what does Columbia mean when they say do not use HARD RETURNS?

Colleges & Universities A-Z Columbia University
1

<p>under all their short response questions, they say "do not use hard returns in your responses." what does that mean?? thanks!</p>

2

<p>Don’t use “enter” (PC) or “return” (Mac) because it takes characters away from your writing.</p>

<p>(e.g. I just used 2 hard returns to get from my sentence above this, to here).</p>

3

<p>It means don’t be like this idiot:</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1061494970-post9.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1061494970-post9.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

4

<p>Meaning they want you to do single space and no indentation for new paragraphs?</p>

5

<p>No. It means they want one paragraph and only one paragraph. The “hard return” is what creates the second paragraph.</p>