Thoughts on writing lengths
When I was in middle and high school, and even in college, instructors gave minimum requirements for how long a written paper or oral presentation must be to receive credit. For example, 500 words, 3 pages or 5 minutes were typical.
The longer paper or presentation was often seen as more valuable because it implied there was greater effort in completing the assignment.
Now being in the workforce I see the opposite. There is much value in concise communication.
Employees, myself included, don't necessarily want more words to read or listen to because we all have our own tasks to work on.
Do you see the disconnect here? We were trained to produce quantity but in the workforce what is truly desired is quality.
...but y tho?
Not long ago the internet wasn't as robust as it is today and people needed to access something physical to get the information they needed. Therefore brick and mortar libraries, physical phonebooks, physical dictionaries and physical maps where invaluable resources.
Since physical communications were the way to go, having all the information in one place meant no need to search elsewhere for the desired information. I think this is in part why historically there is an emphasis quantity.
However, there are plenty of issues with physical resources and they boil down to access.
Sure, the desired info could be in a book in some library but that does not mean everyone access the library.
Thankfully the internet solves the access problem because everyday information is made available for anyone with a device. And the number of ways to access that information is increasing with every day.
TG4SE (Thank God for Search Engines)
Today, if we want to learn about a particular topic we can just pull up our favorite search engine (Google, YouTube, Instagram etc.) and find out about it quickly and get the info that we want quickly from it. So much of the research element has been taken out of the equation.
Since there's so much more information to sift through quickly we don't need to, nor do we want, to spend a lot of time trying to find the information.
Because of endless choices, today we value getting the RIGHT information QUICKLY instead of just having more information. We want it quick and short so that move on with our lives.
I don't blame this approach because nowadays there is SO much information and means to choose it from. To spend the same amount of energy and time to find information that we did years ago would be just ridiculous.
So what of it?
Now back to the schools. What do I say about it? Well I definitely don't believe being able to write or say 'more' is the way to go. So I don't necessarily agree with the traditional word/page counts and time limit minimums.
I think quantity requirements should have a here a range depending on the assignment.
Students should be taught how to communicate ideas clearly with as much detail needed to accomplish a goal. This can be done by giving a generous range (e.g., 300-1000 words, 3-7 pages, 2-10 minutes) and having clear requirements that the student should meet.
This approach frees students from focusing on quantity and lets them focus on the quality of their communication. And honestly, if they meet the requirements and are able to communicate the ideas concisely, it demonstrates they have a greater understanding for the topic 😉.