EPQ question

[mondaytosunday]

So my daughter is doing an 'artefact' for her EPQ ( she has designed, edited and produced an ongoing termly school magazine, with student written contributions). The deadline and presentation are next month. She is currently doing the second draft of her report, and here's my question. I understand that an essay based epq has a definite length, but a report for the artifact just has a minimum. As it stands, her report is over 5000 words - longer than if she just produced an essay alone! Will she get penalised for it being so long? She says she doesn't see how she can make it shorter. Her mentor has only seen the first draft and asked her to expand on certain areas, but hasn't said she needs to shorten it. I haven't seen it.

If there’s no max she shouldn’t be penalised, but I would consider whether she can shorten it to make it a more effective, shorter piece of work. She shouldn’t get penalised because it’s too long, but she might if it’s rambling

Which exam board is it? Pearson/edexcel stipulate 5000-6000 words for the dissertation and 1500-3000 written evidence for an artefact.

She hasn't been given a limit. She likes essays and does tend to write a lot, but says it's hard to get it shorter! She says she will let me proofread it when she gets it closer to the final draft.
On thestudentroom they all say they run out of steam at about 2000-3000 words!

Hi, OP —-

I am a STEM academic and former admissions tutor. Your DD’s enthusiasm is endearing. But she needs to be very, very sure there is no word limit on her report. Even if there isn’t, it does sound long, and would probably make a more powerful impact if shorter.

Is her topic too wide ranging? Usually depth is more interesting than breadth. The easiest but shallowest way to write a long report would be simply to describe everything that went on during the production of the magazine, but that isn’t going to be very deep. Selecting key issues, analysing them (and perhaps thinking about how to improve things if going forward) would be much more interesting. And it should be possible to control the length

You need to check the exam board. Aqa suggest a report accompanying an artefact should be a minimum of 1000 words but as a report can only be 5000 it sounds to me like she’s way over. The report accompanying her artefact is not about what she did, it’s the research behind it.

Thanks everyone. She finally sent it to me for proofreading. She does repeat stuff - after her tutor saw the first draft she moved things around a bit and didn't cut some stuff. So it will be considerably shorter I think.
@poetryandwine one question I have for you is she didn't just do a magazine, but started a club which has about 20 members of which about half are contributing articles - she will publish the second magazine in November. Setting this up and managing the girls and dealing with the admin is a major part of the project, let alone the design/editing/production. There is no teacher involvement at all. I think having to write about all that as well as the actual physical magazine is taking up a lot of the text. Is it too much to write about both? Hard to separate it though.
I am very proud and amazed she's done it - she is quiet and self contained and running a club is so so far out of her comfort zone. Plus the magazine is brilliant 🤩.

Hi, OP -

It sounds as though in essence your DD founded and managed the magazine. That is def brilliant, especially as it was outside of her comfort zone. Aspects of this could be one of the key things she writes about.

I cannot stress how important it is to be sure of word count! And DD doesn’t want this aspect to become either ‘I did thid and we did that’ or a journal of her feelings. But if she has some insights into managing authors and getting the best out of magazine staff that go beyond the routine, I could see it working well. Warning: I am in STEM, so you probably want other opinions on this.

Sounds an interesting EPQ. Good luck to her.

Thanks. I can't find anything about word limit -she's given me the marking criteria. It has a minimum but no maximum - I suppose they cannot imagine how much someone could write! She's doing another draft tomorrow but looking at her mentors notes she wants her to expand on certain aspects - no suggestion of cutting!
The irony is she doesn't need an epq. She started on another subject altogether (non verbal language) but dropped it as it was too stressful and (ha) time consuming! But wanted to do one and as she was already starting the club it was suggested she do it on that. Her predicted grades exceed what she needs for her eventual degree (art). Bet she regrets it now!

She's submitted it! Her supervisor looked at her second draft and said nothing about length. Had a few suggestions and in the end it was close to 6000 words. Presentation in a couple weeks!