Why The Page Count?

One page. Single Spaced. Times New Roman. 10 is the smallest font size. Half inch margins.

This is what stood out to me in a writing prompt I got in grad school. It was bizarre. It amounted to about 1000 or so words, which, for an English graduate student expected to spew an analysis every time they’re asked a question, is hard. Why write three pages when I could write five, or fifteen?

I encountered a similar issue as an instructor. Each essay was required to have a minimum number of pages. No students confronted me about it, but I'm sure they wondered why they needed to have an exact number of pages filled, then I started noticing something. Those that turned in shorter essays, even if it was just a half page or so short, never wrote as detailed as they were supposed to. There were also those that were long enough or longer that still rambled, but I cannot remember a single essay that came beneath the minimum and did everything that it was supposed to. I've even assigned essays that were too short – a horde of 3 page essays that were never quite up to par while the few 4 pages ones were. I'm not going to fault my students for a mistake that I made, but it taught me an interesting lesson: required page lengths are anything but arbitrary.

An experienced instructor will have a strong enough grasp of the requirements and expectations. They know how much writing will meet those requirements. I had another professor who required a 15 page essay. 14 wouldn't cut it. 16 was too long. The assignment had other parameters, but most of all, could we, as grad students, write an essay that met the research, intellectual, and structural requirements and keep it all within 15 pages. It was hard for me. Just like the one page, single spaced one mentioned above.

Reflecting on both these assignments, I learned the same lessons: be detailed enough to meet the rigor and detail required, and be economical enough to say it as clearly and succinctly as possible.

There are other factors that go into it as well, especially as you move into the professional world. Maybe a magazine or newspaper won't take your 10 page treatise because they only have 30 pages that they can fill and have a dozen contributors that they have to put in there. But then why 30 pages? Why not 40? Costs of printing, distribution, and storage can lead to that number. Somewhere in every major publishing house there's an accountant who knows by heart how much every page costs at every phase of production, distribution, and marketing.

For every page length specification given, there are numerous factors – educational, practical, financial – that were taken into consideration before that number was given. If 2 pages will do, you'll be assigned 2 pages. If the work requires 5 pages of material, and the research and exploration that it entails, then you'll be assigned 5 pages.

As a last note, don't expect meeting, or exceeding, the page length of any assignment will guarantee a great score. I've seen six pages when five were assigned and thought “You could have cut this down.” You can always fill pages with building slippage or even repeat yourself. The point isn't to fill the pages, after all: it is to express yourself as well as you can, in enough detail, and to a sufficient extent. Rarely is the page length truly the minimum: it's an optimum.