I'm about done with the first draft of my paper, which I'm writing about Elizabethan patronage of Shakespeare's plays as an indirect vehicle for censorship, and I've been a little bit surprised by the hardest aspect of this paper for me: keeping it short.
Papers that are 15-20 pages in length are pretty standard for my majors and my place in them. Final papers are often a bit longer, and econometric analyses or behavioral experiments can have lots of appendices that really add to the stack. Last week, I turned in an econometrics paper that was a new record for me: 76 pages. (That's a lot of money for printing.) So keeping this paper to a measly three or four pages has been a bit different.
I've noticed that I have needed to scale back my writing style and leave out some pieces of the logical progression between thoughts, or at least to simplify the overall argument. I've also found myself citing fewer sources and providing less evidence for my argument. It's a weird feeling.
Not that I'm complaining.
I hear you. At least we don't have to chisel it in stone or anything though. It has been a good exercise for me in keeping it concise.
ReplyDeleteWhat's your major again?
Political Science and Economics
ReplyDeleteAh... I understand. Good luck
ReplyDelete