By the end of high school, writing evaluations should be hunting for subtleties that no standardized test – by definition – will ever be able to uncover.

A few years ago I used an algorithm to help me write a science fiction story. Adam Hammond, an English professor, and Julian Brooke, a computer scientist, had created a program called SciFiQ, and ...

In essence, algorithmic marking might reward the writing of “bullshit” – text written with little regard for the subject matter and solely to fulfil the algorithm’s criteria.