Now I remember why I hate college classes...

[JGlass]

Not only redundant, but also a waste of time, since nobodies is going to be accurate.

Maybe they want you to spend a good time proof reading.

Seriously though, I never understood minimums either. If it's to prevent lazy students from writing two pages and calling it a day, then why set the guidelines? It's their decision not to do the work, they should reap what they sow.

I'm okay with loose guidelines like, "It should be around X amount of pages," as that helps you determine how much depth they're looking for, but oftentimes I'll find that I've written volumes on a subject in 6 pages when they demand 8, and I'll still get an A on those papers after I fluff it up.

 

[Барбоса]

The university I studied and teach at are actually the almost complete opposite, or at least my school was. Word limits are normally realistic and even on the low side depending on the subject. Telling a first year undergraduate to aim for 2,000 words can have interesting results - I have marked essays that are 1,100 or 3,300, which were accordingly marked down.

Of course, word limits increase as you go progress but rarely do they keep in line with the increasing depth of subjects you are dealing with. That in itself forces you to learn to produce a concise argument while still interacting with all the source material.

With the classes I picked, my progression in word limit was essentially 2,000 - 3,000 - 5,000 - 6,000 - 10,000. By the time I reached my Masters dissertation, the word limit was 20,000 and that was difficult to stick to and then there was my PhD thesis, the first draft of which clocked in at 120,000 with a word limit of 80,000...

Maybe I did not learn all that much...

 

[Slyfox696]

The university I studied and teach at are actually the almost complete opposite, or at least my school was. Word limits are normally realistic and even on the low side depending on the subject. Telling a first year undergraduate to aim for 2,000 words can have interesting results - I have marked essays that are 1,100 or 3,300, which were accordingly marked down.

Of course, word limits increase as you go progress but rarely do they keep in line with the increasing depth of subjects you are dealing with. That in itself forces you to learn to produce a concise argument while still interacting with all the source material.

With the classes I picked, my progression in word limit was essentially 2,000 - 3,000 - 5,000 - 6,000 - 10,000. By the time I reached my Masters dissertation, the word limit was 20,000 and that was difficult to stick to and then there was my PhD thesis, the first draft of which clocked in at 120,000 with a word limit of 80,000...

Maybe I did not learn all that much...

Well, you learned how to write a paper in 80,000 words or less. It's an important skill.

 

[Барбоса]

Well, you learned how to write a paper in 80,000 words or less. It's an important skill.

Just think how dire my Christmas cards would be without it...

 

[Richard Blonoff]

I think once you get to the college level they need to stop putting minimums and maximums on papers.

I lost count of the number of times in my English, Literature, Creative Writing(which I can understand), and Interpersonal Communication classes we had to write a paper that was x number of words or the paper would be docked by a whole letter grade.

As far as time spent on the project, is there a way they want you to keep track? Like for instance I was on the debate team and one of the perks of that was you got an automatic A if you took any of the classes the debate coach taught, but one of his requirements for regular students was spending at least 3 hours writing the outline for speeches in his public speaking class. I straight asked him one day, do you really think they spend three hours on an outline?

His response was "no, but I expect them to make up a good lie as to how they spent the time when they chart it"

 

[Xemmy]

That part of college sucks. Still much better than high school. And I can't help but love it. And still not a single party. I suppose I'm a giddy academic.

 

[Steamboat Ricky]

Hey, I thought this was the Raw LD. Will the moderator please delete the post?