A striking number of application letters change fonts or font sizes for publications or journal titles. If you're writing in, say, Times New Roman, don't switch to some HUGE sans serif font for a journal title. It looks strange. And don't drop from a 12 point to a 10 point for a title in the middle of the sentence.
What it looks like is a cut and past thing, a cut and paste thing that a high school student should have figured out.
/rubs sore eyes
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I think we just realized that the computer system we're using does weird things to fonts. Or a LOT of people all over the country are making the same weird font choices. I'm guessing our computer system just sucks in yet one more way.
The added hypothesis is entirely possible. Our iteration of the LMS often known as Blackholeboard changes fonts randomly when one cuts and pastes from Word (and sometimes even when one is just writing in the composing box). I've stopped even trying to fix the oddities; I just tell the students to ignore them, and do the same in their writing (formal papers come in as files, which fare better).
ReplyDeleteThose application tools that people are using instead of paper copies seem determined to make people look bad. I hope that these anomalies won't be held against applicants!
ReplyDeleteYes--my schedule in BB looks completely horrid, even though the html code claims to be telling it not to change font sizes, the font sizes change anyway. Applicant files should be PDFs, though, which ought to be immune to such problems.
ReplyDeleteI am willing to cut applicants some slack with various problems--I have way more objection to people failing to follow directions than I have to some of the layout oddities that pop up.