Something that always really bugged me in school (this includes college) was the concept of the “length requirement.” Papers always had to be at least 3 pages, at least 5 pages, at least 10 pages…etc. This frustrated the hell out of me because I was usually able to say what I needed to say in under 3, 5, or 10 pages, and then had to go back and waffle about adding synonyms where they really weren’t needed (“he was angry, mad and furious”). I was an expert on using Microsoft Word to adjust the spacing between letters, the spacing between words, and the margins to eke out as many pages as I could, to get as close as possible to the stupid length requirement. However, I was not the kind of student to balk at handing in a 9 page paper when the minimum length was 10, and I can’t recall ever being penalized for it (by a teacher whose grading system had enough thought behind it for them not to have to resort to counting pages to come up with a grade).
When you get to the real world, there are no length requirements. In fact, it’s the opposite—it’s a much more valuable skill to be able to say what you need to say in as few words as possible. Nobody has the attention span to read four pages when a paragraph will do. I only ever had one teacher who valued concision: my junior year of high school, I took a poetry class. One of our first assignments of the year was to write a poem. The next day, we were assigned to count the words in that poem and to cross out exactly 30% of them. The day after that we were instructed to type up the original and the new version and we all read each other’s poems. Every single one of them was much improved by the hearty slashing we gave them.
Anyway, you may be wondering where I’m going with this. The answer: Twitter. Twitter is where I’m going with this. Today, I took some marketing advice and joined Twitter. I have to say, despite the ridiculousness surrounding it, the 140-character limit kind of appeals to me. 🙂
