Evidently, the font you choose for a paper can affect the grade of said paper.  And we're not talking about being dinged for choosing something outré or difficult to read or silly-looking, but choosing between standard, familiar fonts.

It's hardly a controlled experiment -- but style does have an impact on the perception of substance.  Assuming (for argument) designers and corporate identity consultants aren't total rip-offs, presentation does influence acceptance.  Why wouldn't that be the case, somehow, with typefaces and academic papers?

Filed under :: Media :: School Daze :: Writing and Language

I once read an article that said that fonts with seriphs are easier to read than fonts without seriphs (I wish I had saved the article). I don't want that factor to influence a student's grade, and I want to make it easier for me and for my teaching assistants to read students' papers since each of us may have as many as 600 pages of student papers to read in a semester. Therefore, I require that my students all use the same font (Times Roman or a similar font). What really surprises me is the number of students who are unable to follow such a simple direction on what font to use, even when I have explained why it is to their benefit to do it.

A couple of times when I first started teaching, I got papers printed with some really odd fonts (e.g. Chancery). For some reason that doesn't happen so much any more. Now, those who violate my font requirement almost all use some kind of sans-seriph font. Some students persist in using the wrong font even after having been warned about it on the top of a paper in big letters. Next semester, I'm planning to start taking points off for the wrong font rather than simply writing students a nasty note about it at the top of their papers.

I got to say you are being awfully nice to your students- I remember when some profs wouldn't accept papers that were not typed on an actual typewriters! Maybe you should refuse to read the papers unless they are reprinted in the correct font.

I can't imagine Prof. Sontag bypassing one of his rules to save his students from themselves.

I recall reading that sans serif fonts are best employed in signs, and that fonts with serifs are easier to read in books and such.

The Klingon Dictionary used a sans serif font for the list of common phrases at the back of the book, which led to countless uses of a lower-case L in place of an upper-case I. I stopped using Arial after that. Times New Roman is my preferred font. Time was when I used Courier New, but I decided that I like proportional fonts betetr.

Serifs supposedly allow the eye to track across a long line of text better -- but add visual clutter that would not be good for large signs.

Dave, I think it's perfectly acceptable to ding students for not following formatting instructions, including font, just as you'd ding them for excessive margins or line spacing or any of a number of other meta-factors. I wouldn't make it a huge ding, but enough to draw their attention to it.

Funny. You guys think I'm very generous. My students think I'm an evil ogre. I've taught in places where the administrators seemed to side with the students. The places I teach are very different from Pomona College, both because the average student in the places I teach are not as good as the average student at Pomona, and because academia has changed over the years. If I was as demanding as professors were years ago, I'm sure I'd be reprimanded or fired. But as I said, I'm going to try counting off for those matters this year, and see what it does to the overall average grades in the class. I think it will lower the average grades significantly.

I guess it depends on what "significantly" represents. A half-grade? That's about as much as I'd take off for offenses against required formatting.

From a practical standpoint, both the business world and academia/publicaions require folks who are writing to follow certain guidelines; it's, thus, a learning experience to be forced to comply with the "house style."

Here we encounter one of the dilemmas of an instructor.

I require a specific font, line-spacing, and margin size. In addition, students are required to put their name in a particular place on the page (on the back at the top left corner). If I take off 5 points (half a grade) for any of these factors, someone who goofs on just one will be penalized just as much as someone who goofs on all of them. That seems unfair. On the other hand, if I penalize 5 points for each of them, someone could lose as much as 20 points (two grades) just on formatting issues. That seems a bit much.

You are probably thinking that I should take off 1 or 2 points for each of these mistakes. My guess is that such a penalty is so small that many students don't regard it as important, and it will not have the desired effect. I also need to consider the bureaucratic detail of having my TAs use the grading system. The more complex the system is, the more likely there will be errors and inconsistency between the various TAs.

A compromise approach is to penalize 5 points for the first formatting error, and 10 for two or more. I haven't really decided how to handle this yet, but I am leaning toward this approach.

P.S. I don't accept handwritten papers, but I can only think of one student who has tried to turn in a handwritten paper to me in 10 years.

I think your approach is probably a good one, both for simplicity and for fairness.

I just graduated in December, and every professor required us to write in Times New Roman.

It doesn't surprise me at all that he averaged his highest grades with Georgia. I dislike Times New Roman because, for all that it's ubiquitous, it's cramped and strak looking. I've used Georgia as my primary font ever since I first coded my personal website to use it 11/12 years ago. I use it for court filings, letters, papers, everything - except where specific rules (i.e., appellate briefs) forbid it or, since it takes up an extra line or so per page compared to TNR, where I'm having trouble staying under a maximum page limit (i.e., certain motions).

One of the reasons I like it is that, while it is quite similar to TNR, it's a bit spacier. As such, it is easier to read (and significantly more so than an sans font). It wouldn't surprise me at all if, after reading a paper several pages in length, a prof ended up giving a slightly higher grade because the experience of reading it was, in some indefinable way, more pleasant than other papers in default fonts.

I've never much cared for Georgia as a printed font. It was designed as a screen font (one of the freebees that Microsoft used to distro), and does a much better job as such than TNR. I don't care for it nearly as much printed (nor for TNR). I vary the font I use in printing to the audience -- usually serif, Garamond for something fancy, Bookman for a script to read, etc.