In my experience, they really don’t care at all. They’re much more concerned about the actual content of your presentation or argument. You’re right that they generally want you to pick a lane and stick with it (i.e. pick one or the other but don’t careen back and forth between both of them), but that’s a stylistic concern, not an ideological or political one. I can’t imagine that a student’s choice of dating convention would make the least bit of difference in how their paper was graded. As long as you turn in anything at all that 1.) matches the assignment, 2.) is turned in on time, 3.) isn’t plagiarized and 4.) is reasonably coherent and literate, you’re already making them much happier than adopting their dating convention would accomplish.
You’re assuming that all professors (or whoever is doing the grading) are bound to be even-minded and free of any irrational passions. I mean - look at the OP. If he was my professor in theory and I used BCE/CE, is there any question that their grading of my work would be biased? Anyways, it really is neither here nor there - the point is, I see both in use all the time.
Actually, I prefer CE and BCE. After all, if we’re going to use a completely arbitrary point for a dating system, I’d rather leave a religion that I dislike out of it, even if the reference is indirect. Be that as it may, CE and BCE are, and have been, widely used, so I see no reason to change.
BUT- systems HAVE been changed before; Julian to Gregorian, for example. So why not add Year 0? TWO Year 0’s, positive and negative, to make it match all the other number systems in use? We could leave all the CE years alone, since we’re used to them and they’re usually more accurate, and have the more seldom used BCE’s moved backwards two years, so that Julius was stabbed in 46 BCE, instead of 44 BCE?
This would also eliminate the falderol we get into every time a decade (or century or millenium) changes. 1999 would be the genuine last year of the second millenium, 2000 the genuine first year of the third, etc. 
That right there is why some people die friendless, alone and unmourned.
You’d be surprised how much of history is a result of errors. 
It was in fact the reason unless you have a cite to counter the one I provided. And don’t bother making yet more sweeping proclamations. Sorry, but they’re just not convincing to me.
That all may be true, especially given the state of undergraduate education these days (the students, not the professors). I was referring more to graduate-level students and above, who are doing real scholarly work. I asked mom this morning, and she said that she believes CE/BCE to be standard convention these days.
I first saw BCE and CE used in The Covenant by James Michener in or about 1965 CE or AD or whatever. When were BCE and CE introduced and by whom? I would really like to know and a link to an accurate source would be appreciated.
Your mom is correct. However, it is not going to get someone’s work rejected from a journal. They will just change the dates to their preferred standard, or ask it to be done on the list of requested corrections before publication.
It’s just a change. No one’s trying to ‘squeeze out Christ’ or whatever, just reflect the general scholarly use.
I never said they were…that wasn’t my argument (I think it was Liberal who said that). I, personally, don’t care one way or the other. I was just saying that seeing the BC/BCE makes it jump out at me that it’s been changed, and what the reason for it being changed is. It actually makes me, personally MORE aware of what the abbreviations stand for than BC/AD did, because they were so rote. it’s like seeing AM/PM. I know they mean morning/night, but I don’t think about the actual literal meaning of the letters when I see them. The part about “not letting us refer to Jesus anymore” or whatever I said was meant to be a joke. Apparently, not a very funny one, since my use of a smiley didn’t even tip people off to it!
In the Journal of Roman Studies 2003 volume, “Domus, Family, and Inheritance: The Senatorial Family House in Late Antique Rome” by Julia Hillner uses BC/AD, as does 2002’s “A Painted Exemplum at Rome’s Temple of Liberty” by Michael Koortbojian - the only two I bothered to check, so I think JRS’s convention is BC/AD.
Journal of Hellenic Studies seems to still use BC/AD as of 2003; Greece & Rome as of 2001; G. Mader’s “Josephus as Historian” in Classical Review uses CE, and in the same issue in “Germania” J.-W. Beck uses AD.
My impression is that it tends to be personal preference. I have been using BCE/CE throughout grad school and I’ve never received a comment on it.
The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic, edited by Harriet Flower, “examines all aspects of Roman history and civilization from 509-49 BC” according to the Library of Congress catalog. I’ve checked a couple of other books I’m using that have been published recently - they use BC/AD. I’m pretty sure my professors use BC/AD.
More of someone telling us what to do: How to remedy our behaviour, where there’s no harm done.
Nobody is trying to force anyone else to adopt this. A lot of academics are choosing to adopt of their own volition (and some journals too), but no one is wagging any fingers at profs, students, or civilians and lecturing them about the political incorrectness of the old convention.
It’s like when a store says “Happy Holidays.” It doesn’t mean they’re trying to stop anyone else from saying “Merry Christmas,” nor is anyone trying to pressure stores into NOT saying “Merry Christmas.”
This thread seems to be evidence of the contrary. I’ll re-read and see if that’s true.
In any case, that’s my feeling when I read the CE/BCE form. It’s a use outside the convention for no proper reason. Which is irritating.
Thanks for checking - I looked at the JRS just yesterday and noticed that it was using BC/AD but then promptly forgot.
I agree that it is personal preference and no one actually gets in trouble one way or the other. I used CE in my Master’s thesis, and that was one thing, at least, that the readers didn’t take issue with.
Sarahfeena, sorry, I did know it wasn’t you talking about ‘squeezing out Christ’. Shoulda made that clear.
Funny. To me it looks like people voluntarily changing their own behavior for reasons that are their own.
Other people doing what they want oppresses you? “You can’t use the terms you want because I don’t like it!”
And yet you (the general you) claim the other side is the PC one? Pfft.
When I was in college I chose to use CE and BCE even though I was a Catholic at the time. Why? I liked the symmetry. The terms BC and AD never felt symmetrical to me, and it was worse that one came after a date and one before. Ick.
So you have your own reasons, although does anyone in the laity use AD these days?
Overall there’s a censorious tone in play each time B/CE is put in writing. Flaunting superior minority sympathies; plus trying to guilt us into stop doing something harmless.
Golly, it sounds like the conspiracy is even vaster than Liberal imagined.
Do you also take it as a personal insult when someone uses the term “UTC” rather than “GMT”?
I am pierced to the heart-root. I writhe, I thrash.
What does ‘UTC’ mean?
Well, some morons might infer a censorious tone. For those who actually use BCE/CE, it’s merely a descriptive choice.
As others have pointed out, quite a few scholarly journals still use BC/AD, and i have absolutely no problem with that. I don’t feel diminished or insulted or excluded by it, just because i’m an atheist. The most annoying aspect of the whole thing is whiners like you who complain that someone choosing to do things differently is adopting a “censorious tone” with you. Get over yourself.