Body paragraphs too long?

[imaware]

Hey,
Just in regards to my context piece, i seem to go really in depth with my dissection of the big ideas and external references and have body paragraphs that exceed 400 words and my pieces being roughly 1200-1300 words
Would examiners deduct marks for such overtly long paragraphs?
Another thing, given the script book and the smaller page size, would the issue of a body paragraph extending past a page be an issue? Ive heard from some that paragraphs that exceed 3/4 of pages can become a structural issue and are unfavourable.

Thanks

[heids]

I don't think there's anything wrong with such lengths as long as you can get that down in 1 hour.  If you're having to sacrifice depth in other sections of the exam, that's not great.  So I'd check:
- if you repeat yourself in different words
- that everything is 100% relevant - could you be more selective with your examples to pick only the most relevant or impacting examples? is your discussion always 100% on track with addressing the topic?
- whether your writing is verbose and you could cut down by being more concise

But in and of itself, I jolly well hope long paras don't lead to mark deductions.

[Cristiano]

If the paragraph gets too long, as in it is nearly a page or one page long, then the assessor would be like "this kid doesn't know how to paragraph properly" and perhaps give you a weaker mark.
Try go through each paragraph and ask "do I really need this here? What can I cut that still allows me to explain this properly?

[Splash-Tackle-Flail]

I have a similar problem to you; and asked my teacher about it. According to her (and bangli lol I asked this exact same q in the Q&A thread) the length of the paragraph shouldn't matter. Something I'm more concerned about is how are you going to be able to write 1300 words in 50 minutes? (very fast hands?) A lecture I went to stated that around 800-900 words was adequate (although better pieces would generally be longer oc or "sustained")

A quick look at the english examiners report (e.g. 2013 whose reality context piece) only showed 3 long body paragraphs, and still scored in the "upper range".

[imaware]

Something I'm more concerned about is how are you going to be able to write 1300 words in 50 minutes? (very fast hands?) A lecture I went to stated that around 800-900 words was adequate (although better pieces would generally be longer oc or "sustained")

A quick look at the english examiners report (e.g. 2013 whose reality context piece) only showed 3 long body paragraphs, and still scored in the "upper range".

mmmm "upper range" is usually 8 or 9/10 max. They rarely publish 10/10 essays. Having spoken to a few assessors and past 50 students, or by taking a whizz through this thread How many words per piece in the exam?  the general consensus is that 1000+ words is generally the go-to for the higher range marks in the upper spectrum

In terms of how I'm planning on writing that fast, hoping to sacrifice some time from my other sections and dedicate an extra 5 or so minutes to context. My piece is somewhat memorized, which will just involve general tweaking to alter to the nuances of the prompt

[96n_n]

I did English last for VCE and scored an A+ on the exam, and I wrote a LOT, for all 3 exams! I As long as your paragraphs have content and stays relevant then you should be fine. From my experience, examiners will be impressed with essays that are very well done and lengthy. On a practice exam that I took, which was marked by an actual VCAA English assessor, I received from him an addition +0.5 marks out of 10 because of my length, pulling me up to an A+.

However, its important to take into consideration of your writing pace in the exam and the fact that there are  2 other essays to complete. The emphasis is placed on quality rather than quantity but if you have both then it'll surely score you an A+!

[teacher28]

Would examiners deduct marks for such overtly long paragraphs?

There's no rule that says you have to limit your response to 3 body paragraphs! If one of your body paragraphs is too lengthy start thinking in 'chunks' instead of paragraphs. I haven't yet met a long body paragraph that couldn't be broken up into two sections.

I've had experience marking VCE exams and I have to tell you that lonnnng paragraphs can be pretty tiring on the concentration of the marker. In my opinion, better to have four reasonably sized paragraphs than two average and one epic.

It's a bit like the hand-writing debate: no examiner is going to deliberately mark you down for illegible writing (they will just pass it back to VCAA who will re-allot it) or for big paragraphs, however, there is something crucial that should be remembered: examiners are humans, not robots. They want their marking life to be easy (and why not)! It is to your benefit if you do everything you can to make marking a pleasure rather than a chore.

Messy writing and huge swathes of script have a subliminal effect on some markers and you might just be unlucky enough to 'meet' one.

One of the best things you can do to ensure that your examiners read your texts is to create coherence. Don't force them to go back and re-read, either to clarify an ambiguity caused by writing that is nigh impossible to read at all, let alone quickly, or to see what point that mammoth paragraph started with so you can figure out where it's going.

You won't lose marks for eschewing the 'three-body-paragraph TEEEL' model. In fact, you may even gain a fraction of a point for NOT following the TOO FORMULAIC pattern.