Physics IA Length

[SC2Player]

i've just submitted my Physics IA, and I've realised that it's a little bit longer than an EE (still under the 12 page limit somehow).  I might've went somewhat overboard on the explanation of my results...

So, just wondering, does anyone know if this will affect my marks significantly?   I'm somewhat worried about the teachers/examiners getting annoyed about the length.

[Vioh]

I think you should be worried less about the length of your IA, but more about the conciseness of what you've written. If you think that you might have gone a bit overboard with the explanation of the results, then you should definitely try to cut down some of the stuff. For example, take away the part that is too obvious to the people reading your IA, or the part that you think is too repetitive. Think of the IA as a filtered report where only things that are important to answering the thesis question are included. In other words, the IA is not a place where you have to include absolutely everything that you have found out during the process of investigation.

One trick that I find quite useful when trying to cut down the word count is to leave the IA aside for a few days without looking at it (perhaps even 1-2 weeks, if you have the time). And then when you look at it again, try pretending to be a teacher/examiner who is reading a student's work. Try to be as critical as you can. Ask yourself (in the role of a teacher) this: Does the student really need to include this part here? If I take the part out, would the IA still convey the explanation well? And so on….

Now even though I said that conciseness is more important than the length, this might not be the case because usually, the length is a strong indicator of how concise your IA is. Unless your school has given you the guideline for how to format your paper, I believe that the "minimum" font size should be 11 in Times New Roman (or some other common fonts like Arial). The line spacing should ideally be 1.5 lines (in MS word), or 1.15 at the minimum. If you somehow have to cross these minimum criteria in order to get the IA under the page limit, then it's a strong indication that your IA is not concise enough and that you have to cut down the words.

[SC2Player]

14 hours ago, Vioh said:

I think you should be worried less about the length of your IA, but more about the conciseness of what you've written. If you think that you might have gone a bit overboard with the explanation of the results, then you should definitely try to cut down some of the stuff. For example, take away the part that is too obvious to the people reading your IA, or the part that you think is too repetitive. Think of the IA as a filtered report where only things that are important to answering the thesis question are included. In other words, the IA is not a place where you have to include absolutely everything that you have found out during the process of investigation.

One trick that I find quite useful when trying to cut down the word count is to leave the IA aside for a few days without looking at it (perhaps even 1-2 weeks, if you have the time). And then when you look at it again, try pretending to be a teacher/examiner who is reading a student's work. Try to be as critical as you can. Ask yourself (in the role of a teacher) this: Does the student really need to include this part here? If I take the part out, would the IA still convey the explanation well? And so on….

 

 

Now even though I said that conciseness is more important than the length, this might not be the case because usually, the length is a strong indicator of how concise your IA is. Unless your school has given you the guideline for how to format your paper, I believe that the "minimum" font size should be 11 in Times New Roman (or some other common fonts like Arial). The line spacing should ideally be 1.5 lines (in MS word), or 1.15 at the minimum. If you somehow have to cross these minimum criteria in order to get the IA under the page limit, then it's a strong indication that your IA is not concise enough and that you have to cut down the words.

Thanks for your tips - I'll probably use them for my EE as well.