The perfect essay length: 2500 words

Ashna Mathur (2500 Words):

I’ve written around 25 essays in my university life till now, and the word count is a major factor in how I feel about them. At this point, I believe 2,500 to be the ideal word count, but my first-year self would be too intimidated by that. I know this may seem too short to some of you Stage 3 students, and also most lecturers, but that’s ideal for me.

Even before I start working on my draft, my first step is always the calculator app on my phone. My planning process includes a decent amount of math in an attempt to figure out how to structure my essay- if my introduction and conclusion are about 350 words together, it leaves me enough space for 5-6 body paragraphs. Perfect.

Can I create a decent and nuanced argument with that limit? Absolutely, and anything below that seems too less. 

My first assignment at university was a 1,000-word commentary, and I’d never written something that long. I was so stressed and spent a week writing that, but it turned out good. Three semesters later, a thousand words is a one-sitting thing for me, and I’m quite happy with the progress I’ve made. I recently tried to cram a commentary in 660 words- weird limit, I know- and I felt I just wasn’t saying enough. A 2,500-word limit is perfect, giving me space to create at least three arguments explored in proper detail. 

That being said, I’m quite nervous about the idea of my daunting 13,000-word dissertation next year. Send help, someone?

Josh Watson (0 words):

What about no word limit at all? Over in the Hershel, most assignment handouts don’t expect you to write a word. Well, that’s not completely true. Many a maths-based assignment ask for a few words here or thereabout, explain some context for some symbol or some equations. But we do, once in a blue moon, get a written based on assignment. Lab reports are by far the biggest source of this – these are explained what we did in an experiment and what our results mean. You might be surprised to hear that this also has no word count limit, instead of a page count.

In the range of 4 to 6 pages, this limit does not just force you to be concise with your words. Physics papers require diagrams, equations, and graphs to paint a full picture of the subject and this restriction can make that difficult. Equations can be simple to simplify and shorten and as a language in its own right, at least from a physicist's point of view, limiting it like words makes sense. Diagrams and graphs do struggle at this point – a large diagram takes up a lot of precious space but there needs to be a lot of space for your marker to see the results you worked so hard to make. Even then, the alternative word limit means you must write everything in a concise way, a useful skill for a physicist.