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assignment (essay) too short?

1

im writing an assignment which is due in tomorrow (its meant to be 3000 words) but im really really struggling with the word count !!!

what would happen if i handed it in to the coursework office with say 2500 words?

would they mark it ? would they penalise me a lot?

thanks

Reply 1

Iscariot

11

It doesn't really matter how many words it is just as long as you've discussed the topic in the depth which you feel is required. Filling it up with 500 words of waffle won't necessarily boost your grade. I don't believe you'd be penalised heavily for it, but your essay may lack substance which is why you'd lose marks, not because you don't have close to 3000 words.

Reply 2

Acaila

17

Normally I believe you're allowed 10% over or under.
E.g., I'm doing an assignment now that is 2500 words. We're allowed to hand in 2250 or 2750, or anything in the middle.
So if that's the case at your uni, you just need to squeeze another 200 words out of it to make it up to 2700 (and you can have some of my extra ones if you like :p:

)

Reply 3

JackieS

11

Acaila

Normally I believe you're allowed 10% over or under.
E.g., I'm doing an assignment now that is 2500 words. We're allowed to hand in 2250 or 2750, or anything in the middle.
So if that's the case at your uni, you just need to squeeze another 200 words out of it to make it up to 2700 (and you can have some of my extra ones if you like :p:

)

you should check with your uni and their specific requirements - at Georges we arent allowed to go a single word over otherwise its an automatic penalty. You can be under with no problem as long as its not by lots

Reply 4

bewithoutyou

Check your university's regulations. At my university, for a 3,000 word essay the minimum word count is 2,700, and if it's under this the marker is allowed to refuse to mark it (!). We're also penalised if we go a single word over the 3,000 limit. Check with your department to make sure.

Reply 5

iolaus

6

We have to be within 10%. If we are between 10 and 20% then we loose 10% off our marks. If we are under (or over) 20% then it's an automatic fail

So for a 3000 essay - 2500 words would loose 10% to start with, if you add a few to get to 2700 you'd be fine.

Reply 6

rottcodd

3

it should say somewhere in your handbook how many words you're allowed to go over or under. In ours, it just says it shouldn't be 'significantly shorter or longer' than 2500 - 3000 words.... I've handed in work thats about 2100 words and I've not been penalised for it.

Reply 7

bewithoutyou

darkfairy

Just out of interest, how would they know even if you were one word over the limit? Do they count every single word or something :s:

?

Quite a few unis now ask for electronic copies of essays as well as paper copies so they can run them through anti-plagiarism software... I assume this means they can also run the word count themselves.

Reply 8

ancientone

8

You have to check with your Uni as they obviously vary so much. In our case they allow a 10% variation +/- and beyond that they will penalise heavily.

Reply 9

puppy

JackieS

you should check with your uni and their specific requirements - at Georges we arent allowed to go a single word over otherwise its an automatic penalty. You can be under with no problem as long as its not by lots

What on earth is the point in that?

assignment (essay) too short?

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