Word counts ... my rant!!!

I have a rational dislike, of word counts – some would probably describe it as a hatred. While they are an assessment tool, they often send the wrong signals, both to markers and students alike. Equally, I am not a particular fan of essays, this was long before GenAI presented an additional academic challenge. Essays questions are easy to write yet take so long to mark.

My acerbic view regarding word counts, takes many forms:

• First, they are simply a guide, telling the student when to stop waffling at us. The lower the word count the better, as this forces the student to be focussed, and consider what they are contributing. However, so many see this as a target – then, you have percentages over, under or around, which when seen harshes my mellow.
• Second – this is a licence to increase the workload of the poor marker. I often see word counts of 1000+, 2000+ words for a technical subject. What are you planning to do, bore the network infrastructure to death, rather than prove how competent you are regarding its implementation and configuration. The more verbose a contribution, the harder it is to mark …
• Third and the most essential – the excitement word counts generate, how both students and markers suddenly find different ways to divine different rules, regulations and requirements entirely unintended. Then, there is every attempt to pad the essay, with tables, bullets, figures, and to be honest who knows what – as they see the word count as one of the most essential marking rubrics. Often forgetting, that we want to mark the quality of their clever words, not the quantity.

Word counts can be used as an equivalency – e.g. we can use them to state how much work a student must do. Then, use alternate means to assess the students. For example, if a module wanted 3000 words, this could be a mixture of theory (exam), practical and an essay. Let us assume that each artifact is worth 1000 words, the net result is the student only needs to produce a body of waffle that is 1000 words, the rest is done via the vocational practice, and relevance that equates to the topic at hand (unless of course, the degree focusses on English Literature, then – my argument is meaningless).

In recent years, I encountered one centre that decided each learning outcome was worth 1000 words – I helped them understand that this was ‘tosh and piffle’. Learning outcomes support the subject, an academic activity could cross all learning outcomes and be worth more, less or different. Again, this was an example of how these darned things have helped undermine academic development and opportunity, especially in technical practice-based disciplines.

If you are wondering – I dislike word counts!

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