I have been quite hot on putting indentation arrows at the start of paragraphs in my marking recently. Is it always necessary? Are the habits of computer based writing spilling over onto the hand-written page? Would you obey the sometimes heard rule "NO indentation after a title" when typing? Writing with a pen? Do you always indent in all cases? (That's what I do. Well, not here on the other hand).
Do you skip indentation and leave line spaces instead in typed documents? Only in business style writing or all the time? Would you accept that style when students write with a pen? Is it "wrong" to write a page with a pen which is indented and has a space between paragraphs as well?
I suppose you might say "it doesn't matter", but you know how it is, I'm paid to splash that red ink about in an authoritative manner.
Indentation Nazism
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Some of the answers to your questions could possibly vary according to the specific genre the students are writing in. What kind of compositions are they writing? UCLES and IELTS do not penalize lack of indentation. Check your university handbook for incoming students and see whether the writing guide and its examples say anything about the matter, in order to possibly alert students. I would imagine course dissertations should be indented, for example. Beyond that, you have to ask yourself what is the practical relevance of the questions you are asking. If you can determine it is important for a specific genre (look at examples) which is relevant to your students, then you must teach it. Ideally you should also specify a format (ie. typed compositions only) to eliminate some of the variation. I do think technology is shifting our notions of communication.
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bradwelljackson
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woodcutter
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I don't think the uni has a style guide, anyway they haven't told me about it. British people are less wedded to them in general than Americans I think. The main thing would probably be to follow the guides of the department you write for. It is interesting that IELTS doesn't require paragraphs, that is the most relevant thing for my students at present. Since they will write with a pen though, why the hell not? Are they now totally passe?
IELTS definitely requires paragraphs, it's just that you won't be penalized for not indenting them. It's more likely a practical consideration rather than a stylistic one. It's ultimately a language test and indentation is probably something that occurs too randomly in the compositions to be considered criteria. Plus some of the questions do not necessarily belong to a genre which would require it (Academic Task 1 often contextualizes with "prepare a description for a university lecturer". Lecture notes perhaps wouldn't need to be indented in any case). This is of course speculation on my part, but I think it's somewhat close to the truth. The test composition genre may behave according to its own rules.
I quite like your emphasis on indentation though. I think it is important for certain real world genres and depending on what you are preparing your students for, your emphasis is well placed. It couldn't hurt them in any case.
I quite like your emphasis on indentation though. I think it is important for certain real world genres and depending on what you are preparing your students for, your emphasis is well placed. It couldn't hurt them in any case.
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woodcutter
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I'm Canadian and I live in Brazil, teaching mainly exam courses (IELTS, CAE, CPE). IELTS is dominant internationally and is gradually gaining ground even in the US from what people tell me. I'm more familiar with British universities and publishers anyway, so working with the exams is natural for me.
No indentation.
I personally have never indented anything, whether personal, academic, or business, since about 13 or 14 years of age. I have always used spaces for paragraphing.
I've always assumed it was a thing of the past (pre-90s). Besides, written text looks a lot neater without it.
I've always assumed it was a thing of the past (pre-90s). Besides, written text looks a lot neater without it.
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woodcutter
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Yes, I was merrily splashing my red ink and I suddenly had a horrible feeling that some people would see it like that. How shameful to be an indentation fogey.
There seems to be a surprising lack of internet discussion on the subject. Of course, there will always be plenty of stick-in-the-muds who will say that I am quite correct to punish the new-fangled deviants.
There seems to be a surprising lack of internet discussion on the subject. Of course, there will always be plenty of stick-in-the-muds who will say that I am quite correct to punish the new-fangled deviants.
In my EAP classes, preparing students to go into Composition I, I ask them to double space their essays and indent 5 spaces at the start of each paragraph. I also am an editor for a local literary/art journal, and that's what we ask for in prose submissions.
(Frankly, I don't really care if students use indents, but if I gave them a choice it would confuse them--and they have more important things to worry about, such as subject-verb agreement.)
When I was in banking, everything was single spaced, block style, no indents. But business is different.
(Frankly, I don't really care if students use indents, but if I gave them a choice it would confuse them--and they have more important things to worry about, such as subject-verb agreement.)
When I was in banking, everything was single spaced, block style, no indents. But business is different.
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woodcutter
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Re: No indentation.
I agree with Heath. I tell students to pick one or the other--indentations or line breaks--and stick to it. On the other hand, I also warn them that they may meet teachers like you, lol, so they should find out what their teacher prefers.Heath wrote:I personally have never indented anything, whether personal, academic, or business, since about 13 or 14 years of age. I have always used spaces for paragraphing.
I've always assumed it was a thing of the past (pre-90s). Besides, written text looks a lot neater without it.
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woodcutter
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Do it "correct" because you may meet a "stickler". You probably will meet one. As for me, I'm easy.
This is pretty common advice, I must admit I give it myself in other circumstances, and I think the consequences are pretty profound. For some reason people often ignore the sociolinguistic side of formal speech. In fact, we produce it largely in order to look like we have attained a high-level in some way, and therefore once we are aware of some educated-seeming objection to some form that we use we will tend to alter it.
Avocado and Heath will come across people who think that they are not able to write essays "correctly" and perhaps not fit to teach others on the basis of their lack of indentation. That's OK if it is just one little pice of arguable modern libertarianism, but maybe there will be a few, maybe they will mount up. There are occasions where you simply strike people as archaic when you make a particular objection, but I really don't think that it has come to that concerning paragraphs and handwritten material. Anyway, Avacado's advice applies to him/herself as much as to anyone else. It is silly to give it and not follow it.
So, as I have said a number of times, there isn't too much point hedging about wrongness. It's "now OK" or "still offensive to some on reasonable grounds". Usable or best avoided. There is always a definite line, and all Avacado is doing in practice is saying INDENT in the class, while saying NO NEED TO INDENT in this forum.
On the other hand, I admit the day will probably come when "either indent or leave a space" will be reasonable advice, because there will be almost no danger of red ink. And then the day will probably come where indentation looks too fusty, even in handwritten material. I merely claim these days are not yet here, and the responses tend to support this. (And anway, plenty of students are doing neither).
This is pretty common advice, I must admit I give it myself in other circumstances, and I think the consequences are pretty profound. For some reason people often ignore the sociolinguistic side of formal speech. In fact, we produce it largely in order to look like we have attained a high-level in some way, and therefore once we are aware of some educated-seeming objection to some form that we use we will tend to alter it.
Avocado and Heath will come across people who think that they are not able to write essays "correctly" and perhaps not fit to teach others on the basis of their lack of indentation. That's OK if it is just one little pice of arguable modern libertarianism, but maybe there will be a few, maybe they will mount up. There are occasions where you simply strike people as archaic when you make a particular objection, but I really don't think that it has come to that concerning paragraphs and handwritten material. Anyway, Avacado's advice applies to him/herself as much as to anyone else. It is silly to give it and not follow it.
So, as I have said a number of times, there isn't too much point hedging about wrongness. It's "now OK" or "still offensive to some on reasonable grounds". Usable or best avoided. There is always a definite line, and all Avacado is doing in practice is saying INDENT in the class, while saying NO NEED TO INDENT in this forum.
On the other hand, I admit the day will probably come when "either indent or leave a space" will be reasonable advice, because there will be almost no danger of red ink. And then the day will probably come where indentation looks too fusty, even in handwritten material. I merely claim these days are not yet here, and the responses tend to support this. (And anway, plenty of students are doing neither).
I'm having a little difficulty getting the point of the previous post, but there were some things I'd like to touch on. You said you're "paid to splash red ink about," and that there's little point in "hedging about wrongness." My thinking is 1) no you're not, and 2) yes there is.
As teachers, we're paid not to "splash red ink" but to teach. There's a difference. There is an art to correction; it isn't about correcting every little thing. That could lead to there being more teacher ink than student ink on many papers! What's a student to get out of that but confused and demoralized? It's also, IMO, not about correcting questionable things--for example, the sort of thing you're uncertain enough about to post on a teacher forum
The art of correction is about finding the instructive errors in the text. If a student writes, for example, a paragraph about the previous weekend, a couple of dropped articles and the fact that he forgot to capitalize the names of the days of the week is relatively unimportant compared to the fact that he wrote the whole thing in the present tense..or if his past tense is OK but there's no cohesion or apparent order to the narrative.. Finding and correcting the most instructive error(s) is one of the things that separates an experienced teacher from a beginner; it's a form of prioritizing; it's seeing the big picture.
So there's good reason to "hedge on wrongness," if what you mean by that is letting the little things slide when there are bigger fish to fry. Coming back to the original topic of indentation, I'd say that unless the student is so awesome that there's really nothing more important to mark on his paper than a questionable element of style (in which case he's practically a native speaker), I wouldn't mark it.
As teachers, we're paid not to "splash red ink" but to teach. There's a difference. There is an art to correction; it isn't about correcting every little thing. That could lead to there being more teacher ink than student ink on many papers! What's a student to get out of that but confused and demoralized? It's also, IMO, not about correcting questionable things--for example, the sort of thing you're uncertain enough about to post on a teacher forum
The art of correction is about finding the instructive errors in the text. If a student writes, for example, a paragraph about the previous weekend, a couple of dropped articles and the fact that he forgot to capitalize the names of the days of the week is relatively unimportant compared to the fact that he wrote the whole thing in the present tense..or if his past tense is OK but there's no cohesion or apparent order to the narrative.. Finding and correcting the most instructive error(s) is one of the things that separates an experienced teacher from a beginner; it's a form of prioritizing; it's seeing the big picture.
So there's good reason to "hedge on wrongness," if what you mean by that is letting the little things slide when there are bigger fish to fry. Coming back to the original topic of indentation, I'd say that unless the student is so awesome that there's really nothing more important to mark on his paper than a questionable element of style (in which case he's practically a native speaker), I wouldn't mark it.
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woodcutter
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By saying I am paid to splash red ink, I am only saying that correcting is part of the job and the students expect it. However liberal you may be, you have to splash some. Even if the ink is, in fact, green, or some other less visible and supposedly more righteous shade. Obviously you needn't do everything.
My point about hedging is not the one mentioned above, but that you nearly always communicate in a discussion your own stance on whether you yourself would actually do such and such a thing in a given linguistic situation. However much you ummm and errr, we end up knowing what you consider most standard, and that is ultimately what counts.
If all teachers had come back at me and said that indentation is simply just not important anymore then I would probably have accepted that it doesn't deserve red ink, stopped bothering to indent myself, and stopped telling others to do it.
My point about hedging is not the one mentioned above, but that you nearly always communicate in a discussion your own stance on whether you yourself would actually do such and such a thing in a given linguistic situation. However much you ummm and errr, we end up knowing what you consider most standard, and that is ultimately what counts.
If all teachers had come back at me and said that indentation is simply just not important anymore then I would probably have accepted that it doesn't deserve red ink, stopped bothering to indent myself, and stopped telling others to do it.