Markdown is a lightweight markup language with plain-text-formatting syntax. It allows to add styling and structure to the text, for instance, emphasizing some words or sentences with italics or bold. Moreover, with Markdown you can also add links and organize your text with headers, paragraphs and lists. Look at this example:
With FeedbackFruits you can add Markdown in the assignment ‘Instructions’ and 'Hand in' text boxes or to format your practice questions and comments. Adding Markdown elements can help you structure more clearly the instructions of your assignment for your students, for example, highlighting which parts of the assignment are more important.
Here we have some of the essential Markdown elements you can use with FeedbackFruits that will make your instructions and texts more dynamic.
Headers
To add headers to your instructions, or to make some words bigger, you will have to add a number symbol (#) before the word you want to enlarge. You can add between one and six number symbols (#) to obtain different sizes.
#Header 1
##Header 2
###Header 3
####Header 4
#####Header 5
######Header 6Emphasis
To add emphasis to your text you can modify the style of the words by changing them to italics or bold. Moreover, you can combine these elements to reinforce your text even more. To do so, we will use asterisks (*) and underscores (_). For italics we will use one of each at the beginning and at the end of the words or text we want to emphasize. For bold, we will use two of each.
Italics: *italics text* or _italics text_
Bold: **bold text** or __bold text__
Combined: This is a text with separate *italics* and **bold** but ** it can also have _both_**.Lists and sub-lists
With Markdown you can create two types of lists: ordered and unordered ones. Thus, you can choose if you prefer a list with numeration or with bullet points. To do a numbered list, you will have to add the numbers at the beginning of each line with a dot (.) and a space before the text. To create an unordered list, you can use an asterisk symbol (*), a plus (*) or a minus(-). Look at the examples below to see how to create these lists.
1. This list is ordered
2. Order makes life easier
3. Order is fun
* Unordered lists
+ Can be exciting too
- They are perfect for assignments Moreover, you can also create sub-lists by indenting words, sentences or even full paragraphs. To do so, you will have to add two spaces with your space bar. For the sake of this guide, we will use a letter X to mark where is a space. Look at the example below.
1. Markdown is very useful
2. Your texts are richer and more understandable
XX* Add an unordered sub-list like this one
XX* To add more details to one point
3. Then we can continue on the original list
4. And create an ordered sub-list as well
XX1. This comes handy
XX2. To explain procedures, right?Links
You can add a link to your assignment instructions very easily. To add a link in a word or part of your text, you must put that word in brackets ([ ]) and then add the link between parentheses next to it. See how it would look with a word or a sentence in the example.
[FeedbackFruits] (https://feedbackfruits.com/)
FeedbackFruits allows you to [make every course engaging] (https://feedbackfruits.com/)Horizontal Rule
The Horizontal Rule allows you to create a fine line that will divide sections of your text. To do so, you must press enter twice after a sentence, then add three hyphens (---) in a clear row, and finally press enter twice to start the new sentence. See the example below, which combines headers as well.
#####Section A
Here we have the first section of this example.
---
#####Section B
Thanks to the Horizontal Rule we separated these two different sections.
How to combine different Markdown elements: emphasizing lists
When writing instructions and combining different Markdown elements, sometimes order must be taken into account. In particular, bullets lists that include emphasized words with bold or italics style, must have the bullet point elements placed before the emphasis ones. Thus, you need to place a + or - sign to start the bullet list, and then add the asterisk or the underscore to enable bold or italics. Please see the explanatory screenshots below.