Essay Length: Too Short? or Too Long? Who Decides This?

If you have never received your paper from the professor with the instructions to either cut the text or add some words to the necessary word count you probably are a lucky person. Essay length, no matter how simple it sounds, is one of the widely spread problems that students face while writing.

You might get a lower grade if you essay is too short or too long, and it seems that the relation of essay length and your grade is proportionate. We mean, the more you deviate from the limit, the less you obtain as a grade. So, essay length is important, do not treat it carelessly.

Essay length: who defines it?

Not sure about your essay length? Want to know who defines it? Well, basically it all depends on where you study. At school, essay length is smaller (probably because children are not ready to do these boring assignments for hours), at colleges and in universities it gradually becomes more complicated (as children grow up and teachers do not care if it is boring any more).

Essay length: too short or too long?

Finally, the essay length depends on a particular assignment and a particular professor. To avoid any disputes about why you wrote 300 when you were asked to write 290, just keep to the limit your professor gives and use the word counting option of you Microsoft Word software. Thus, do not invent a wheel with your essay length; better stick to the word count specified by your professor. And make sure to follow the rule that bigger is not better when it comes to essay length!