| Writing papers
Just to make it clear I do not have problems writing papers. I usually do very good on them.
Now to my question, why is it that professors will often set a minimum amount of pages that students have to write?
It seems to me that it would make sense to allow students to write as much as they need in order to answer the question being asked by the professor for that particular assignments.
The reason I ask this is because I have one accounting professor (I know a class which isn't writing intensive at all) who is giving out a paper due on the Final exam. However he did something that just makes so much sense. He said in response to how long the paper is, "i do not want to see fluff, just give me the essentials and answer the question. so if that takes you 1-2 paragraphs that's ok. if that means 2-4 pages that's ok."
It occurred to me that sometimes when I'm writing papers I have to DRAAAAAAG out some ideas which I hate to do but is necessary in order to meet the minimum page requirements. It sucks to do that because it's not like I'm adding in any extra useful information.
My major is not writing intensive so I am just curious about this.
On a side note, I notice that at one of my jobs where I work (a law school) students are constantly printing out huge chunks of papers at a time. These are assignments they have to hand in to their professor. We're talking easily 50pages single spaced at least. Does the same problem apply here from earlier? Is it that people feel that more writing automatically equals better work? I feel it's probably different at the law school than at the undergraduate level of education.
Anyways what are your thoughts on this? |