Word count?

illiop

how near do you have to be to the word count in assignments? or does it really depend on who's correcting them?

I'm doing my first assignment it's only short(1500) and I'm on 950 and i really don't see my self getting any more than another 200 or 300 words max...is that really bad? ugh..

Jonathan

It is a rough estimate.

mathew

i always go by +/- 10%

Silenceisbliss

lecturer will not pay attention to it at all as long as he/she sees that a real effort was made.

it's a guideline or an aim. really you shouldn't write more than it as it straight away tells the reader that the author lost focus, was unable to be concise, and waffled.

1150/1250 words if 1500 is the aim is perfectly acceptable.

Leopardi

"straight away tells the reader that the author lost focus, was unable to be concise, and waffled."


I can well imagine that many students exceed the stated limit because of that, but assuming that a student had a real passion for the subject, had read very widely, and had maintained a strict focus on the topic involved; would he/she be penalised for going well beyond the stipulated count - for instance, a student submits a 5000 word essay when asked for 3000?

Randomness

Any I have done so far have all said that "the reader may stop reading after 1500 (or 3000) words i.e the specific word limit for that essay. I don't know if they actually do stop reading though.

I'd say use it as a guide, they are merely trying to challenge you to condense your knowledge into that specific amount.

At the end of the day it's the good ould LC mantra that quality wins over quantity (within reason) that sets the tone for my college essays.

Just make sure you have covered 3-4 things, argued for your point etc. If your up around 1200 I'd say that's grand. No point writing 300 words of nonsense just to make up the numbers.

Maybe you can't manage it for this one but next time round try and lengthen it out a bit (for your own sake really). You know do a bit more research around the topic (not that you haven't this time).

gilroyb

plus or minus 10% is a good rule of thumb.

If you're below this then it's likely that you're not discussing something which should be addressed in formulating your conclusion.

If you're more than 10% over the word count then you're showing that you don't have the ability to prioritise information. You've been told to write a paper on a subject that is a certain length long, going over this count shows you're just trying to write a document describing the topic in its entirety and hope that the reader will draw whatever is relevant from it rather than providing the examination of the subject you were asked for.

I know it's your first assignment so don't stress yourself too much, but only reaching 1,000 words when assigned 1,500 is very likely not enough. It's all about quality rather than quantity, but even 1,000 words of quality work leave 33% unused.

Rosita

mathew wrote: »

i always go by +/- 10%

I think this is the accepted norm in most schools.

Better 1,200 concise tightly-written words than 1,500 with the last 300/400 fluffed out for the sake of a word count which will have the effect of weakening the overall impact.

gerry87

I assume it's printed, if so then nobody counts words. Highlight all the commas and full stops in it and increase their font. It can help bulk it up slightly if you feel it looks a little skimpy.

But bottom line, nobody cares about wordcounts. My final year project had a 7000 word limit, i handed in 2500 and got an A+. People handed in over 7000 and go A+, people handed in over 7000 and didn't get A's... It's all about quality.

Sir Ophiuchus

It completely depends on your department. Psychology penalises you for going over the wordcount.

In English, if the wordcount is 1500-2000 and you submit a 1550 or 1600-word essay, the marker may penalise you if they felt you didn't put enough effort or research into the topic.

Plus or minus 10% if an exact number is given, but if it's a band (eg 1500-2000), then "minimum+100 to maximum+100" is a good guideline. They can and will penalise you for going way outside the guidelines.

evercloserunion

Of course it depends entirely on the assignment, who's correcting etc. What subject do you do? Last year we aould be asked to do 6- or 8-page essays for different subjects in law and were told that the examiner would not read past the number of pages allotted, so it was pretty strict. In other essays we were given word counts as opposed to page counts, I don't know how strictly they were enforced because they weren't a problem for me.

So sometimes you won't be allowed go over at all, but you're never expected to get EXACTLY 1,500 words or whatever. I'd say 1,200 words should be fine for a 1,500 limit.

andrew

I don't suppose it's about How do social norms govern our behaviour...and that you want to give me the jist of what you're saying by any chance