. So it looks like

Vivek is a SAS
http://www.sas.com
 employee.

Since I do not have control on the space before word 'employee', I am not able
to eliminate it. Any suggestion?

Appreciate your help.

Thanks
Vivek