S/O Counting words vs. counting pages

[Penguin]

A recent How much writing is enough writing? thread had me wondering (for the umpteenth time) about word count versus page count. I can never adequately sort through this in my head. When SWB talks about a one-page paper, what does she mean? Typed, presumably. MLA format? Possibly. Well, the MLA format plus the required double spacing sure sucks up a whole lot of page one. And thus, I circle back to uncertainty.

 

This week's thread mentions gradually increasing from 2-3 pages to 5 pages to 8-10 pages. Am I the only person who does not instantly have a good feel for what this means? If so, please enlighten me :)  For example, when you hear 5 pages, what do you think of?

 

I just found this blog post and it links to a very helpful conversion calculator.

 

How many pages is 2000 words?

https://wordcounter.net/blog/2015/09/18/10655_how-many-pages-is-2000-words.html

 

Words per page calculator

https://wordcounter.net/words-per-page

 

 

 

Edited May 21, 2016 by Penguin

[Brad S]

Well, I don't know either, but when I ask for two pages, I'm expecting what my son's default is on the word processor: single spaced.  More than anything, it's a way to get a little more writing :-) 

 

Happily, your question reminds me that sometime in the past couple months we've gotten past that point with my 9th grader of needing to push him all the time to write more.  I think we got to that point by consistently asking for weekly writing as well as having DS write for someone besides me.  I think it was mostly just the consistent practice, but both helped.  We're getting toward that point where DS is recognizing that two pages isn't necessarily that much space to put together a well-supported argument, so it's not such a struggle anymore.  We're not there yet, but I feel like we're getting there. 

 

The type of material assigned matters a lot too.  A 10-page descriptive narrative is far easier IMO than a 10-page research paper.  My DS can do the former on his own, but not the latter.

 

I think your question was geared toward getting more content out of your DC, but there's also the issue of writing for an outside party.  There, I think you really need to ask: does it mean double spaced? MLA format, etc.

 

I'd be interested to hear others' perspectives too.

 

P.S. Most, if not all, word processors have a word count feature.  I'd use that for word count.

Edited May 21, 2016 by Brad S

[Penguin]

Brad S,

 

Thanks for your reply. Just to clarify, my query is not actually based on needing to get more content out of my DS. However, I do like to compare his output to what other WTMers are doing, just to make sure we are not slacking :)

 

But your reply confirmed my thoughts - that when I read page count, I should know that there is not a standard interpretation. I automatically visualize double spacing, because that is what we use.

Edited May 21, 2016 by Penguin

[Brad S]

Penguin, I wouldn't take my page count as standard unless others confirm.  My DS hates to use much paper (not a fun thing for me trying to read his math steps!), so he wouldn't want to print out a double-spaced page.  I also usually make comments using the "track changes" type of feature on the word processor, so we usually don't even print out writing assignments unless it needs major reordering of text.

[Penguin]

We rarely print them out, either. Yet another reason why I only have a fuzzy idea of what page count means!

Edited May 21, 2016 by Penguin

[EKS]

A page of double spaced 12 point text generally comes out to be between 250-300 words.  Times New Roman is frequently specified by teachers, and it is on the smaller side, so a page of text with it is about 300 words. 

 

I find it frustrating how frequently it is not mentioned what a "page" means.  Especially by teachers assigning written work!

Edited May 21, 2016 by EKS

[EKS]

The type of material assigned matters a lot too.  A 10-page descriptive narrative is far easier IMO than a 10-page research paper.  My DS can do the former on his own, but not the latter.

 

Absolutely!  And I think this is why a lot of teachers seem to gravitate towards assigning personal essays.  Students have a much easier time with them, not just in terms of having enough to say, but also in terms of how they say it.  There was actually a study about this phenomenon that was mentioned in Engaging Ideas:

 

Sixty developmental writers who could produce error free prose when writing descriptions or personal narratives were given a simple academic task requiring the analysis of new information.  Almost all of the students, reports Schwalm, "experienced partial or total linguistic collapse...Grammatical, lexical, and syntactic skills that they seemed to have mastered disintegrated.  The papers were nearly incomprehensible...Their skills developed in personal writing, especially sentence level skills, were not adequate to simple academic writing tasks."

 

You can find the Schwalm paper here: http://www.jstor.org/stable/377165?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

 

I know I have seen this over and over with my own students.  So much so that I use how well they write about a topic as an indicator of how well they understand it.