English lit NEA limit help

I just finished my first draft and I’m 3098words out of 2500, and it says on the aqa website, “the upper limit for NEA is 2500 words. Candidates who exceed this limit often self-penalise because over- long work can drift out of focus, become irrelevant or repetitive.” Mainly focusing on the last sentence, does this mean I HAVE to cut down or can I leave it at above 2500

Reply 1

Starrytillymae

hi there! you don’t necessarily have to cut it down but i suggest that you try to. this is just your first draft and not necessarily everything has to stay. somebody in my class was at about 2800 and my teacher asked them to cut it down because the examiners weren’t too fond of ones that were over - but she did also teach us the 10% rule: it’s okay to be 10% over or 10% under.

going back to it and thinking “does this sentence help to prove my point?” can be very helpful as well. as a uni student i have to do that a lot. sometimes a sentence doesn’t seem so relevant with a fresh pair of eyes. it’s great discipline for uni as well because a lot of universities will penalise for being over the word count so it’s good to just get into the habit now of weeding out the irrelevant and perhaps repetitive sentences.

wishing you luck!

(edited 1 year ago)

Reply 2

Wilf G

Hi Ghost 1619.
You are well over the prescribed word limit! To be fair, in many ways, this is a good thing, because you've obviously found a lot to say for your area of study.
However, in my experience, students who write such a lot do need to weed it out a bit. AQA requires a response which consistently addresses the given title, without repetition and verbosity. NEA parameters are there for a reason, and examiners may not be very generous to those who blatantly exceed them. (The '10% rule' and other suggestions about what markers will and will not tolerate are unreliable. Don't assume that AQA operates that strategy! For example, when I was at university, we were told that work must be submitted electronically so that it could be checked for plagiarism and its word count. Anything beyond the allotted word limit - which could be found very easily - would not be read! I don't know whether or not this was the case, but it wasn't something I was going to gamble on.)
Start with reviewing the title you're working to. Is it focused enough for an equally focused response? Often, students are taking on a title which is overly broad, and inevitably vagueness and 'waffling' are the results.
Planning is obviously your next object of review : have you mind-mapped the points you want to make, and then bullet-pointed the ways you are going to address them? At that point, you should be able to omit those things which are only point-adjacent. (In other words, only peripherally addressing the arguments you're presenting.)
If you haven't done it already, at this point review the AOs you're meant to be hitting in the NEA. Where in your paragraphs is your inclusion of those AOs best placed? Which AOs carry the greatest weight? Examiners have sometimes commented that some AOs appear in a 'bolt-on' fashion; added on in a way that seems token at best, and panicked at worst. During the planning stage, you can weave them in more appropriately and consequently more effectively.
(I suppose what I'm stressing here is the importance of planning, if only because it hopefully eliminates some of the situation you apparently now find yourself in.)
Perhaps this is enough to get you thinking.
If you want to explore this further, post again. It'd be interesting to know what your texts are, and what your title is.
Whatever, I hope this helps.