Times Newer Roman is a new font to make academic papers appear longer.
Times Newer Roman is designed to add length to any academic paper that has page requirements and also requires the use of Times New Roman.
[...] This means that a paper of given word count will have more length when rendered in Times Newer Roman instead of the old Times New Roman—hopefully without being noticeable to whoever's job it is to grade the paper.
Bigger and therefore better academic papers help advance the state of the art.
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Times Newer Roman Font Makes Academic Papers Look Longer
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(Score: 5, Insightful) by coolgopher on Thursday September 20 2018, @04:36AM (9 children)
It's scaled in both dimensions. You could get the same effect using a larger size of Times New Roman. This is dumb.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Thursday September 20 2018, @05:08AM (1 child)
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by coolgopher on Thursday September 20 2018, @06:24AM
Look at the actual example they're providing though. They're wider *and* taller. At least on my screen.
(Score: 1) by EEMac on Thursday September 20 2018, @01:34PM (5 children)
A lot of professors will require something like 12 point Times New Roman. 13 point Times New Roman is relatively easy to spot because of the number change. 12 point Times Newer Roman makes your paper longer, and there's a chance they won't notice the subtle change in the font name.
I don't approve of the cheating aspect, but there's some ingenuity here.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday September 20 2018, @02:10PM (4 children)
I don't like the cheating either. But I find the ingenuity amusing.
Maybe make the font name much closer. Make the font name *look* like Times New Roman, but using unicode characters whose glyphs resemble English alphabet characters.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by shipofgold on Thursday September 20 2018, @04:41PM (3 children)
If professors want to thwart this, simply ask for a 6500 word paper instead of a page count.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday September 20 2018, @05:15PM (1 child)
It would be better for students to be proud of their level of mastery of the subject and be happy to demonstrate it, rather than their ingenuity in cheating.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 20 2018, @06:06PM
I've found it an interesting attribute of growing up, like how attitudes towards snow change.
Child: "How can I write a 100-word book summary? That's so many words!"
Teenager: "I need to write a 2000-word book summary. How am I going to fill that space?"
Adult: "You need me to write a 5000-word contract proposal about why my company is the best? How can I possibly get my word-count that low? Can I please have another 3000 words to use?"
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Friday September 21 2018, @12:20AM
It's really hard to meaningfully count words in a paper packed with formulas from integral calculus.
(Score: 4, Funny) by DeathMonkey on Thursday September 20 2018, @06:53PM
It's scaled in both dimensions. You could get the same effect using a larger size of Times New Roman. This is dumb.
My plan is to get Arik to write it for me.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by pipedwho on Thursday September 20 2018, @04:48AM (5 children)
Looking at the side by side comparison at the bottom of the linked page. The Times Newer Roman example is far more legible and 'easier on the eye' than the Times New Roman example. This has always been something that annoyed me about Times New Roman. It just isn't as easy to read as other serif fonts. Well to me anyone.
I went to the linked page to have a laugh, but actually came out surprised that I prefer the Times Newer Roman font for general aesthetic and readability reasons.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 20 2018, @05:04AM (3 children)
Honestly, this. The way it renders looks pretty different than Times New Roman proper too.
It's probably because it's not actually based on Times New Roman, but it's really nice and clean anyway.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Thursday September 20 2018, @05:16AM (2 children)
it's pretty readable, but since I'm at war (losing) with whitespace, I can't say I approve of yet another reason to reduce information density.
You can achieve a similar result using the fine letter spacing controls in Pagemaker, with any font.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday September 20 2018, @05:41AM (1 child)
While this font could be used throughout the web, I think it's destined to be used primarily by lazy college students.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Thursday September 20 2018, @09:25AM
FTFY. Since MLA specifies 12pt, double spaced, 1inch margin sans-serif fonts, a modification to Times New Roman only affects Chicago-style departments.
Btw, Latex bib packages suck so don't look for a solution there.
compiling...
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday September 20 2018, @04:02PM
Same here. I was like -- what's the joke? This is a nice improvement across the board!
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 4, Funny) by black6host on Thursday September 20 2018, @04:50AM (1 child)
Jesus Christ, all we had were fucking Cliff Notes. And there was only 1 version for any given book so if you used them the teachers knew. None of this pay someone to plagiarize someone else's work for me or adjusting fonts. Hell, we had to carve our papers in stone in cuneiform!!! And that was only after the Sumerians came around. For the unwashed who demand "Citation", well here you go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuneiform [wikipedia.org]
Jeesh, kids these days have it so hard. Who do I pay to get me through school so I can become a barista and spend my life under insufferable student loan debt!
It's ok, I'll die soon : )
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday September 20 2018, @02:15PM
Recently on Hacker News was an article about whether millennials can learn mainframes. One poster suggests that they will want job security. Just wait until millennials start having kids.
I bit my tongue, but wanted to say: "you think millennials will have kids?"
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Thursday September 20 2018, @05:04AM (1 child)
I usually have the opposite problem, of not enough room to fit everything in. I've pulled such tricks as reducing the spacing between lines, and between letters, in order to cram more into the 10 pages that they typically allow. I'll also make the margins smaller if that's allowed. Editing the writing to remove excessive verbiage helps to a point, but eventually, you get into a position where you may be removing crucial background and explanatory information, making your paper harder to understand.
(Score: 2) by Kell on Thursday September 20 2018, @07:51AM
Yep! And especially true for journals/conferences where they charge extra for pages over some maximum. Pain in the butt, and an unnecessary money-grubbing throwback to the days when dead trees were expensive.
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 20 2018, @05:11AM
Valid bytecodes consider this a good thing, if your bytecode finds it defective...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 20 2018, @07:12AM (8 children)
How is Times Buttplug Roman going to help us? It isn't.
Also, if somebody requires a proprietary font, they've better purchase it for you. After exhausting this approach there is always Liberation fonts. [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by KritonK on Thursday September 20 2018, @08:45AM (6 children)
Exactly. How is using a font called Times Newer Roman, itself a derivative of another font called Nimbus Roman, going to help someone who is required to use Times New Roman?
If they need to make the text look longer, they can use Times New Roman with extra character spacing.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Thursday September 20 2018, @03:36PM (4 children)
You've provided the most spot-on analysis right here. If one must use font Foo, a similar-but-different font called Bar is scarcely a tool to improve compliance.
Making a given font wider (or narrower) doesn't require the intervention of a clever, sneaky font foundary, however.
In Libre Office Writer*, for example, select the text to be made wider or narrower, and choose Format->Character from the menus, select, the “Position” tab, and adjust “Scale Width” to a number greater than 100% (more expanded) as needed, and, presto, slightly wider text. I would suppose that the reputedly more feature-rich Microsoft office suite(s) have a similar feature.
So, the width of the font is essentially a non-issue.
A greater potential issue is the Times New Roman License [microsoft.com]: Times New Roman is a nonfree proprietary** font supplied with Microsoft Corporation products such as the Windows nonfree proprietary operating system and the Office nonfree proprietary office suites. In the free world, a font such as Liberation Serif [github.com], designed to be objectively high in quality as well as metrically compatible with, and similar in appearance to, Times New Roman, should likely be used instead, regardless of any "requirement" to use TNR. (Even the Times Newer Roman [timesnewerroman.com] at issue here is a free-libre font, in contrast to TNR.)
I used OpenOffice.Org/Libre Office, free fonts, and "Save as... .doc", for example, throughout my post-2000 university studies, without ill effect.
* Applies to versions 3, 4, 5, and current version 6.
** Long live the ideals of Stallman [gnu.org].
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday September 20 2018, @03:52PM
In addition, you installing a third-party font on your PC is not going to change how your instructor views it. Don't office suites still default to the next-closest match if they don't have a given font installed? In which case it defaults back to Times New Roman and your paper is now under-length anyway. The ploy only works if you're turning in a paper copy.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 20 2018, @06:09PM (1 child)
Unless I'm missing it, Times Newer Roman is licensed under the GPL. [timesnewerroman.com] Embedded fonts in digital documents should never make the document itself GPL. [wikipedia.org]
Either the font creators are evil geniuses or complete morons.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Friday September 21 2018, @02:36AM
The issue I am talking about is with requiring a student to use Times New Roman (the Microsoft-provided nonfree proprietary font) in preparing academic research when equivalent or higher-quality free fonts are available.
Times Newer Roman does indeed seem to be GPL and is not a problem in this respect. Sorry about the confusion between the names.
(Score: 2) by KritonK on Friday September 21 2018, @08:17AM
"Scale Width" distorts the characters, so the reader may notice that you are using different characters from the standard characters of the font.
"Character Spacing", from the same tab, adds extra space between characters instead, so that the characters retain their shape.
Oh, and the reputedly feature-rich Microsoft office suite (at least MS Word 2007) only supports changing the character spacing.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Reziac on Thursday September 20 2018, @04:06PM
Load the font into a font editor and hack the name to be whatever you like.
Personally I'm tired of fonts that are both narrow and kerned so tight that you have to use character select to figure out if your typo is cl or d.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Thursday September 20 2018, @04:38PM
If the the download turns out not to be Rick Astley but the other usual suspect (but 5-10% wider - ouch!), you'll be needing that buttplug.
(If they've actually created the font then kudos for a gag properly executed, but I'm not touchin' that .zip).
The <JOKE MARQUEE="dancing-clowns"> tag should never have been dropped from HTML5.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 20 2018, @10:38AM
Need a Baskerville version or similar:
https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/08/hear-all-ye-people-hearken-o-earth/ [nytimes.com]
tldr; Baskerville is a more convincing typeface than a number of others tested: