It's not just that way in the U.S, BTW, but pretty much anywhere. When I was visiting at the TU in Berlin, I saw numerous cases where the neatness of the work handed in affected the grade. Likewise, it's pretty common practice in the U.S. to look at the appearance of the work product before examining its content. I'm not sure it's always intentional, but, often enough, the clean, pretty, well written and properly spelled work gets a boost in its grade irrespective of the quality of its content. Only a really exceptional piece of reasoning will get a good grade if there's a tire track on the cover, and mustard on an illustration.

If the content is well presented, that counts for much, not only in school, but in the workplace as well. The guy who evaluates your work product isn't often favorably impressed by wrinkled drawings and misspelled prompts in the program. He does see and remember how the doc's look, even if he doesn't read or understand them. Whether the engineers like the circuitry doesn't stick with him, but how the doc's look ... well, he can see that, and, when he's considering who's going to perform the follow-on work ... well, his boss will see the doc's too, and he probably won't even meet the engineers who know what a piece of rubbish the actual circuitry was.

Is that the way things should be? Well, probably not, but it's not a perfect world.

RE