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Comment by waratuman | Hacker News Reader

I'm not that great of a writer. My papers were usually in the B range and I almost never got an A. Then I started using LaTeX and now my papers are used as examples in classes.

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When I was in Uni I had a similar experience. I never collected enough data to really show a conclusive relationship and obviously it was possible my writing improved around the same time that I switched.. but it was still something that I noticed.

One of my theories was that professors expected rushed papers to have poor or missing formatting, but my rushed papers wouldn't. The formatting was therefore sending a signal to the professor saying "He didn't write this in the morning, so give him the benefit of the doubt." I never considered that the typeface that I was using could have been involved.

In the case of (La)TeX I'd actually also be curious if i.e. the rules governing hyphenation/justification makes any difference as well, not just the typeface.

I'm pretty sure they do. Justified text looks more "professional" than ragged right one. The problem with it is, that it can create rivers without proper hyphenation. TeX is pretty good at this stuff and that's one reason why text set with TeX looks so good. I wish browsers would catch up on this.

I'm pretty sure the grader for my algorithms class just assumed that anything typeset in LaTeX must be correct, as I routinely got full credit for completely incorrect things, while classmates not using LaTeX got dinged for every minor mistake.

I was a TA for some computer classes at Stanford a little while ago. Part of that meant that we would spend many hours grading exams at the end of the term. Every time I wondered to myself how much student handwriting affected their grades. How could a student write almost entirely illegibly and expect to get a good grade on the exam? Sometimes I couldn't find the correct answer even if it was there on the page.

Other students had very clear handwriting, while others had very crisp and confident handwriting. I'm sure there are numerous subtle cues in handwriting that give it the air of professionalism or confidence.

Handwriting differences could easily account for a few points on an exam, which might translate into a few crucial percentage points.

Soon we'll just have to force everyone to type their answers in a standard format and then the graders can view the results in the editor of their choice.

I wonder if that has ever affected my grades. I have truly horrendous, mostly irregular handwriting but it is readable to most people. I can, however, write in calligraphic styles but it isn't automatic.

Does handwriting say anything more about a person than that they spent a thousand hours or so in their early schooling repeating symbols on paper?

Perhaps people who give attention to readable handwriting also give attention to making themselves more presentable in person.

Latex commands so much authority over people who have never used it- things typeset with it carry incredible gravitas! I just now realized that must be why I was drawn to it. You can say the same thing, and sound/look smarter :)

I'm not sure why people like the Computer Modern typeface so much. I think it looks terrible. :\

There are nicer typefaces that come with most LaTeX distributions - I particularly Like Charter BT [1].

Also, with XeTex/XeLaTeX, you can use opentype typefaces and it still typesets them far better than a word processor.

1. http://www.tug.dk/FontCatalogue/charter/

I used to dislike CM when it was printed on laser printers, but discovered that when it was printed on a Linotype--the Art of Computer Programming books, for instance--it seemed to take on an entirely different character. It looks clean and pretty, rather than spindly.

Clearly that's subjective, and you might hate it no matter the output device. :)

I'm a Scottish teenager. Perhaps the only possible reason I managed to scrape a 2 (2 or 1 is high enough to do Higher level course the year after) in my Standard Grade English was because all my work was in Georgia.

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