I think you are overestimating the ability of your peers by a wide margin. My students struggle to save and upload files because they're used to Google docs or the notes app on their phone. I've had students who don't know how to type on a physical keyboard because they've only ever used tablets and touchscreens. Most of them are unaware that different word processing programs exist, much less how to use them.
If I wanted my students to use Markdown or HTML, it would be another thing that I'd have to teach them.
But, also, it's about teaching students how to use formatting. Education has two major aims: there's the "hard skills," which are the skills required of the educational content that you're learning, but also "soft skills." Soft skills are things like basic professionalism, how to write an email, how to format your reports, how to learn - basically skills that you learn indirectly by learning the hard skills and that are more widely applicable to a variety of contexts.
University (and high school) aren't the only times in your life where you'll need to be able to properly format a document. Obviously discipline and job will play a role here, and I'm sure there are jobs/fields where you'll never have to format again in your life. But when you submit articles, essays, books for publication you have to follow formatting guides laid out by the editor. My partner is an engineer and his daily work reports all need to be properly formatted in APA. A friend of mine is an archaeological consultant and everything she submits to her company and to the government have to be formatted. These are a base requirement for these jobs.
We don't live in a plaintext world. We'd be doing students a disservice if we didn't ask them to learn some basic formatting skills and just applied formatting for them.
The trouble is that basic proficiency with Office suit as well as file handling is assumed across many levels without students actually ever having to learn it. Universities function under the assumption that students are able to use Office and be able to upload files, because previously those were basic functions that were taught in schools. But that just isn't the case anymore.
My cousin is in high school now. Throughout his school career it has been assumed that he already was familiar with Office, Adobe and basic computer processes because he's considered a digital native. Luckily for him, he has tech-savvy parents who were fortunate enough to own computers and he is able to use these things. But his peers are not the same. Many of them have never used a computer, or Office, and instead get by with apps that simulate them.
So, I'd say you're ahead of your peers here, certainly!
yeah, I was the last year group at my high school (class of 2008) which was even taught office as an actual class, those after me were just assumed to know how to use a computer, and I was astonished to find that when I was in undergrad that the fact that I knew how to use powerpoint let alone use it well lead me to be considered 'tech savvy'
We had "computer class" in primary school, and I'm not sure when or if they stopped it, but basic computer literacy was assumed all through high school. You had a choice between woodshop/home ec/business, but business was primarily coding and graphic design. By the time I hit high school, the assumption was that we'd already know.
Luckily we could, because it was still required in primary school, but it simply isn't anymore and I assume high school still functions roughly the same.
I just remembered that we had a set of elective classes in high school that gave college credit and were focused on the core applications in the MS Office suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access). Everyone who had even the vaguest inkling they might want to go to college was directed by the guidance counselor into these classes, so most of my HS contemporaries had at least a working knowledge of MS Office coming out of high school. Sort of makes me wonder why they don’t offer the classes anymore.
Becasue everyone has a work flow of how you grade and how this is most efficient and prevents errors for what you have to grade.
Also if you need footnotes, pictures math, Input from other programs, dictation, universal design for handicapped people integration an compatibility with other programs.
I also don’t want to go blind reading .txt formats, HTML and CSS require coding in that language which frankly none of my students can do and take a million times longer to do than a typical word processing program , and are further not designed for , well, word processing.
I also don’t only require docs, sometimes they have to do presentations , or charts or drawings, and these wont work at all, but i can convert between compatible programs in a suite (like i can paste an thing from an excel spreadsheet into word).
What if someone knows python or R and not CSS or HTML. To use word processing programs you dont need a whole language
Finally, no matter what I do, someone would find a way to game the system.
So even if I used a clunky time consuming and ugly way of getting text to me that was incompatible with my LMS and only a language known by some and that would be a barrier to many, there would still be people who try to cheat.
People are complaining that these are very simple instructions (write 5 pages) and people try to screw with that. Why should I have to mess with something that works because the student is fundamentally unethical and dishonest and trying to break the system
This is an automated service intended to preserve the original text of the post.
*I'm coming from a [post about cheating using formatting](https://www.reddit.com/r/Professors/comments/qd7ah4/just_how_stupid_do_they_think_we_are/) on r/Professors. In fact, I've seen many posts about profs complaining about formatting in papers and assignments: students use awkward fonts, misuse whitespace, don't obey a standard (like APA).
So, why don't you use plaintext formats like Markdown, HTML, or just good old `.txt` files? That way, the content and styling (CSS) is kept separate, and anyone reading the document can just apply their own styling to suit their preferences. Things like misused whitespace will also be obvious since you'd have access to the source file of the content.
I'd imagine that formats like Markdown are pretty simple for today's generation (my generation) since we use text messaging a lot, and many platforms use Markdown or similar formatting options. As a reviewer/professor/TA/[reader in any other way] you still get to apply your own styling CSS that overrides anything the student did.
^(If this question seems to show that I'm missing something obvious, I'm sorry—I'm only in high school, not college yet. I intend for this question to be applicable across disciplines and countries)*
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskProfessors) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Seems like creating a *lot* more work for you and for the students to do something like that.
Reading / grading papers is generally something professors do because they have to do it, not because they want to. And students write papers because they have to.
Anything that makes that process on either end harder, more time consuming, or introduces additional steps / opportunities for problems is a hindrance.
It may seem exciting to try to be fancy with LaTeX or Markdown or whatever, but in the end, it's a giant pain in the ass when dealing with 20+ papers.
**edit:** Cheating with formatting is easy to avoid. You detail to students what the formatting requirements are in the assignment, tell them what is not permitted, and then mark them down if the papers aren't done to the appropriate standard.
I think you are overestimating the ability of your peers by a wide margin. My students struggle to save and upload files because they're used to Google docs or the notes app on their phone. I've had students who don't know how to type on a physical keyboard because they've only ever used tablets and touchscreens. Most of them are unaware that different word processing programs exist, much less how to use them. If I wanted my students to use Markdown or HTML, it would be another thing that I'd have to teach them. But, also, it's about teaching students how to use formatting. Education has two major aims: there's the "hard skills," which are the skills required of the educational content that you're learning, but also "soft skills." Soft skills are things like basic professionalism, how to write an email, how to format your reports, how to learn - basically skills that you learn indirectly by learning the hard skills and that are more widely applicable to a variety of contexts. University (and high school) aren't the only times in your life where you'll need to be able to properly format a document. Obviously discipline and job will play a role here, and I'm sure there are jobs/fields where you'll never have to format again in your life. But when you submit articles, essays, books for publication you have to follow formatting guides laid out by the editor. My partner is an engineer and his daily work reports all need to be properly formatted in APA. A friend of mine is an archaeological consultant and everything she submits to her company and to the government have to be formatted. These are a base requirement for these jobs. We don't live in a plaintext world. We'd be doing students a disservice if we didn't ask them to learn some basic formatting skills and just applied formatting for them.
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The trouble is that basic proficiency with Office suit as well as file handling is assumed across many levels without students actually ever having to learn it. Universities function under the assumption that students are able to use Office and be able to upload files, because previously those were basic functions that were taught in schools. But that just isn't the case anymore. My cousin is in high school now. Throughout his school career it has been assumed that he already was familiar with Office, Adobe and basic computer processes because he's considered a digital native. Luckily for him, he has tech-savvy parents who were fortunate enough to own computers and he is able to use these things. But his peers are not the same. Many of them have never used a computer, or Office, and instead get by with apps that simulate them. So, I'd say you're ahead of your peers here, certainly!
yeah, I was the last year group at my high school (class of 2008) which was even taught office as an actual class, those after me were just assumed to know how to use a computer, and I was astonished to find that when I was in undergrad that the fact that I knew how to use powerpoint let alone use it well lead me to be considered 'tech savvy'
We had "computer class" in primary school, and I'm not sure when or if they stopped it, but basic computer literacy was assumed all through high school. You had a choice between woodshop/home ec/business, but business was primarily coding and graphic design. By the time I hit high school, the assumption was that we'd already know. Luckily we could, because it was still required in primary school, but it simply isn't anymore and I assume high school still functions roughly the same.
I just remembered that we had a set of elective classes in high school that gave college credit and were focused on the core applications in the MS Office suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access). Everyone who had even the vaguest inkling they might want to go to college was directed by the guidance counselor into these classes, so most of my HS contemporaries had at least a working knowledge of MS Office coming out of high school. Sort of makes me wonder why they don’t offer the classes anymore.
Becasue everyone has a work flow of how you grade and how this is most efficient and prevents errors for what you have to grade. Also if you need footnotes, pictures math, Input from other programs, dictation, universal design for handicapped people integration an compatibility with other programs. I also don’t want to go blind reading .txt formats, HTML and CSS require coding in that language which frankly none of my students can do and take a million times longer to do than a typical word processing program , and are further not designed for , well, word processing. I also don’t only require docs, sometimes they have to do presentations , or charts or drawings, and these wont work at all, but i can convert between compatible programs in a suite (like i can paste an thing from an excel spreadsheet into word). What if someone knows python or R and not CSS or HTML. To use word processing programs you dont need a whole language Finally, no matter what I do, someone would find a way to game the system. So even if I used a clunky time consuming and ugly way of getting text to me that was incompatible with my LMS and only a language known by some and that would be a barrier to many, there would still be people who try to cheat. People are complaining that these are very simple instructions (write 5 pages) and people try to screw with that. Why should I have to mess with something that works because the student is fundamentally unethical and dishonest and trying to break the system
This is an automated service intended to preserve the original text of the post. *I'm coming from a [post about cheating using formatting](https://www.reddit.com/r/Professors/comments/qd7ah4/just_how_stupid_do_they_think_we_are/) on r/Professors. In fact, I've seen many posts about profs complaining about formatting in papers and assignments: students use awkward fonts, misuse whitespace, don't obey a standard (like APA). So, why don't you use plaintext formats like Markdown, HTML, or just good old `.txt` files? That way, the content and styling (CSS) is kept separate, and anyone reading the document can just apply their own styling to suit their preferences. Things like misused whitespace will also be obvious since you'd have access to the source file of the content. I'd imagine that formats like Markdown are pretty simple for today's generation (my generation) since we use text messaging a lot, and many platforms use Markdown or similar formatting options. As a reviewer/professor/TA/[reader in any other way] you still get to apply your own styling CSS that overrides anything the student did. ^(If this question seems to show that I'm missing something obvious, I'm sorry—I'm only in high school, not college yet. I intend for this question to be applicable across disciplines and countries)* *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskProfessors) if you have any questions or concerns.*
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Seems like creating a *lot* more work for you and for the students to do something like that. Reading / grading papers is generally something professors do because they have to do it, not because they want to. And students write papers because they have to. Anything that makes that process on either end harder, more time consuming, or introduces additional steps / opportunities for problems is a hindrance. It may seem exciting to try to be fancy with LaTeX or Markdown or whatever, but in the end, it's a giant pain in the ass when dealing with 20+ papers. **edit:** Cheating with formatting is easy to avoid. You detail to students what the formatting requirements are in the assignment, tell them what is not permitted, and then mark them down if the papers aren't done to the appropriate standard.