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How to Write a Short Essay: How Short? Why Short? Who Needs It?
What is a short essay?
A short essay is a brief academic paper written by students at schools, colleges, and universities. The only thing that differentiates short essays from ordinary essays is the word limit that teachers establish for students to keep to while writing a paper.
How short are those short essays?
Traditionally, short essays have varied word limits that depend upon the requirements of every particular school and/or teacher. The word limit might be 50 words for probably the shortest essays, and about 500 words for the longest short essays. However, there is a standard that short essays should all be about 300 words on the average. This rule is not written in any manual, but the majority of colleges and universities adopt this standard word limit for short essays.
Why are short essays so short?
The main reason for short essays to be so short is the idea that short essays allow the teachers to check students’ knowledge quickly but effectively. There is a belief that a 300 word-paper is enough to show how well a student has mastered the plot of the course. At the same time, checking such a short essay for mistakes requires far less time than reading a 10-page essay.
Who needs short essays?
The sphere where short essays are used is rather wide, although it is limited to education only. Thus, short essays are written by school, college, and university students. Whether a student is taking a college course or is studying for a PhD Degree, he/she might still be assigned a task of writing a short essay, which is a universal means of quick knowledge quiz.
