springboarding from something Sara posted – essay lengths

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High School English Teachers Chatboard

springboarding from something Sara posted - essay lengths

by marjoryt

Sep 10, 2012

Here are a few kernels I learned from my time as a technical editor/writer. I was simply gobsmacked when I learned these, and use them all the time: Average length of a paragraph for a college-trained writer (taking Comp. 1) = approximately 100 words. This is an average, not the minimum or the maximum. I actually encourage my students to play with length - perhaps having rather short introductions and conclusions, building some longer support paragraphs.

Average paragraph when typed in MLA, APA, CMS, and GPO (Government Printing Office) is about 1/3 to 1/2 a page. That's double spaced, 1 inch margins, 12 font. Again, average!

We can get 2.5 to 3.5 paragraphs per page (typed in one of the standard formats). The average is 3.

So.......5 paragraphs = 2 pages. 7 paragraphs = 3 to 3 1/2 pages.

The minimum length for an essay, by definition, is 3 paragraphs (intro, body, conclusion). Students actually write many of these in other classes for essay quest...See MoreHere are a few kernels I learned from my time as a technical editor/writer. I was simply gobsmacked when I learned these, and use them all the time: Average length of a paragraph for a college-trained writer (taking Comp. 1) = approximately 100 words. This is an average, not the minimum or the maximum. I actually encourage my students to play with length - perhaps having rather short introductions and conclusions, building some longer support paragraphs.

Average paragraph when typed in MLA, APA, CMS, and GPO (Government Printing Office) is about 1/3 to 1/2 a page. That's double spaced, 1 inch margins, 12 font. Again, average!

We can get 2.5 to 3.5 paragraphs per page (typed in one of the standard formats). The average is 3.

So.......5 paragraphs = 2 pages. 7 paragraphs = 3 to 3 1/2 pages.

The minimum length for an essay, by definition, is 3 paragraphs (intro, body, conclusion). Students actually write many of these in other classes for essay questions.

The maximum length for an essay, by definition, probably is infinity, since technical books are actually examples of essays.

I keep this concept as my backup - when students and I are getting overworked and behind. I can and sometimes do give them 3 paragraph assignments.

We seem rather organized around 3, 5, 7, 9 paragraphs, and then we switch to round numbers: 1000 words (that's a short research paper, in my opinion).

In my Freshman Comp. I courses, here are the word lengths: E1: What I Bring to ENG 1113 (500 words) E2: Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences and Me (700 words with 3 quotations and works cited page) E3: Book Review of Steven Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (600 words with 2 quotations and works cited page) E4: Machiavelli, Rousseau, and Jefferson: Opposing Views of Government (500 words) E5: A View of Nature (students choose among Darwin, Carson, and some other essayists) 800 words E6: Will be our final exam - probably on Plato's Allegory of the Cave, will be 500 words.

I tell my students: If you have 3 typed lines of text, and the only punctuation is one period, then you have a MAJOR problem with punctuation - find it and fix it.

I've also been known to do some word counts, and then tell a student, "For now, don't write a sentence over X words long. When the sentence is that long, you're probably going into run on sentence territory - stop and look for the period!" If I can break a student of the dreaded run on, and make him or her understand the concept of sentence length, at some point the student will say, "This sentence MUST be longer! What can I do?"

BTW, at our college, we teach library skills and MLA format in Comp. 1 which culminates in an annotated bibliography assignment (great summary practice). I go just a little further and have the students include some quotations in their essays. In Comp. 2, we assign a formal research report. I tell my students the goal is about 1200 words, but I'm more concerned with content, style, grammar and number of quotations/sources than specific length. Papers averaging A and B usually come in at 1200 to 1500 words. The assignment requires 9 quotations (3 from source, 3 from at least 2 different articles, 3 from "other" sources such as websites, Bible, interviews); the average seems to be 12 - students tell me they MUST put in more to prove their points.

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