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iterateoftentoday at 7:13 PM1 replyview on HN

It’s easier to judge an objective output like number of words than subjective like quality.

Same as lines of code, etc.


Replies

abathurtoday at 7:55 PM

I guess, but have you actually encountered a teacher grading an assignment solely based on word count?

I certainly wish more teachers encouraged parsimony and penalized fluff and bullshittery, but I'd be surprised to find them doing it outside of some narrow cases where the point is just to make you write something at all.

Tthey generally want to encourage their students to engage with the topic at a certain level and practice the thinking needed to research, structure, and implement an argument of a certain length. They want you to put at least 5 pounds of idea in the 5-10 pound idea bag.

If you're convinced you've hacked word economy and satisfied the assignment except for this goshdarnpeskyminimumwordcount, you're probably misunderstanding the lesson the instructor is willing to read through a bunch of bad writing to impart and cheating yourself.

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