posted
Now, before anyone asks, no, I'm not having to do one right now so this isn't a rant! The thing is, I'm wondering why professors and even teachers in High School have length requirements for papers? I've always had some trouble meeting them without resorting to those little tricks we all know. And that's not to say that I had bad papers. I usually make A's and B's on my papers. It's just that I feel I'm able to express whatever idea I'm writing about in a much smaller space than is required. I try to be concise and get to the point. Now I'm thinking about becoming a History Professor which would mean I'd probably have to require some form of an essay or research paper from my students at some point. So, I was wanting to ask any teachers here (although everyone is free to throw in their two cents ) what their thoughts on the subject are? Do they actually read these long papers filled with hot air and fluff, especially when they have large classes of over a hundred? Do they feel that long essay lengths are necessary? Any other thoughts on the subject are welcome. Posts: 15 | Registered: Jun 2006
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posted
The length requirements inform students of the level of detail desired. If the topic is broad - developments in civil rights from Plessy through Brown - and the length is 10 pages, then it helps the students fine tune what to say in each one.
If the length requirement is 25 pages and the topic is "any one case we studied this semester," something else entirely is suggested.
quote:Do they feel that long essay lengths are necessary?
Definitely. Students should do at least one long topic in college, and preferably at least one a year. In a large class, I'm not so sure, because I think individual mentoring is important. But having to put together an extended argument is something a liberal arts major should be comfortable doing.
Edit: my comment above really applies to research papers, not essays.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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This is an eternal battle at my liberal arts college. Its quite ironic that while they're trying to teach us precision writing, most of us have mastered the art of "fluff" to get out that final page.
I'd say about half my teachers are willing to take a paper that is a page short if they know that student and can see that their style isn't wasteful of space or words. The trouble you get is when a student with a "flowery" style tries to get away with not fulfilling a page requirement. Because isn't that the truth? Most of us would write a 3-page paper rather than a 6-page paper which we'd rather write over a 10-page paper.
Heck, I know of one classmate in particular who always goes several pages over the maximum page allotment. When he does so, it shows an inability to be concise and choose an appropriate topic.
Because its especially important when students start coming up with their own topics and theses, its important that they learn to match page-length to scope. Not to mention that the researching and writing styles must sometimes changed based on the number of pages, ie the range of the topic. My 5-page philosophical reflections contain very few outside resourcse unlike my 15-page final papers for a course, and neither is going to be like my 60+ page undergraduate thesis.
A topic, done right, will have a magical number of pages. Though I'm sure our director has seen a good number of students try and do a proper undergrad thesis in 30-pages, which is just insulting to the material and the writer.
Page restrictions, while sometimes arbitrary, are not all together worthless.
Posts: 1733 | Registered: Apr 2005
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One of my professors pointed out that he assigns 10-page papers (as opposed to the 15-page ones others assign) because it works out to about 10 minutes out loud if it's presented at a conference. (This is for grad school, btw.)
Posts: 952 | Registered: Jun 2005
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For me, it depends on what the essay or research paper is about. Sometimes, I'll have a lot to say, so I'll have to cut bits out or sacrifice detail- which can lose me marks because my topic's too wide to begin with *sniff*. Other times, I have less to say, so I have to put more detail in.
I rarely have to add "fluff". Unless you count detail as fluff.
Why do they have length requirements? So everyone writes about the same kind of paper- so people don't have super long essays, and so people are less likely to hand in something empty and horribly short.
posted
I've found that in intro classes, the professors feel that the page minimum is necessary. Many students don't care enough and at least a page minimum means that the student had to put some effort into the paper.
In my upper-division classes, professors usually only have a page maximum, and that's for practicality's sake. My ethics and constitutional law professor had a 20 page maximum for our final paper, and no one wrote anything under 17 pages. If the professors trust the students to do their best work, they don't need a page minimum.
Also, many professors have written extensively on the topics that they assign their students, and they know that a good paper cannot be done in less than x number of pages. I think it's fair that they inform their students of this. Many topics cannot be sufficiently covered in a few pages, and I see page minimums as a way of helping students turn in their best work.
Posts: 866 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
I'm a little paper man. Maybe it's because I studied philosophy. It seems to me that some disciplines give themselves to longer papers than others. It also seems that the same can be said about literature. A thousand pages on a fantasy epic is different from a thousand page memoir.
In general, I feel comfortable in saying that clear thinkers can write well, briefly.
My own prose-- and thought-- is a bit meandering, and I think that it's a vice and not a virtue.
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posted
Well, to be cynical, most journals will not accept works that are too short. Futhermore, if it is at all possible, ideas should be milked into books, as that is where the money is.
Posts: 1332 | Registered: Apr 2005
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I just finished up my freshman year of college at a small community college, so I've never personally seen a page minimum in the double digits. I usually exceed the page minimum in 1.5-spacing; when I don't I bump it up to double spacing (which is what they ask for anyway, it just kills more trees). In my history class last semester, some of the assignments came with a word maximum attached--not a page maximum, a word maximum--and when I cut my papers down to fit, I had to get rid of certain points, and when the professors graded my papers, they would mark me down for not hitting those points. That was, needless to say, very frustrating. Then again, they did the same thing the few times we worked together in groups and very little time in which to work on projects together, I had the equal frustration of mentioning points that the recorder for the group didn't have the time to write down, and then ending up with lower grades on those projects because we didn't mention certain points in the papers that had been mentioned in the group discussion. Not a very effective grading method, in my opinion.
Posts: 283 | Registered: Jul 2006
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posted
My papers (especially for philosophy) are almost always one or two pages short of the "minimum" requirement - but my grades on these papers have never reflected that. I've written my share of bsd papers (at least by my standards), and thus gotten lower grades, but shorter papers have never been docked points just because they're short.
The best thing to do is figure out exactly what the professor wants, and then give him that sort of paper. This is easiest in my shorter philosophy papers, where most of my profs spell out exactly what they want (describe this philosopher's argument, contrast it with another philosopher's argument, and then critize the argument). I never worry about the length of these type of papers, even if it's below the minimum. I just make sure I've answered the prompt.
Lit and term papers are a bit more difficult - as a new college student, it can be hard to understand exactly what the professor wants, as the guidelines may be broad and hazy. Page length guidelines, as Dagonee pointed out, help you understand how much detail the professor is looking for. Required number of outside sources can also help you in this. After you figure out these papers a bit better, you can also play a bit loose with the paper length guidelines.
Posts: 2409 | Registered: Sep 2003
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I had a teacher in college that had word minimums. I'm a very succinct writer when it comes to papers. One paper he had us do had a minimum of several thousand words. I wrote it and felt I had expressed everything in detail and clearly, but was still short a thousand words. So I found a relevant picture and attached it with a caption that said "A picture is worth a thousand words." I forgot what grade I got on it, but I remember it was good despite the lack of words.
Posts: 298 | Registered: Sep 2004
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quote:Originally posted by blacwolve: HollowEarth, you've never done an internship for the Navy, by any chance, have you?
Ah no, I haven't. This was the end of program report for an REU I did a couple of years ago. (My paper is still online here, and if i remember correctly the it has just a hair over 900 words in it. )
Posts: 1621 | Registered: Oct 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: Definitely. Students should do at least one long topic in college, and preferably at least one a year. In a large class, I'm not so sure, because I think individual mentoring is important. But having to put together an extended argument is something a liberal arts major should be comfortable doing.
Edit: my comment above really applies to research papers, not essays.
I would say that your comment does apply to my view of essays as well. As an English major I have actually only been required to write two papers which approached 10 pages in length, and I have written 3 as a music major which were that long.
Its a VERY good skill, and very few students actually manage it. Part of your problem, (at least insofar as I can glean from your post) is that you probably aren't actually adressing the prompts you recieve in as complete a way as some people do. Keep your prompt handy (every good long essay should either have a decent detailed prompt, or no prompt at all), and refer to it regularly. Ask yourself how you are adressing each part of the prompt and fulfilling the assignment. If you still find yourself running short, consider that the teacher may wish you to explore alternatives to your original thesis as well.
The fact is, a great deal of college papers have trouble even understanding, let alone adressing the actual topic, and defending a thesis is just out for many a student. The college paper should (if it is being written well) focus your mind on the intricacies of the topic and produce thoughts which are more than you would have to offer in a discussion. What I mean by this, is that it should be the product of several, if not dozens of individual sittings in which you re-examine your ideas on the whole, or individually. The discussion generated by an entire class on one topic for one hour is probably less detailed than your thinking should be by the time you finish your paper.
Think of this: you should be able to teach one class on your topic by the time the paper is done. It should clearly contain all your useful thoughts, and order them logically and interestingly. If you don't understand your topic that well by the time you "finish" the paper (meaning, if you have to use "those tricks" to add length to your paper) then it is likely not a particularly good paper compared to the one you COULD write.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:As an English major I have actually only been required to write two papers which approached 10 pages in length, and I have written 3 as a music major which were that long.
We probably just have different views of "long." 10 is still short to me, not even medium-length, but it's been a long time since I was an undergrad.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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Well, 10 is relatively long for a quarter length (10 weeks) class, and undergrads typically take around 4 classes at a time, so yeah, 10 is near the max.
Edit: I am talking mainly about pretty specific persuasive essays though, which are going to be totally different from the kind of stuff you probably do. fact is that as an undergrad in the quarter system, you just don't have the time, and the teacher doesn't have the time, to work on a longer research paper.
Also if you went to a semester school, you probably did fewer papers which averaged out to be about as much writing. I write quite a few very short papers, (4-6 pages) each quarter (probably about 7-10 in any given quarter, especially as an upper div student).
Further edit: Not to give the impression that as a music student, the class paper is the measure of accomplishment for a quarter. I often have to compose music, give a lecture, etc. In this last quarter, I had to learn to play a period rennaissance instrument (viola da gamba), and form an ensemble with fellow students and play in a concert. This was on top of a 12 page research paper, which was the longest music paper I have yet written.
posted
I'm on quarters too. Ten is pretty average for the classes I've taken, but final papers seem to go a little over this. And don't even get me started on the projected length of my thesis.
However, I'm a philosophy major and religious studies minor, and maybe the other departments assign shorter papers. I've never had to write out of class for economics.
Posts: 866 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Well, 10 is relatively long for a quarter length (10 weeks) class, and undergrads typically take around 4 classes at a time, so yeah, 10 is near the max.
Ah, I've never done quarters. And 10 is longer for a persuasive paper than the type I was talking about.
One undergrad semester I had 100 pages to write - 3 25 page papers and the rest in 2-3 page essays throughout the semester. In law school, my average exam length was 18 pages, double spaced, in three hours per exam. So you can see where my perception was altered a little. Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:We probably just have different views of "long." 10 is still short to me, not even medium-length, but it's been a long time since I was an undergrad.
*pat pat*
In general, for me (Second Year English/History/Politics), 8 and under pages is short, 10-12 is medium and 15+ is long. My longer papers tend to be research papers (usually around 12 or more), the shorter ones are English (7-12). Most are between 8 to 14.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
It's possible that I'm an abnormally poor philosophy student, but depending on the thinker, I still can't get through two pages without at least making a minor error. Requiring a thoughtful fifteen page paper seems to court disaster.
Posts: 5600 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
I thought I came up a bit short on the English paper I just turned in last week, it was 5 and a half pages, and he had stated six, but I didn't feel there was anything to add that would contribute to the paper at all and that fluffing it would actually detract, so I left it and hoped for the best.
Turns out in his total he was counting the works cited page, which I was not, so I was actually a half page over the requested length. At any rate, I didn't get a great grade, it was a B, but considering that I wrote it during a week of chemo treatment when I felt terrible, I was happy with the result.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
I've had to write several papers for economics - the case study analysis for my international econ class, for instance, had a 15 page min requirement.
Most of my philosophy classes require three or four 3-6 pagers, and then one large term paper at the end of the course. The shorter papers have very clear prompts, and the long paper has no prompt, typically. Of course, the midterm and essays are about fifteen pages of text, written out... *wince* I wish they let us bring in laptops, or go down to the computer lab to do them. Instead, I'm told they're a test of both mental and physical endurance. Posts: 2409 | Registered: Sep 2003
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A test of physical endurance? That's just stupid. Probably the teacher is really thinking only of mental endurance- I can't imagine learning how to fill 15 pages without a hand cramp is really a course goal for any teacher. If it is, then I would probably not appreciate what values that teacher has in education (the kind of teacher who gives you an F for writing something in pencil, or some such idiotic "life-lesson").
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
The professor I'm referring to is actually a really awesome professor - he's the one who penned this gem And the last day of class was shortened so that we could go down to the bar and have a few drinks (it was also my 21st B-day).
He just also... enjoys testing our knowledge throughly. His tests are the type where you simply have to know and explain different ideas and thoughts of philosophers (the papers are where you show independent thought). Some call this rote memorization. He calls it "proving you know stuff." This task typically makes one's hand and arm really, really sore - writing for three hours straight tends to do that. He once let students use computers to type up their finals - but that was for Metaphysics, and the material was so difficult that the final was open book and note. That final took from four-and-a-half to six!! hours for the students to complete.
Posts: 2409 | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
I don't think length necessarily conveys the value and/or scope of what is said. I agree w/ Dag in that it can convey expectatation to students, but I don't think it's necessarily a good indicator of what a professor will actually receive.
When I was a freshman and sophomore in college, for example, I had little problem knocking out two 30-page papers and multiple 10-15 page papers. But when I started learning how to write journalistically - that is, to pack as much detailed information into as small a space as possible - it was no longer easy for me to pack in 30 pages. Or maybe my 30 page papers got better, but they took longer and longer to do because my writing was, frankly, so much more concise, to the point, and just flat out better. So I think it's easier for a poor writer to crank out 30 pages than it is for a good one to do so.
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I do not believe that length equals merit, but keep in mind that even short academic works number in the hundreds of pages.
Posts: 1332 | Registered: Apr 2005
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I taught Speech communication 101 for a year and I found it was absolutely necessary to put page suggestions on the papers the students had to do. Especially with such a high percentage of freshmen in my class, it was really a needed help for them. I tried once to let them determine how to approach a paper on there own. They hated not having clear guidelines and complained bitterly about not knowing how much to write. I also found that I would get some students who would turn in a page and other students who would turn in 20. It was a disaster. I think that page minimums really do help beginning students.
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As a student, I want as much information about what my professor is looking for as possible. Page limits tell me how deeply the topic should be covered.
Posts: 4655 | Registered: Jan 2002
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My second and third year classes all required 8-10 and 10-12 page papers respectively. Fourth year classes were more in the 16-20 page range. My undergrad thesis was 10-15k words (it felt like giving birth).
I think the page limits are good to have. They provide guidelines, and they tell students what to expect, and the level of detail and research required. I didn't always stick to them exactly, sometimes going over and sometimes being under, but it never really affected my grades.
When I applied to my MA program, I submitted a 9 page paper, when the requirements were 10-20 pages (I did not know this at the time). I got in with no reported problems. I think quality goes a long way, and is taken into account with word limits.
Posts: 2849 | Registered: Feb 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Kasie H: Or maybe my 30 page papers got better, but they took longer and longer to do because my writing was, frankly, so much more concise, to the point, and just flat out better. So I think it's easier for a poor writer to crank out 30 pages than it is for a good one to do so.
A classic argument, (I don't have to write as much because my pages are WORTH MORE) but you at least acknowledge that your 30 page papers where better when you knew how to write. Some things you get better at doing without getting faster at doing them, and I think anyone who works hard at writing will agree that this is often true.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Pelegius: I do not believe that length equals merit, but keep in mind that even short academic works number in the hundreds of pages.
That is hardly accurate. A teacher of mine recently wrote a dissertation which was only just over 100 pages (it was on a specific esthetic in musical composition). The length of the paper has to be in proportion to the subject and, the desired level of detail, and an idea of the merit of each of these things for a potential reader. Perhaps a scientific paper, or a law paper, or a history paper will stretch into the hundreds of pages, but this is not a universal law, nor a universally accepted idea.
Edit: there are of course those, even in music, that do go on that long-I recently read a small part of one of my professors' historical papers on the Bach cello suites, and though it was horribly written, it did span 500 snoozy pages.
posted
I think length guidelines can be useful, and a maximum length for papers makes sense, but I have to say that minimum page lengths are downright goofy. Why would it ever be good to take up more space when you could say the same thing in less space?
Really, I think it is a big problem among college students that they did to think they are writing better when really they are just writing longer. (Similarly, it is also a problem when they confuse writing better with making a better argument.)
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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One of the best assignments I had was to write a 10 page paper for a class. After the professor had collected them, she said, "Ok, now write a 5 page paper. Same topic." It was my first year of college in a psychology class.
It really helped the first year students focus on what is important and what is fluff.
Only the 5 page paper was graded.
Posts: 159 | Registered: Jun 2006
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Orincoro, 100 pages is breathtakingly short. My mother's in Microbiology was around 300, and that is for a science degree wherin the disertation is esentialy one long lab report on the years of reshearch the student does. In history, my field, 1000 pages is closer to the norm.
Posts: 1332 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:Really, I think it is a big problem among college students that they did to think they are writing better when really they are just writing longer. (Similarly, it is also a problem when they confuse writing better with making a better argument.)
I've found the opposite to be more common: people who think they are pithy when they are merely being incomplete.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
Dagonee is right, we tend to think in soundbytes, and we prefer thinkers who do too. "The Stuggle of Class against Class is a Political Struggle." "The Limits of my Language are the Limits of my Reality." "And God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten son." There is nothing wrong with these claims per se, even if one disagrees with them one can see that they are neat, but they are all incomplete.
Posts: 1332 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Pelegius: I do not believe that length equals merit, but keep in mind that even short academic works number in the hundreds of pages.
I disagree as well - economic dissertations are often composed of two or three 20-60 page essays - and that's likely to be the longest academic work most economists ever put out. The field publishes almost entirely in journal articles which are normally between 15 and 35 pages - and a lot of that is data, charts, or graphs, not writing.
Of course, as I type this I'm researching municipal fiscal crises for an urban public capital manuscript that is already in excess of 700 pages... but that's not the norm! Posts: 2409 | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
Completeness is not a matter of length, though. Requiring a student who does not know how to give a complete response to write a 10 page paper will probably just result in a much longer, fluffier incomplete answer. In fact, it will probably just make it harder to read and all that much more difficult to easily see the incompleteness for what it is. The writing of long, smart-sounding essays that hide a lack of understanding is refined to an art by many a college student.
While this probably does help in the sometimes upside-down world of academia, I think it does a disservice to students to convince them that by writing longer, more confusing essays they are actually giving a more complete, more substantial answer - when they are not. For instance, if a graduate with little work expericne decides to write a 5-page resume, he will likely be turned down by the prospective employer he hands it to, for the simple reason that long-winded resumes waste too much time for a busy recruiter. Short, concise, and complete is what's most useful.
quote:Completeness is not a matter of length, though.
True. And "better writing" is not a matter of length. If two papers on the same topic are written equally "well" but one is more complete than the other, the more complete one will be longer. Similarly, if two papers on the same topic have equal levels of completeness, the shorter one is likely to be better written.
quote:Requiring a student who does not know how to give a complete response to write a 10 page paper will probably just result in a much longer, fluffier incomplete answer.
Maybe. But if a professor knows a complete paper can't be less than 10 pages, why not tell the students this.
quote:While this probably does help in the sometimes upside-down world of academia, I think it does a disservice to students to convince them that by writing longer, more confusing essays they are actually giving a more complete, more substantial answer - when they are not.
The mere policy of minimum lengths does not do this. Poor grader of those papers does - a different issue.
quote:Short, concise, and complete is what's most useful.
Yeah, but if that same person in their first job leaves out steps in a set of instructions on how to assemble a product, he's unlikely to do well, either.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:If two papers on the same topic are written equally "well" but one is more complete than the other, the more complete one will be longer.
This is not true, because covering more stuff doesn't always make an answer more complete, no matter how well written that answer is. You can get a well-written long paper that covers a lot of stuff but doesn't completely answer the question as well as a much shorter, equally-well-written paper that is focused on the question at hand and the proposed answer to it.
quote:But if a professor knows a complete paper can't be less than 10 pages, why not tell the students this.
In my experience, professors rarely base their minimum page length requirements on anything so reasonable as that. Usually the logic behind it seems to be more along the lines of "A student at your level should be able to write a paper X pages long." Either that or the professors I've had don't really know how short a good paper can be - because I've added fluff to papers before to meet page requirements (and received A's on them) when I know I could have said the same thing in a more concise form.
quote:The mere policy of minimum lengths does not do this. Poor grader of those papers does - a different issue.
I think a minimum length requirement implies to the student that they are losing points for the length of the paper rather than the substance of it.
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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quote:This is not true, because covering more stuff doesn't always make an answer more complete, no matter how well written that answer is.
How is this relevant to what I said? Of course covering more stuff doesn't make an answer more complete? I didn't say that covering more stuff makes an answer complete. I said that two papers identical in every way except their completeness
Greater length does not mean that a paper is more complete. But, all things being equal, a more complete paper written to be as short as it can be will be longer than a less complete paper written to be as short as it can be.
quote:You can get a well-written long paper that covers a lot of stuff but doesn't completely answer the question as well as a much shorter, equally-well-written paper that is focused on the question at hand and the proposed answer to it.
I didn't say that a longer paper will be more complete.
You stated that "Completeness is not a matter of length, though." This is simply not true. A complete paper will have a minimum length. That the length cannot be identified in advance does not mean that such a minimum length does not exist.
Completeness absolutely effects length. That's not the same thing as saying the longer paper is always more complete.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Pelegius: Orincoro, 100 pages is breathtakingly short. My mother's in Microbiology was around 300, and that is for a science degree wherin the disertation is esentialy one long lab report on the years of reshearch the student does. In history, my field, 1000 pages is closer to the norm.
Like I said, it depends on the subject. I have read several dissertations in musicology and NONE of them have been over 600 pages (mind you, I still didn't read the whole thing). What can you say in 1000 pages really?
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posted
Strange, I know lots of history books much shorter than 1000 pages (and with book pages that are often shorter than manuscript pages).
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quote:This is not true, because covering more stuff doesn't always make an answer more complete, no matter how well written that answer is.
How is this relevant to what I said? Of course covering more stuff doesn't make an answer more complete? I didn't say that covering more stuff makes an answer complete. I said that two papers identical in every way except their completeness
Greater length does not mean that a paper is more complete. But, all things being equal, a more complete paper written to be as short as it can be will be longer than a less complete paper written to be as short as it can be.
I think Tres as somewhat of a point though, in that the completeness of the complete paper can be achieved in less space if it is properly written. This depends on all things NOT being equal of course, which is the real world situation in most classes anyway. In fact, very often a longer paper will be less complete because it is repetitive, off topic, too large in scope or too loose in focus.
You are simply arguing that a tortoise doesn't beat a hair when they are both paying attention, but in reality, one of them might not be as intelligent as the other.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Pelegius: A microbio disertation would be much shorter than anything in the humanities.
I'm sorry, Peligius, but this whole contention is just silly. There is no standard on paper length, just like there is no standard on story length for a creative writer. The subject merely fills the pages in proper proportion to the needed detail, and the initial scope. That's it.
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The thing is, I'm wondering why professors and even teachers in High School have length requirements for papers? I've always had some trouble meeting them without resorting to those little tricks we all know. And that's not to say that I had bad papers. I usually make A's and B's on my papers. It's just that I feel I'm able to express whatever idea I'm writing about in a much smaller space than is required. I try to be concise and get to the point. Now I'm thinking about becoming a History Professor which would mean I'd probably have to require some form of an essay or research paper from my students at some point. So, I was wanting to ask any teachers here (although everyone is free to throw in their two cents 
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