A Rant on Page Minimums
Here is the assignment: Write your response to exercise two from the course text. The paper must be no less than six pages, excluding a cover sheet and source cited section. The paper must be written in Times New Roman (font size 12), double spaced, and must have one inch margins. By now I am sure that the majority of Radford students are familiar with the words "Times New Roman font" and "margins." I can still remember when it was considered a legitimate practice to change your font to Courier New and move your margins as far in as possible to make that six page minimum. Microsoft and other word processing programmers had just come out with that famous "Fit to Page" feature that would change various attributes of your document to make it a specific size. We all thought we had it made. That was until teachers and professors wised up and included font and page specifications in the assignments. On Monday morning, I sat down to write up my assignment due later that week. I outlined the main points of my paper and made sure every question in the exercise was addressed. I typed my paper, made some changes, ran spell check and reread it. Then came the moment of truth. I moved my mouse over to the Format menu, selected Paragraph, and scrolled to Double in the Line Spacing menu. Just as I was about to email my well thought out paper, I noticed that it just barely ran over onto the fifth page. I reread my paper again, looking for any points I might have missed or could elaborate on. I found none. Rather than bring the quality of my paper down by adding mindless filler text, I submitted it and awaited my grade. Well, the paper was returned to me on account of its length. I understand that many professors set page maximums to avoid spending their whole semester grading one project. I agree with that. What I don't understand, and teachers please explain this one to me, why is there a minimum? College students should know that if they submit a one-paragraph response to a lengthy topic, their grade would reflect it. Why place a restriction on how much you have to write if it can be done well with less words? Please excuse me now while I "improve" my paper. I plan on changing all the don'ts to do not's and adding the opinions of some expert that no one has ever heard of.
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