Rules for papers (it’s always simpler than students think)

Rules for papers (it’s always simpler than students think):
——-snip——-
It’s not so much a rule as it is a peeve, but one thing I’d add to that list is “I HATE MICROSOFT WORD.” It’s a bulky, clumsy, ugly program that lards files with so much crap and distracts writers with so many useless geegaws that I think it actively conspires to diminish people’s writing ability. When I ask for papers to be submitted electronically, I do not mean that I want a Word file as an attachment: I want plain text. Don’t fuss over fonts or paragraph formats or borders or margins, just type the words, then copy and paste into an e-mail document. When I write, I always just use a simple text editor (SubEthaEdit is currently the editor of choice), and then if I need to (for instance, because I’ve got to add superscripts or a complicated table), I’ll copy it to Word for final touch-up…but I spend as little time in that wretched mess of a program as I can.

——–snip——–

—————
that’s the ticket… it really is. clean, pure text, that’s the stuff. works much better than anything else i’ve seen.