Minimum Page Requirements for Papers
Posted in Lifestyle, School by George
Consider the concept of a minimum page requirement. Commonly, a professor will assign a term paper to a student, and that term paper will have a list of requirements. One of these will be a minimum page requirement. In other words, the term paper must be at least X pages long before the student is allowed to turn it in.
Minimum page requirements are silly. In the real world (the “working” world), the name of the game is getting an idea across clearly and succinctly. Yet students go through elementary, middle, high school, and college being taught that their ideas are not complete unless they happen to fill up at least ten pages of paper, double spaced, 12″, Times New Roman font. Better to fill pages with what we students call “BS” than to turn in a paper two pages shy of the minimum requirement.
Granted, I’m a student, so I haven’t experienced the real world. But from what I hear, in the real world, people are rewarded, not punished, for getting an idea across in one page rather than three. So perhaps more teachers and professors should consider instituting maximum page limits rather than minimum ones. Minimum page limits are fine as guidelines, but creating hard and fast rules for how long a paper must be doesn’t make anyone into a better writer.
February 11th, 2007 at 9:23 pm
In the real world you need to show value in the content. It’s like doing a math problem, AND showing the work, despite everyone knowing the answer. Enron type schemes were hatched without showing the work.
I’m not a student, and probably never was, but not all business correspondence is five paragraphs or less e-mails as some fans of brevity would espouse.
Brevity is fine, but supporting content is very important. If you try to pass an executive summary as content, you will be surprised when people think it bullshit and incomplete.
Of course, edicts, pronouncements, empty mission statements, projections and forward-looking statements are all worthless doubletalk that fit with a nice vagueness into a single page.
It actually is quite skilled and artful in itself to compose one of those things and say nothing, yet appear worthy of high compensation.
February 12th, 2007 at 11:13 am
In many biology classes I have actually come across professors who have a maximum amount of writing students are allowed in a paper or test question. This might be a result of there being tons of people in each class and the busy schedule of the profs, meaning they don’t want to have to sift through tons of long winded sentences. I have had one professor threaten us before each test that if he had to read anything that was unncecessary he would only read to a certain point in your answer and only give you credit for the content of the answer up until that point. Proof is necessary, but having to draw it out into a long-winded 20 page paper is not. I think some of these biology professors may be exceptions to the rule.
February 12th, 2007 at 3:28 pm
I’m not saying you should sacrifice quality for shorter length. I’m just saying that all else equal, shorter is better.
February 12th, 2007 at 7:58 pm
In the interest of full disclosure how many term papers have you been assigned in your time at William and Mary? What was the average length of those papers?
February 12th, 2007 at 11:39 pm
I don’t really know offhand exactly how many term papers I’ve written, but I’ll make a rough guesstimate for your enjoyment.
I’ve probably written 1-2 term papers per semester (defined as a paper at the end of the semester that counts for a significant portion, 20% or more, of my grade) on average, with lengths anywhere from 4 to 20+ pages. On average I’d say my term papers are 8-12 pages long. The minimum page requirement is somewhere around 8-12 pages long as well.
I’m not exactly sure what you’re getting at here.
February 13th, 2007 at 9:14 am
As someone who has written roughly 7-14 term papers in college I do not feel that you are really in a position to discuss the topic as pointedly as you do. Many students write that many term papers in a single semester. While some of your papers may have been 20+ others have been 4. Why the variation? Perhaps because the teachers are trying to teach different things. 20+ papers are perhaps trying to see if you can do the detailed research need in the real world. While 4 pages are trying to see if you can handly the concise synthesis needed in the real world. Both are valuable.
In my experience as someone who generally writes around 7ish term papers a semester I have found a general movement towards shorter papers. In fact I have had several Profs insist on one page memos to practice exactly what you have said. Luckily I have not had every proffessor require that otherwise I would be incapable of detailed research.
My point is perhaps the phenomenon you desire is coming about but you have not had sufficient writing based classes to notice.
February 13th, 2007 at 10:30 am
That’s great if there is a general movement toward shorter papers. However, that’s not the point at all. The point is, all else equal, shorter papers are better than longer ones. If you can say something while still providing strong evidence and clarity, then a ten page paper is better than twenty. Thus, minimum page requirements should be eliminated (regardless of whether the minimum page requirement is getting shorter). If students need a guideline for how long the paper should be, ask the professor. Or better yet, just write the paper until you’ve made your point, just like you’ll have to do in the working world.
All those benefits you talk about getting from longer papers and shorter papers can be gained just through the nature of the assignment. If it’s a heavy, research-based assignment, a student will end up writing a longer paper naturally. Same with the flip side. You can get the same value without forcing students to write BS to fill in a final page or two.