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World Lit. Ass. 1: What is part of the word count?


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Hey!

So my summer break is almost over and so far I have not done much (I was part of the staff team in a summer camp and I still have an IB revision course ahead of me). Now I am scared of the next months, EE and everything :/

Anyhow, I have fortunately already written my first World Lit. Assignment before the break so that I just have to correct it now.

What is subject to the word count??

In some instructions we received, it says: "Quotations from works must be included in the word count, but footnotes and bibliographies are not to be included". So do I need to count the research question and all the stuff on the title page or not?

Thanks!! (Hopefully the answer is not already around here... I looked for it, but it took so long...^^)

Viola

BTW; anyone else here going to the revision courses in Bradfield??

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First thing, amusing title =)

It's 1000 to 1500 words

I didn't include the title page, but I included the entire essay [minus the footnotes & bibliography, of course] and the title [i repeated the title on the page where I started my essay.

Hope that helped

Edit: The closer to 1500, the better--most of the time

Edited by sweetnsimple786
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Edit: The closer to 1500, the better--most of the time

Not necessarily. It can be a good idea to take something really narrow and then only write a little more than 1000 words. As long as you write everything that's relevant and don't leave out important stuff.

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Well, i used the MLA style that uses the in text citation where you place a quote and then cite in the text.

Example: "The boy ate the apple" (Hamlet 33) Meaning the book, then page. Last page i wrote "Works Cited" Then followed the bibliography method. In the word count the in text citation, and no i didnt write the title again.

Simply EXCLUDE Bibliography, Title page, and footnotes, endnotes.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Well, i used the MLA style that uses the in text citation where you place a quote and then cite in the text.

Example: "The boy ate the apple" (Hamlet 33) Meaning the book, then page. Last page i wrote "Works Cited" Then followed the bibliography method. In the word count the in text citation, and no i didnt write the title again.

Simply EXCLUDE Bibliography, Title page, and footnotes, endnotes.

So basically you can cite however you want, within some parameters, and as long as you're consistent and coherent, IB doesn't care?

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So basically you can cite however you want, within some parameters, and as long as you're consistent and coherent, IB doesn't care?

Provided all the information is there and you appear to be following some sort of accepted style, they can't get you for it. The whole point is to teach academic standards of references viz the amount of information you provide and also the level of referencing (basically that you give all credit where it is due in a traceable manner). Other than that, there is no "right" or "wrong" way of doing it, provided it's intelligible.

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But couldn't you make up your own style? The IB can't know which methods teachers teach. I mean could you do like (Author-Page#) for parenthetical documentation to decrease word count? like (Kingsolver-611)? I know it's kinda petty but even that would make a difference in some cases.

You could do, but it'd make no sense, the bibliography isn't part of the word count.

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Not bibliography. Parenthetical documentation. Like in the actual paragraphs. You know, after you quote something you cite it in parentheses?

Orrrr you can just quote it and then footnote it with one of those little [1] things etc., so it's not part of the word count...? :) More words that way!

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Not bibliography. Parenthetical documentation. Like in the actual paragraphs. You know, after you quote something you cite it in parentheses?

Orrrr you can just quote it and then footnote it with one of those little [1] things etc., so it's not part of the word count...? :P More words that way!

I think that's the best way. You dom't waste any words and it's esay to just check at the bottom of the page for the information.

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Just to clear something up. Footnotes and citations NEVER count towards the word limit in an IB assignment! If you do parenthetical citations, then you need to manually count how many words are within those citation parentheses and subtract them from the total number of words. It isn't necessary to do footnote citations for this reason - although I admit it is often easier. Also, there's no need to condense the parenthetical citations as much as possible (except for the clarity issue) because the words don't count anyway.

But obviously the words you quote count.

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Just to clear something up. Footnotes and citations NEVER count towards the word limit in an IB assignment! If you do parenthetical citations, then you need to manually count how many words are within those citation parentheses and subtract them from the total number of words.

But obviously the words you quote count.

Are you 100% sure citations not in the bibliography/works cited page don't count? My teacher said they do, but I mean I don't think she's all-knowing or anything haha

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Yes, I'm entirely completely super sure and positive. Neither footnotes nor the (author, page number, and other useful information) citations are counted in the total number of words. But you need to include all cited works in the bibliography as well, don't forget that!

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