Word count

Stargal

Has anyone ever been penalised for handing in a piece of work that was over (or under!) the wordcount given?

I'm doing my Masters here in DCU, and had our first written assignment due in today (up til now it's been news articles, radio pieces etc). Handed it in this morning, went to check mail and found I'd one from the lecturer saying that anyone who goes over the word count will be penalised.

Now if he'd said this from the outset then I'd be okay with it. However the fact that he sent it less than two hours before the 12 noon deadline really irks me. There'd been no mention of any penalties before this.

I did go over the word count. It was a 1,000 word assignment, worth 30% of our grade for this course so I wrote something that I was really happy with it, although it ended up being over 2,000 words. If I'd known that there were going to be penalties then there's no way in hell that I'd have gone over the count.

I've mailed the lecturer, he's written back and we're 'negotiating'. From talking to people in the class it sounds like a lot of people are in the same boat.

So has this ever happened to anyone else? I never heard of anyone ever being penalised in any course the whole time that I was in Trin - it was always more important to answer the question than to adhere to the wordcount!

Awayindahils

Stargal that sounds absolutely insane, hopefully you'll get it sorted.

I hate word counts, my essay on Marxism, Leninism and Stalinism, a subject which includes only the biggest idea of the 20th century, or biggest social idea, has a word count of 1500. What a pile of cack.

ApeXaviour

Oughta learn yous some reductionism. My 40 page project is going to be written into a 3 page article. Easy peasy. It's the 40 page project that's the problem

Yes, people were penalised in secondary school for it and they're strict about it in college as well. If you write 2,000 words for a 1,000 assignment it's unfair to the people who did stick to the word count. The point of them giving such a short assignment is to see if you can make your point concisely, surely? Why would there be a word count if you could just ignore it?

Right_Side

You deserve to be penalised. Double the word count is ridiculous. The accepted margin is 10% either side.

Time Magazine

Did you read her post fully, Michael?

Stargal wrote:

However the fact that he sent it [the email] less than two hours before the 12 noon deadline really irks me. There'd been no mention of any penalties before this.

2,000 words for 30% of a Masters' grade is not excessive, in fact if anything 1,000 is too short.

claire h

I can understand them being a bit stricter than Trinity about word count, what with it being journalism and all, but still - not on, telling people at the last minute about penalties like that.

The point of them giving such a short assignment is to see if you can make your point concisely, surely?

In theory, yeah. In practise it's often just so that you'll write a minimum of x words - I know that in English, anyway, people who've handed in things way over the word count have ended up with spectacular marks rather than been penalised for it. Which is unfair, but it happens.

gymrabbit

just take a photo of you giving him the a finger. a picture is worth a thousand words.

shay_562

gymrabbit wrote:

just take a photo of you giving him the a finger. a picture is worth a thousand words.

Lmao.

Topic: Stargal, that sucks. Hopefully, if a lot of other people are in the same boat, he'll be lenient and won't penalise you too much.

Catari Jaguar

Isn't there a 10% over/ under rule? Like if it's set at 2500 words it can't be less than 2250 or more than 2750? Like they count em anyways.... And is bibliography counted in that??

I've never seen any rule written down about 10% either way. May be an assumed rule, like many in College

gymrabbit

I think it depends on a number of factors.

As far as I'm aware this is a journalism course and I would presume that in journalism it's important to stick to article sizes. So if an editor asks for a 50 word summary of a film sending him a 2000 word essay on the film isn't very useful. However, in this case, the lecturer didn't specifiy a word count (is it inferred, is there a general trend?, did he just forget? or did he just change his mind at the last minute).

But with regards to essays in generals it's very rare for word counts to be extremely relied on. Most examiners etc. will say has this essay covered all relevenat topics with enough detail? If you've got a two page essay and it answers the question adequetly they can't complain.

Word counts are there as a guideline for most people. When I'm asked for an essay I like to ask how long do you want it to be. And I get the usual how long is a piece of string answer then they say, 10 pages. By this I know what level of detail, background and outside info I need to bring to the table. If I'm asked for a very short essay I keep to the topic very strictly. If I'm giving a big project. I flesh it out with as much information as I have.

Stargal, It could be a good editing project for you.

Andrew 83

gymrabbit wrote:

just take a photo of you giving him the a finger. a picture is worth a thousand words.

God bless Johnny Cash.


On the word counts being important in journalism - I agree but this was an essay not a journalistic piece.

ApeXaviour

How is the wording of the assignment? I just realised they always specify in our case whether the count is an upper or lower limit. e.g. "at least 2000 words" or "not more than 2000 words". If in the latter case you can write all you need to write in 500 words all the power to you. In the former you can write 6000 words should you wish.

I'd be surprised if they were so vague in other faculties as not to describe what kind of word limit it is.

However, in this case, the lecturer didn't specifiy a word count

He did, she just didn't think he would be strict about it unless I misread the post.

Like I said I think it's fair enough of the lecturer although it would have been nice of him to say he was going to be strict about it. I think my department usually writes "approximately" 3,000 words, which I take to mean up to 500 words or so less or more. 6,000 words would be well over the limit. It annoys me when I make an effort to stick to the word count and ended up cutting chunks out of the essay to find someone else has gone way above it and not been penalised. Our lecturers are not very consistent, some penalise you and others don't. It's the same as when I hand in an unfinished or unchecked essay just to have it in on the deadline and someone else takes an extra day or two and gets no penalty for handing it up late, and a better mark. It's really unfair on the people who do stick to the rules imo.

Stargal

Only have 1 minute here, so very quickly:

If the piece had been a journalistic one (i.e. a news article) then I would have stuck rigidly to the word count. This is different - it was a critique of two journal articles. There's no way I'd have gone over the count if I'd known it was going to be penalised - I'd never heard of it actually happening before this!

The guidelines we were given said it was to be 'approx. 1,000 words'. No upper limit, no mention of penalties.

The response that the lecturer gave me when I emailed him was, frankly unsatisfactory. Further, I CC'd the mail to my class, and since then, almost half of them have mailed, texted or just said to me that they were glad I said it, since they'd all gone over the count too and found the idea of penalties ridiculous.

More later...

John

Myth wrote:

I've never seen any rule written down about 10% either way. May be an assumed rule, like many in College

I've known people to be penalised for going over.

Word count +/- 10% is the general rule of thumb and it is normally stated in the course book of whatever course you're doing (it was definitely in our course book and IIRC it was in the physiology course book too, it's in effect in Maynooth too). I've never seen a lecturer mention about penalties for word count, it's normally something set by the department. 2000 words for an Approx 1000 word essay sounds way too much for me, even without a 10% rule.

Thirdfox

One of our law essays had a strict word count limit - one word over 1200 and you would be penalised (10% as far as I remember)...

Another lecturer gave a 5,000 word essay and someone wrote a 10,000 one, but he didn't mind... I suppose it varies from lecturer to lecturer.

I personally don't think it's very fair to allow some students to go massively over the wordcount when others can stick to it.