I Broke His Brain (long-tastic)...

[RedRoseSpiral]

I purposely got into English classes in high school that I knew the teacher wouldn't have us turn in a rough draft. I've literally had my parent's call the school to pull me out of a class and put into another because I didn't want to waste my time putting errors into a paper when I could get it perfect on the first try.

[Kristev]

Man, when I was in college, and high school, I was able to come up with a 10 page paper within two days. Complete with some measure of sources and a bibliography.

The funnest one was when I did one on the Elusinian mysteries.

[DeltaSierra]

7-10 page? I could do that in my sleep while in high school. Mind you I LOVED writing (and still do.) Longest paper I can remember writing was a research project for my cultural antrhopology class when I was a Junior in college, it was 62 pages long.

[Hyndis]

Double spaced is cheating. I write single spaced. In 10pt font!

Its very easy to make anything be long if you up the font size, and double spacing it just makes the paper be twice as long.

[LillFilly]

You were really nice to give him the extra time; did you get the rest of those student's papers too, or did the whole dozen get a 10% mark-down?

[Whiskey]

7 to 10 pages you say? I snow-jobbed lengthier papers than that in high school.

Im with irving. I can bullshit up to 10 pages, around 15 i might have to do some legitimate work. This kid isn't going to make it in the military if he cant even bullshit through one 7 page paper.

Its very easy to make anything be long if you up the font size, and double spacing it just makes the paper be twice as long.

Professors caught onto this long ago. If any of my papers arent in 12pt Times New Roman, double spaced, I get marked down.

I'm apparently the bane of all English teachers. The No Drafter.

I wish teachers wouldn't challenge students like us. it doesnt help. I had a english prof specifically tell me he could spot a bullshit paper or a first draft "final paper" on sight.

Funny, I didn't get less than a B on any of my first draft final papers or my bs.

[fireheart]

Professors caught onto this long ago. If any of my papers arent in 12pt Times New Roman, double spaced, I get marked down.

My profs really don't care about the font, as long as it's 10-12pt they're happy. I use the default for my essays (which is Calibri or Arial)

[Whiskey]

My profs really don't care about the font, as long as it's 10-12pt they're happy. I use the default for my essays (which is Calibri or Arial)

If I was a prof I'd require a certain font because you know you'd get a 15 page paper in comic sans.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Fer Chrissakes, my junior-year expository writing final paper was a 12-or-13 page (IIRC) paper on alternative rock music.

It was easy. All I did was choose a topic I was interested in. That way research was enjoyable instead of a chore, and I could do more of it than was actually needed.

[Whiskey]

Fer Chrissakes, my junior-year expository writing final paper was a 12-or-13 page (IIRC) paper on alternative rock music.

It was easy. All I did was choose a topic I was interested in. That way research was enjoyable instead of a chore, and I could do more of it than was actually needed.

not all teachers let you do this, although if you get creative you can find something. My english prof had a themed class (death to themed classes) and we had to write our final on an aspect of war.

I ended up writing about post traumatic stress and the morality of a new drug they're developing that blocks the brain from forming long-term memory. Theres always an interesting facet to something youre not interested in.

[Sapphire Silk]

Double spaced is cheating. I write single spaced. In 10pt font!

Its very easy to make anything be long if you up the font size, and double spacing it just makes the paper be twice as long.

Double spaced, 12 point font is correct APA format, which is why I require my students to use it.

I've done the "play with the font size" thing to make a paper seem longer, in cases when it was page count and not word count that mattered.

However, I've written so many 20 page papers when I was a history undergrad (I have two degrees, for those of you who know I'm a nurse) that I find 3 pages is just not enough room to get my point across.

Then there was my master's thesis: 150 pages of Civil War fun I actually enjoyed writing it because the vast majority of what I wrote about came from primary sources (letters, government reports, news articles, etc) that no one had seen or touched in 125 years.

Writing doesn't have to be a chore.

[LingualMonkey]

Double spaced, 12 point font is correct APA format, which is why I require my students to use it.

Yep. That. Same reason I require it. I require Times New Roman because it standardizes things. As others have suggested, 12-point TNR is very different from 12-point Courier.

I warn my students against playing with font size/spacing/etc. My wife is a graphic designer specializing in print production. We have rulers that measure in point size, and she can type spec TNR and about 100 other fonts by sight (as in, looking at a menu, "This is 11-point Arial scaled to 95% and bolded, and they've done something to the kerning").

The longest thing I've written for school was a 65-page reconstruction of Proto-Micronesian based on modern versions of Mokilese, Yapese, Woleaian, and Ponapeian for my historical linguistics class.

[skeptic53]

Bosco was right out of high school, maybe 5’6” and 90 pounds soakin’ wet. ... Not 5 minutes after I got off the phone with him, he’s posted that he wants to join the military.

This reminds me of several summers ago during sports physical insanity week. I had 3 freshman kids in for SPE's in a row. The first two were built like Bosco. I asked them "What sport are you going out for?" They each answered "football". "What position are you hoping to play?" Each said "Linebacker!". Third guy was 6' 2", 200 lbs (188 cm, 90 kg). "What sport are you going out for?" "Golf". The football coach must have been crying in his beer...

[Magpie]

- WordPerfect had a menu option called "Make it Fit Expert"; it adjusted font size, spacing, and margins by tiny amounts that nobody would be able to spot just by looking. I'm pretty sure this option was created JUST for this use. :-)

My grade 12 physics teacher must have been used to that, he warned us he would use a ruler to check margins and font size. Then again, we had a 4 page limit (I think that included references). I don't blame him for being worried about people trying to shrink the margins.

That out of the way... I'm apparently the bane of all English teachers. The No Drafter. When asked to turn in a first draft, I actually write the entire paper, proof it, ready it to be turned in... and then save it and add some mistakes that are easy to catch but not too bad, a more major one to make the teacher feel good, and maybe leave a couple of obscure grammatical points in to see if they're paying attention.

Programming course. One of the guys in my project group had, for a while, as an msn status "I think my pseudo-code compiles". Fortunately he wrote easy-to-understand code. (The pseudo-code is closer to the equivalent of being asked for an outline, not a first draft.)

And for everyone else who hates writing essays: you can get through university and never have to take an English course. I probably could have made it through without having to write any real papers, but that would have been more boring. (And honestly, the "no, only the one source I told you to use" papers are more annoying than regular ones.)

[Eisa]

Really? Here, we have to take 3 English classes. I ended up getting out of all of them from a combination of AP scores and ACT scores [basically, like I tested out AND got credit ]...but yeah. They're required for all majors.