When you want to make your essay seem longer...

[EpsilonX]

Do you prefer to make the font size slightly bigger, or make the margins slightly narrower? Typically increasing the font size by between .5 and 1 makes the paper longer without being too noticable, or increasing the margins by a very small amount works too. Or do you do a combination of the two? Or some other methods, such as making the periods bigger, having the spaces between lines slightly bigger (2.1 instead of double spaced) or inserting 3 spaces after a period instead of two?

Personally, I like to use Arial font size 12, which is bigger than Times New Roman 12, and the teachers don't care because Arial is a standard font. I've also increased the size of the punctuation marks and used 3 spaces instead of 2 after periods.

[Dess]

My teachers don't fall of that stuff... and most of my papers are based on word count... so...

I make sure ALL of my contractions are written out like instead of saying "I've" I'll say "I have"... and I'm really good at making one word into a phrase to increase my word count.

[insert_cliche_here]

What about word count? Lol.
Shouldn't contractions always be written out in academic writing?

[jango]

I just got a mental image of your essays Epsi .. 4 words on a side of A4 with MASSIVE spaces between them. Now that would take balls to hand in hehe.

[Dess]

they should. but you'd be surprised how many people in my school overlook that.. including teachers.

[insert_cliche_here]

they should. but you'd be surprised how many people in my school overlook that.. including teachers.

Damn. Teachers should probably know that sort of stuff lol

[HamadaLFC8]

Use as many words as possible :P

[LiNuX]

I just repeat stuff...or give another example even if I gave like 5 examples in the last paragraph. Seems to work for me.

But larger font and narrower margins don't usually work for me - more often than not, we email our professors the papers so they'll know what font you're using, font size, margins, etc.

[Muffincat]

I don't fake my essay length :)

I mean, I went to school for Literature, so they actually cared about these things - and, yes, they would notice if you did things to make your essay seem longer than it actually was. And, yes, the people who graded my papers did care about contractions o_O

If you're not at a specified word count/length, then write more (without being repetitive or useless). Usually my teachers didn't care if you were somewhat under the requirements (though there was usually a range; for example, 6-8 pages or something, and it's usually good to get within it) if you wrote a good enough paper. I'd written plenty of papers with the minimum length and no one ever cared.

They would care if, say, they were grading the papers, and come across yours - which looks drastically different than the 20 other papers they just graded - and roll their eyes at the obviousness of what you're doing o_o

If you didn't write the required length, then own up to it and don't use silly tricks to "cover it up" (which don't usually work). The teachers I had would definitely have preferred a minimum length paper than one that pretended to be longer than it was. Most teachers have taught for a while, and seen all the "tricks" in the book. You probably aren't doing anything they haven't seen before.

*shrug*

[Jokersvirus]

I personal just BS some of it, I add in information that is related but not really needed to help my paper.

Like right now I have to write a 5 page paper on my Management style for a class Im going to throw in my own alot of my own thoughts and opinions and crap about my major to help move it along :P

[Dess]

I just repeat stuff...or give another example even if I gave like 5 examples in the last paragraph. Seems to work for me.

But larger font and narrower margins don't usually work for me - more often than not, we email our professors the papers so they'll know what font you're using, font size, margins, etc.

I do that too.

And what Joker does.... just kinda wing it.

I've mastered the art of word vomit....

[EpsilonX]

I suck at word vomit. I suppose I could list example upon example upon example upon example, but I just...dont wanna. My favorite I think was to make the period at the end of each sentence a little bigger. Almost impossible to notice, and it added an extra line or 2 to your essay. Not much, but eh.

[RecreationalGamer]

Typically increasing the font size by between .5 and 1 makes the paper longer without being too noticable, or increasing the margins by a very small amount works too.

:)

Respectively, I must add to this thread that most qualified teachers/professors know the difference between Arial 10 and Arial 10.5, or increased margins. These types of differences may work for less-qualified teachers, but you're really pushing it if you're dealing with highly-qualified professors and the like.

Maybe a community college professor might not notice or care enough to correct such trite differences, but I would think *eh hem* that the professionals of the institution would do their mandatory duty and correct such flaws.

But, nonetheless, we've all been there...doing whatever we can to further increase the size of our papers...

Don't forget about Word's thesaurus. Oh yeah...that's a hoot. A student comes in with a paper that has been marginally modified in font size with a sentence that reads: "Declaring war on Iraq was odds-on the cause of our nation's pecuniary destruction."

Odds-on? Pecuniary? Oh...those are "synonyms" for probably and financial. Hahaha! Lower grade...oh...look, the font size is slightly bigger than THE FONT SIZE ON SUZY-WHO-JUST-GOT-AN-A-PLUS's paper. LOL!

^_^

You see where I'm going with this?

[EpsilonX]

Lol I was talking about like high school, when you had to write 3 pages about something you absolutely don't care about.

[RecreationalGamer]

Lol

Another good one. Start your paper with a joke like, "Why did the Jews cross the road? Why? To get on the other side...get it?" And then because you think it's so funny you can then add a long streak of laughter, such as "Lololololololololololololololololololololololololo lolol," at which point your professor and/or high school teacher will probably be rolling on the floor.

Sometimes cool teachers will give you a grade that says "LOL+"

[EpsilonX]

.......that's the stupidest thing i've ever read. >.<

[ROFLBRYCE]

I spell out contractions, don't use abbreviations, use size 12 Arial, slightly narrower margins, spell out number contractions, if used, (11th -> eleventh) and add as much content as I can. After each paragraph of 7-8 senteces, I do a brief 1-2 sentence review on what the entire paragraph was about.

[LiNuX]

My favorite I think was to make the period at the end of each sentence a little bigger. Almost impossible to notice, and it added an extra line or 2 to your essay. Not much, but eh.

Some of my professors figured that out too. And the ones that accept only emailed papers, some of them actually check..or that's what they tell us.

I know plenty of people who do that but I've never done it. I just...write more.




I've mastered the art of word vomit....

So have I.

And I gotta write a 10 page paper by the time the night is over. The hardest part imo is starting the paper. once you get the ball rolling, I can write more and more without paying attention to how much I've written.

[Metallica1983]

two simple words repeat yourself repeat yourself lol

[RecreationalGamer]

.......that's the stupidest thing i've ever read. >.<

Yeah, sorry i'm cracked out on Fable III right now, everything is random that's coming out of my head lol

[Dess]

The hardest part imo is starting the paper. once you get the ball rolling, I can write more and more without paying attention to how much I've written.

Yeah that's the hardest part for me too... Once I actually get motivated to start writing I can crank out a paper pretty fast. I've written so many of them while talking in IRC that it isn't even funny anymore... lol.


Our teachers have a proof reader, and a plagiarism checker they use. They're available to us to check our work, but I honestly think they just send them through there without even reading most of our papers. The proof reader catches most of the contractions and stuff like that.. it's actually pretty damn useful, but yeah... if you knew some of the people in my class... you'd see why they grade so loosely. I'm trying to transfer out... I'm sitting pretty with a 3.85 when most of the work I've turned in should have gotten me no better than a C.

[RaiDae]

First; HAHAHAHAHAHA I've only got one essay to write this whole semester hahaha (yay for practical subjects - lab reports instead. But tbh... they can get quite hard :S)

Secondly; Seem longer?!!? i spent high school perfecting making it look as if i'd written less... We always do things by word counts. It must be over the minumim but less than the max. I was nearly always over the max... for a 1,500 word essay I remebering doing 3700 words.... It took me longer to shorten the essay than it took to write it.

thirdly; Add in more waffle. Waffle about things related. Keep waffling. Don't stop waffling till you think that looks like quite a good waffle.

lastly; it's quality not quantity. :)

[Dess]

First; HAHAHAHAHAHA I've only got one essay to write this whole semester hahaha (yay for practical subjects - lab reports instead. But tbh... they can get quite hard :S)

Secondly; Seem longer?!!? i spent high school perfecting making it look as if i'd written less... We always do things by word counts. It must be over the minumim but less than the max. I was nearly always over the max... for a 1,500 word essay I remebering doing 3700 words.... It took me longer to shorten the essay than it took to write it.

thirdly; Add in more waffle. Waffle about things related. Keep waffling. Don't stop waffling till you think that looks like quite a good waffle.

lastly; it's quality not quantity. :)

Funny you mention "waffling"... I wrote an entire paragraph on pancakes in the middle of an essay once... I got bonus points. But again... That was from the same teacher who let me bring Guitar Hero to class and counted it as our final... If you didn't participate, you got a 0. :P ( he was playing on expert times 3 speed the entire time and is by far the COOLEST teacher EVER, he pwned me at Reach a few weeks ago... Lol )

[Diligence109]

on contractions - there are professors that care about those o.o in college, at least. I could see it sneaking past high school profs here and there no problem

In high school, there were totally some papers I faked with some 12pt Arial and margins I bumped in about .1". The story changed completely at college...




Usually my teachers didn't care if you were somewhat under the requirements (though there was usually a range; for example, 6-8 pages or something, and it's usually good to get within it) if you wrote a good enough paper. I'd written plenty of papers with the minimum length and no one ever cared.


I've written good papers under the limit and gotten good grades because the paper filled out what it was expected to in fewer words. The professor even preferred it this way; that I write a paper that was actually good while not letting the guideline of a page limit force me into trashing the paper with bull****.

But it wouldn't be surprising if the story sang a different tune when you moved from high school to community college to private college to university with notoriously prestigious writing program...