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Does essay length matter for English?

  • 09-06-2015 7:48pm
    #1
    lundrum
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 53 ✭✭


    I've been thinking about my English exam and there's one thing which is kind of torturing me. My essay was only 3 pages long, and some of my friends say they went up to 7 pages. Will I be marked down heavily for this? I'm really worried.


Comments

  • #2
    Kbvdpo
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 60 ✭✭Kbvdpo


    Quality over quantity... An essay could be 20 pages long & could be the most boring, dragged out story ever.. 3 pages would be enough if it was well written & interesting! (According to my English teacher!)


  • #3
    roadrunner16
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,007 ✭✭✭roadrunner16


    Don't worry, length dosent matter !! Its what you do with it , three pages of good writing are better than any amount of poor quality writing ! :)


  • #4
    gazump123
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 353 ✭✭gazump123


    Our English teacher always told us around 3 pages as well. If your ideas, spelling etc. are good and it's 3 pages long, you should do well.


  • #5
    Mr Rhode Island Red
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 746 ✭✭✭Mr Rhode Island Red


    I always wrote 3 to 3.5 pages.

    2 or 3 pages of quality is better than 7 or 8 pages of rubbish


  • #6
    spurious
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Education Moderators Posts: 27,316 CMod ✭✭✭✭spurious


    Ernest Hemingway was allegedly challenged to write a short short story. He wrote "For sale: baby shoes, never worn."
    Whether the story about Hemingway is true or not, it's not the number of words, it's what you do with them.


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  • #7
    tina1040
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 479 ✭✭tina1040


    How would you have time to write 7 pages?


  • #8
    Powerhouse
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,428 ✭✭✭Powerhouse


    lundrum wrote: »
    I've been thinking about my English exam and there's one thing which is kind of torturing me. My essay was only 3 pages long, and some of my friends say they went up to 7 pages. Will I be marked down heavily for this? I'm really worried.


    Length of an essay matters but only in the broader context of the general quality. Three pages sounds grand to me, as a teacher. I'd be a bit concerned about some of the rambling space-filling irrelevancies that might crop up in a seven-pager to be honest.

    The length of an essay plays no specific part in the marking. Obviously if someone writes four pages and another writes just one the first person will have given themselves more opportunity to show their skills of expression which is what the main tranche of marks is for. But someone would not be marked down for length per se.


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