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[The Merchant Of Menace]

Yep, she didn't stick me with a 300 word maximum again.

[Something Evil]

Last time I was presented with a maximum word limit I purposely went over it by ~5000 words. Passed as well.

If the teacher was actually interested by your work enough to read it, that was just six different kinds of evil.

Believe me, when you get a literal mountain of essays on your desk and you end up thinking "Oh, god... I have to read these things this year as well..." it kinda gives a teacher the urge to ragequit being useful for a while.

[Mindmaker]

I'd say it's a neuter term.
Will look it up at home.

Strictly speaking, it's male. Female would be "kicia", but some people use either one, regardless of the actual gender.

Yeah, you're right, since you use the male article "ten".
Polish is becoming more and more a foreign language to me :/

[Tack]

My chemistry professor in high school enjoyed reading assignments. He would say to us 'treat the word limit like a minimum. As long as it stays interesting and relevant, put in as much information and explanation as you want.'

So generally only the kids who put in booklets got 'A's. Even though they were 70% wank. But hey, with as much as an OP is worth now, I'm glad I stuck to my ideals and got B's instead.



Also, I'm starting to get confused between Mindmaker, Merchant of Menace and Metal Militia. Too many 'M M's... The only solution is for all of you to never change your avatars again.

[Retro]

I understand a minimum word count but a maximum? I really don't see why tutors do that apart from being to lazy to read something some one has obviously slaved over.

The idea is that you have the same limits as everyone else, so there's no way for anyone to simply use more examples to support their points and get a better mark than the next guy. You have to use the same amount of space that everyone else has to prove your argument, and getting a better mark is more about how refined your argument is within the limitations set. Not that too many people write too much in general, but I have a tendency to hit word count before I write my intros and conclusions, so I always run into this problem :\

Anyhow, I'm a few hundred words shorter and much as I miss some of my points, I think the paper's much more refined as a whole. Feeling pretty good.

(wrong thread? deal w/!)

[ChairmanPoo]

It's probably also a practical thing: If everyone wrote humongous essays there wouldn't be time for the teacher to correct them.

[Something Evil]

No. The teacher would get a nice, cozy fire going and asspull everyone's grades.
Word count is annoying when you've got all the ideas and more and know oratorical and media manipulation tricks, but it serves to make you compress your point to pill-size.

[Leafsnail]

Well, some reasons it could happen (we're generally given "soft" word limits on our essays):
- The teacher doesn't want the students to spend overly long on the essay.
- It's quite a specific essay, and if you go way over the limit you're either being irrelevant or repeating stuff
- The teacher has several classes worth of essays to mark, and they just won't have the time if people are handing in huge ones
- One of the specifications of the essay is to be concise and understandable

[Retro]

Well, some reasons it could happen (we're generally given "soft" word limits on our essays):
- The teacher doesn't want the students to spend overly long on the essay.
- It's quite a specific essay, and if you go way over the limit you're either being irrelevant or repeating stuff
- The teacher has several classes worth of essays to mark, and they just won't have the time if people are handing in huge ones
- One of the specifications of the essay is to be concise and understandable

Yeah, often all those reasons. We're given soft counts on our stuff too, generally within a page give-or-take of the listed word count, but I was three pages over :\

[Lord Shonus]

Don't feel bad. I've flunked calsses for being one word over.

[Earthquake Damage]

I've flunked calsses for being one word over.

That's called a teacher missing the point.

[ToonyMan]

I've flunked calsses for being one word over.

That's called a teacher missing the point.

If only they missed a word instead.

[Lord Shonus]

That teacher was rather asinine. Her rules on papers in the syllabus were six pages long. The list of prohibited topics (in a course on writing argumentative essays) was almost a full page, and had nearly 200 items on it, forbidding everything from abortion to zookeeping.

[Vector]

I will name my cat Tolstuszka, and you will all fear him.

(... "Fattikins" in Russian)


Slept 11.5 hours and still not feeling so good.  Better, though.  Definitely better.

[scriver]

I would have guessed it having something to do with Tolstoy. Which incidentally also is an awesome name for a cat.