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[alway]

I don't see how even half a page extra would kill them.

Consider the writing quality of the average college student's essay; would you want to read any more of that than absolutely necessary?

Alternatively, the short length may be one of the main points of the exercise. It's a rhetoric course, not a writing course, and as such the opinions and arguments should be as concise as can be. An argument which makes people say 'tldr' isn't a good argument, from a persuasion point of view, for obvious reasons.

[Barbarossa TSG]

I've never taken a rhetoric course, my opinions came from writing courses involving such assignments.

[Bohandas]

one-page "essay" assignments in my introductory rhetoric course, where we're apparently supposed to constrict an entire argument into one paragraph, and an entire close reading into another.  This is stupid.   Fifty pages and the thread and the justifications and all those movements are not going to fit in one paragraph.  There is no point in writing out a close reading of a little tiny passage in one paragraph.  It is just not happening.  "Boy, Hobbes hates Aristotle a lot!"  No, that is frankly... it's stupid.

I 100% agree with your opinion of one-page summaries. They can't honestly expect you to put all of your thoughts down in that much space. It's mainly annoying to me because the professor is usually just trying to cut back their workload. I don't see how even half a page extra would kill them.

This is the opposite of the problem that I usually had with essays. Usually the required length was much greater than the number of meaningful and relevant things there were to say.

As for what you're summarizing, and the problem of summarizing a 50 page argument on one page, I personally have come to believe that the reason that most books, treatises, etc (such as whatever you're summarizing, probably) are as long as they are, is simply due to padding intended to prevent people from getting the impression that they are "paying mostly for the cover"

In practical terms, if you reallyu need more space for your one page report, check the assignment to see if the professor has specifically stated that you cannot use "legal sized" sheets of paper. If there is no such restriction, then this can buy you an extra three inches to work with (assuming that your printer supports this antiquated format).

[Barbarossa TSG]

Eh, it depends on the essay. One page to summarize a short story about a man and his conversation with a tortoise, sure. One page to summarize The Odyssey and all the messages that sends? Not so much. Both of these were actual assignments.

[Bohandas]

Eh, it depends on the essay. One page to summarize a short story about a man and his conversation with a tortoise, sure. One page to summarize The Odyssey and all the messages that sends? Not so much. Both of these were actual assignments.

Wikipedia does it in four pages, one of which is mainly illustrations and all of which include many details which are not strictly essential. It could probably be trimmed down to a single legal sized page.

As for its message, in all sincerity its main message seems to be "don't fuck with Poseidon", with an additional subtext about golddiggers getting what's coming to them.

[MaximumZero]

From the TvTropes Laconic page: "Odysseus tries to get home from the Trojan War. This takes ten years."

[Bauglir]

It depends on what you mean, I guess. You could include all sorts of discussion about the virtues promoted by the Odyssey as worthy, for instance the message that fate is ultimately more important than any human effort and a good life is a result of the gods' blessings rather than any inherent worth you might have as a person. You can get a summary of broad strokes of events and a very vague thesis in that length, no problem. That's why, anyway, I said it's hard to have anything meaningful (worth writing) and complete (with support, and appropriately constrained in scope).

[Scaraban]

As for its message, in all sincerity its main message seems to be "don't fuck with Poseidon", with an additional subtext about golddiggers getting what's coming to them.

Sigged. Give me a minute.

[Pnx]

one-page "essay" assignments in my introductory rhetoric course, where we're apparently supposed to constrict an entire argument into one paragraph, and an entire close reading into another.  This is stupid.   Fifty pages and the thread and the justifications and all those movements are not going to fit in one paragraph.  There is no point in writing out a close reading of a little tiny passage in one paragraph.  It is just not happening.  "Boy, Hobbes hates Aristotle a lot!"  No, that is frankly... it's stupid.

I 100% agree with your opinion of one-page summaries. They can't honestly expect you to put all of your thoughts down in that much space. It's mainly annoying to me because the professor is usually just trying to cut back their workload. I don't see how even half a page extra would kill them.

Back when I was first writing essays, I had a lot of trouble making them long enough. Usually I had said everything I felt there was to say about the subject before I'd even reached a single page (usually it was supposed to be 2 pages).
My English teacher told me that what I said was usually knowledgeable and insightful, but I needed to learn to bullshit more, and that an essay just needs to make you sound like you know your shit.
Heck, that's the entire point of an essay, to "prove" you know what you're talking about. They don't have to contain any insightful information, just make it sound like you've put a lot of thought into this. Which is generally what you should be aiming for...
I've always hated that... I never actually got good at writing essays.

Heck, this took me 45 minutes to write. I've never been good at getting my thoughts together on paper... But I try.

[Scaraban]

I always click Pnx's spoiler-signature thinking that THIS TIME! This would be the time it's not whatever that is, and now, as always, I am dissappoint.

[Bauglir]

Hrm, you know, that's a good point. It depends on what you're being asked to write for, I suppose. If you're supposed to demonstrate original thought or make a point, it's hard to fit it into 1 page. If you're just summarizing to demonstrate that you know what you're talking about and probably could make a point if you needed to, then for a sufficiently high degree of acceptable data loss you can cram pretty much anything into a paragraph. For me, I always try to demonstrate some original thought if I care in any way about the topic, because often I'll have had one (well, original in that I synthesized it from what I read, rather than having been told it; I doubt if I have any genuinely new thoughts) and want to discuss it. Writing the equivalent of copypasting Sparknotes just feels... wrong to me.

In this post, personal opinions out the wazoo

[Vector]

I got in trouble because they asked me to provide something problematic, and I talked about the problematic assumption that speech makes humanity, and the ramifications of such.

Apparently they didn't mean "problematic" in that way.


I've got plenty to talk about.  I've pretty much never had trouble coming up with an essay subject or having all sorts of kick-ass ideas.  I'm just not fond of "explaining arguments," because I've never understood it.  A good argument is an explanation.  Double-explanation is complete overkill.

Pfaugh.

[Barbarossa TSG]

From the TvTropes Laconic page: "Odysseus tries to get home from the Trojan War. This takes ten years."

for a sufficiently high degree of acceptable data loss

Hence the problem. Summarizing it without dropping important story chunks is the hard part. Anything can be summarized in a sentence.

Go ahead, name a story.

The emperor's bastard man-child is a beautiful asshat and everybody loves him until he dies a comfortable death of old age.

[Frumple]

In practical terms, if you reallyu need more space for your one page report, check the assignment to see if the professor has specifically stated that you cannot use "legal sized" sheets of paper. If there is no such restriction, then this can buy you an extra three inches to work with (assuming that your printer supports this antiquated format).

HA! Sorry, I just get this mental image of a student walking in with a scroll or something about 50 feet long. "But teacher, you only said one page! You didn't say how large the page could be!"

Seriously, though, if the teacher doesn't give a base format in the syllabus, it's their own damn fault when a student told to be concise comes in with a piece of paper larger than one of the classroom walls.

E: Incidentally, I'd love to watch that happen.

Apparently they didn't mean "problematic" in that way.

I've had that happen a few times. After about the third incident, I started double checking with the teacher about meaning before attempting the assignment

[Realmfighter]

Hence the problem. Summarizing it without dropping important story chunks is the hard part. Anything can be summarized in a sentence.

But...

If you're worried about dropping important details, where do you draw the line at acceptable losses?

Would a 4 page compression of a 500 page book be more acceptable then 1 page?