Seems like cheating, but it's within the MLA guidelines

[dirtboy]

I have a 8-12 page rough draft due Sunday for a research paper I'm writing. I was getting stuck at 6.5 pages and running out of material, so I was worried that I wouldn't meet the minimum page requirement. It didn't help much that my writing partners both exceeded 8 pages, even though the first rough draft had to be a minimum of 5 pages.

The discrepancy: I used 12pt Times New Roman, one of them used 12pt Courier New and the other 12pt Arial.

A quick check to my MLA handbook shows that I can use either 10-12pt Times New Roman or Courier New.

Results:
6.5 pages at 12pt Times New Roman = 8 pages at 12pt Courier New.

This seems like cheating to me, but it works! hahaha...time to slap on a conclusion and finish this baby up!

 

[GhettoFob]

You just figured this out?

 

[Deeko]

Wanna know how to cheat in a way your teacher won't see 99% of the time? Increase the spacing between characters...not alot, maybe .15 or .2pt....virtually unnoticable, and can add a good 15% or so to the length of your paper.

 

[dirtboy]

Originally posted by: GhettoFob
You just figured this out?

Yea.

Then again, this is my fourth, and hopefully final, attempt at finishing college.

So it's not like I can ask my dormmate or anyone, because my friends are all done with school, about what cheating bastard techniques work the best.

 

[Jmmsbnd007]

Haha, nice, .15 pt increase in spacing and courier.

 

[Dufman]

most teachers know the courier new trick, and will make you change it, its better off doing the work now, and getting it done, rather to go back and have to add more

 

[dirtboy]

Originally posted by: amdmang
most teachers know the courier new trick, and will make you change it, its better off doing the work now, and getting it done, rather to go back and have to add more

It's no trick. It's in the MLA handbook I have. I'll be more than happy to argue with her about it. She made the rules and I'm just following them...

 

[geekender]

Seems like your teacher should know that writing a paper should be like picking out a woman's skirt.......short enough to keep it interesting but long enough to cover the topic.

It makes no sense to assign a page length or word requirement. I always assign the subject and it is either done completely or it is not. Simple as that. You know whether or not you put together quality work.

 

[Kenazo]

If you teacher is dumb enough to assign length by pages instead of words then go ahead. I can't believe it took you this long to find this out...I could never bring myself to do it because that has to be one of the ugliest fonts out there. If your goal in writing a paper is only to fill the number of pages assigned you are going to struggle with this all the time...and next time you will have started with Courier so you won't have that to fall back on. Write a paper because you are interested in it, try to write it well and you will find that your problem is that you will have too much content.

 

[CrazyDe1]

Courier new is a standard font....I've told people to use it for years....