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"A research paper"
Dec. 6th, 2007 12:39 pmSigh. I'm writing my final paper for my folklore seminar right now. I'm currently struggling with length... you see, the syllabus calls only for "a research paper," but gives no length requirement. Which is great, in a way, since it means that I don't have to worry about holding to a certain parameter. The problem is that I then have to play this weird guessing game: how long does she want it? I have six pages right now, and I'm honestly not sure if I'll more than double that; is twelve pages really sufficient? My gut reaction is "no," but I also feel constrained by the miniskirt doctrine* -- I don't want to add filler just for filler's sake.
I feel like my own words to my students are coming back to haunt me! Expand and explore, I tell them, and that should be my advice here, except that I'm not sure how to expand; it's mostly an observational study, and the only way I can think of to truly lengthen it would be to start going off on theoretical stuff. Problem is, that's not interesting to me, and it would really change the nature of the paper (I'll already be discussing some theoretical ideas, and throwing in more would seem superfluous). Not to mention that I only have a few hours and I'm constrained by my own procrastination (note that I'm sitting here writing up an LJ entry).
Ack. Too short and I look like a slacker. But how short is too short? Hate hate hate.
*This is something one of my French profs at LSU told us about our papers. "They should be like miniskirts: long enough to cover everything, but short enough to be interesting."
ETA: Yep, 12 pages on the nose. Let no one say my powers of estimation are lacking.
I feel like my own words to my students are coming back to haunt me! Expand and explore, I tell them, and that should be my advice here, except that I'm not sure how to expand; it's mostly an observational study, and the only way I can think of to truly lengthen it would be to start going off on theoretical stuff. Problem is, that's not interesting to me, and it would really change the nature of the paper (I'll already be discussing some theoretical ideas, and throwing in more would seem superfluous). Not to mention that I only have a few hours and I'm constrained by my own procrastination (note that I'm sitting here writing up an LJ entry).
Ack. Too short and I look like a slacker. But how short is too short? Hate hate hate.
*This is something one of my French profs at LSU told us about our papers. "They should be like miniskirts: long enough to cover everything, but short enough to be interesting."
ETA: Yep, 12 pages on the nose. Let no one say my powers of estimation are lacking.
