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[janewales]

Artificial word limits may stifle assignments (can one stifle an assignment, by the way? or do we mean creativity... but I digress), but not all word limits are artificial. I often assign VERY SHORT papers quite deliberately, and explain  that my purpose is to help students to develop a particular kind of discipline. Such things might seem beneath an advanced PhD student... but then, if I had a nickel for every over-long, over-indulgent conference paper I've been subjected to, by both doctoral students and faculty alike (because surely the time limit can't possibly apply to them), I'd be retired, and not still trying to convince my students that I might in fact have given my assignments some thought.

[kaysixteen]

I do confess that I felt cheated by the class.  It was supposed to be a grad school course, yet the department giving it was obviously trying to save money, increase enrollments, whatever, by doing the stupid cross-listing thing, and the woman was clearly offering a mid-level undergrad course with no serious attempt to provide grad school-level work (I am dubious that she would have been qualified to do so in any case) for the few of us grad students who were in there.  And I was young, and she was marginally competent, and regularly made claims about Latin which would cause any classicist to roll in the aisles laughing at (I felt that way myself as a 26yo kid, and confirmed my impressions with classics professors I knew).

But I still do not go in for artificial term limitations, esp. if one gives an assignment which must be completed as written despite the page limitations.  Most of these stem only from professor laziness, and there is the 'over the transom' rule to consider (this refers to publishers getting 'over the transom'. i.e., unsoliticed and without literary agent, mss submitted to them-- many publishers say explicitly that they do not accept and will not read such, but they almost always have someone read through these anyhow, since one never knows when the next Twain will appear anyhow).

[esselle_]

I more frequently see the opposite; Two inch margins, 14 point font, double double line spacing, justification, and the like.

No advice here, but a story. This happened to me some years ago. Student was (unlike yours, it sounds like), very engaged-- always in class, lots of contributions to discussion, had done well on work thus far. HUGE paper. I gave it back without marking it; explained that I really meant the page limit thing, and that part of the task was to find the "fit" between topic and length. Gave a set time-frame to get it back. I wasn't, frankly, sure what I was going to do to the paper when it came back in terms of penalty-- I was going to cross that bridge when I came to it. But then the paper came back. Not a word cut-- student had simply CHANGED THE FONT. To about 6-point. At that point I read the whole thing but didn't write comments on it; marked it down; and reiterated the point about length. Student was unhappy with mark.

[embitteredhistorian]

I do confess that I felt cheated by the class.  It was supposed to be a grad school course, yet the department giving it was obviously trying to save money, increase enrollments, whatever, by doing the stupid cross-listing thing, and the woman was clearly offering a mid-level undergrad course with no serious attempt to provide grad school-level work (I am dubious that she would have been qualified to do so in any case) for the few of us grad students who were in there.  And I was young, and she was marginally competent, and regularly made claims about Latin which would cause any classicist to roll in the aisles laughing at (I felt that way myself as a 26yo kid, and confirmed my impressions with classics professors I knew).

But I still do not go in for artificial term limitations, esp. if one gives an assignment which must be completed as written despite the page limitations.  Most of these stem only from professor laziness, and there is the 'over the transom' rule to consider (this refers to publishers getting 'over the transom'. i.e., unsoliticed and without literary agent, mss submitted to them-- many publishers say explicitly that they do not accept and will not read such, but they almost always have someone read through these anyhow, since one never knows when the next Twain will appear anyhow).

I once audited one of those cross-listed courses. Fortunately, it was a very good course.

I think it's quite fair for professors to have limits on student work due to finite time, and wouldn't call this laziness at all. Why should professors on a 3:3 or 4:4 load have to read 100 papers of 5,000 words? If your work is so brilliant, publish it in a monograph for the whole world to read instead of just one overworked/underpaid professor.

[kaysixteen]

This professor was neither overworked nor underpaid, and she was using a recycled syllabus from a course that she had taught numerous times before.  I completed the assignment as instructed, but found the page limitations inadequate for doing so, so I had to ignore em. 

[wet_blanket]

Some people would suggest that you simply didn't have the skill to complete the task in three pages.

I, however, would never suggest such a thing, and take you at your word that your brilliance could barely be contained within 17 pages.

[kaysixteen]

The professor actually thought these papers were pretty good.  There were two of them, and she gave me A+s for both of them.  Well-deserved.

False modesty is not becoming of me, and the assignments were performed to the best possible standard.  To truncate them to three pages would be to pass in junk that should not have been acceptable, even for those kids who probably should not  have been taking this class anyhow.

[docsoc]

I was thankful for the way a professor responded to one of my long undergraduate papers. The assignment was a double-spaced, 15-page research paper. A week after I turned it in, the prof handed it back and stated that she originally gave it an A+ but downgraded it to an A because the paper was single spaced. I was mortified, because I didn't even notice what I had done (basically, handed in a 30-page paper). I am usually a huge stickler for detail, so the fact that I did this was beyond me (was it lack of sleep that caused haze-induced writing?). She later suggested that I submit a revised version to a journal...

[offthemarket]

False modesty is not becoming of me...

Still, it can't hurt us for you to try, eh?

[_ogg_]

The professor actually thought these papers were pretty good.  There were two of them, and she gave me A+s for both of them.  Well-deserved.

False modesty is not becoming of me, and the assignments were performed to the best possible standard.  To truncate them to three pages would be to pass in junk that should not have been acceptable, even for those kids who probably should not  have been taking this class anyhow.

Ogg share! Ogg share!

Ogg pass fire-making class. Fire good!

Well... Ogg think he pass. No get final grade. Burn down village. All die.

But Ogg make great fire!

[anthroid]

The professor actually thought these papers were pretty good.  There were two of them, and she gave me A+s for both of them.  Well-deserved.

False modesty is not becoming of me, and the assignments were performed to the best possible standard.  To truncate them to three pages would be to pass in junk that should not have been acceptable, even for those kids who probably should not  have been taking this class anyhow.

It seems to me that there is a difference between a sophomore doubling the page length, which is Llanfair's issue, and a senior Ph.D. student doing so.  I would mark an undergraduate down for such things, but not Kaysixteen, as he was completing his Ph.D.

I once taught a class at a CC in which I required a 8-10 page research paper.  I had a student hand in a 238 page paper.  It was complete and total dross and he earned (as I recall) a C-.

[embitteredhistorian]

The professor actually thought these papers were pretty good.  There were two of them, and she gave me A+s for both of them.  Well-deserved.

False modesty is not becoming of me, and the assignments were performed to the best possible standard.  To truncate them to three pages would be to pass in junk that should not have been acceptable, even for those kids who probably should not  have been taking this class anyhow.

It seems to me that there is a difference between a sophomore doubling the page length, which is Llanfair's issue, and a senior Ph.D. student doing so.  I would mark an undergraduate down for such things, but not Kaysixteen, as he was completing his Ph.D.

I once taught a class at a CC in which I required a 8-10 page research paper.  I had a student hand in a 238 page paper.  It was complete and total dross and he earned (as I recall) a C-.

I MUST see that 238 page paper. Please tell me you have an electronic version you can email to me.

[jhamilt2]

I would stop reading at the end of the maximum number of allowable pages and hopefully she will have made her key points within that allotted number of pages. Too many students believe we do not read their papers already. I think I'd make this student an example...