Why?
Because the form in which you submit your paper says something about how
much you respect your teacher as well as how much you respect yourself.
If you turned in a sloppily presented piece of work, you are saying (or
the teacher is hearing), "I don't care about it/you/myself. It doesn't
matter much to me." It should come as no surprise that you cannot be
rewarded for that level of work or that attitude. It takes no more than a
few minutes to make sure that the quality of the presentation of
your work matches the quality of the work that went into it.
If you would like a more practical, less theoretical, reason, consider
this: if you do not take care in presenting your prose (resume, letters,
reports, etc.), you will not
- --get the job you apply for,
- --get treated as well by your boss as you think you deserve,
- --get the response you want from your professional colleagues, or
- --get the promotion you expect.
You may not even keep your job.
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Rev 9/97