An interesting opinion piece written by a college professor who teaches Freshman English:

“I’VE been teaching college freshmen to write the five-paragraph essay and its bully of a cousin, the research paper, for years. But these forms invite font-size manipulation, plagiarism and clichés. We need to set our sights not lower, but shorter…”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/20/opinion/20selsberg.html