Dpp - Word Count So So Angry - Have To Reduce Cache Assignment By 1/2

[Guest]

Help

I posted a few posts belpow asking about the DPP word count, I asked my tutor via email she didn't reply I handed in my first assignment at 7941 word and she marked it and gave me a provisional A so i assumed all was good,

am half way throught unit 3 which is the unit marked by cache, i have done up to p4 (goes up to p10) and am on 3297 words, this assignment needs to be sent to CACHE on 15th Feb.

Today I recieved an email from my tutor saying that CACHE have introduced a word count of 3500 words for ALL of the assignments now i am really worried as i have to reduce all of my work so far by half but if i miss the deadline for unit 3 CACHE will not take it until aug and I am due to qualify in June. I have obiously been doing me work in too much detail for the level and am now really panicking about the level of detail and what to include in this CACHE assignement can anyone help please????

 

My second worry is that i also need now to reduce my unit 1 ass by over half so i dont see how i will beable to cut half my words out and still keep my provisional A :-(

I think my head my explode, I have litrally been crying about this all day

Edited January 16, 2010 by Guest

[Guest]

What a nightmare for you - two of my staff are doing DPP through NEC and have been through similar problems with their tutor.

 

When I did my DPP we had a 3500 word count which had a 10% leeway - not sure if this is the same for you.

 

Appendices were not included in the word count so not sure if you can put anything in there and just refer to it, also direct quotes are not usually included.

 

Have a look on CACHE website for help it's quite useful, we found the handbook quite helpful.

 

Hang in there.....

 

Sending virtual sympathy and hugs

Edited January 16, 2010 by Guest

[Guest]

Smallsmall

Cant give you any advice but sorry you are going through this and you must be so fed up. and angry. I hope you by tomorrow you have stopped being upset and find the strenght to carry on.Just one point you have obviously got lots of knowledge (managed to get provisional A)so when you do start to cut it down I am sure it will be fine.Remember lots of people me included have often struggled to get enough words for assignments!!! Try to have a relaxing evening and tomorrow is another day.

[aliamch]

The 3,500 (+ 10%) word count has been in force a good while and has not been just introduced, so I feel your tutor is at fault here as she should have made sure you were aware of this as it is stated in the Student Handbook. You might be doing some of these things already, but just in case here are a few tips we were given to slash our word counts.

1 - Only count your OWN words, not the title of the unit, criteria or of course quotes.

2 - Read through your assignment and try taking out the smaller connectives, such as 'and', 'the', 'also' etc, you can lose a lot of these little words and it makes no difference to the main content.

3 - If you've used bullet points, minus the amount you've used from the word count.

4 - Some of the girls used slashes - / - instead of commas, if they wrote a list of things i.e. hats/coats/gloves/boots and those four words count as one!

5 - as already said, quotes and appendices (all your observations are appendices) aren't included in the word count, and we were told not to include the bibliography.

 

I hope this is of some help for you and that you don't find the next few months too stressful.

Karrie

[HappyMaz]

Great advice from Karrie there about reducing wordcount - and I'm a master of the art because I subscribe to the theory that you should always use a hundred words wen ten would easily do.

 

When I did my DPP there was a wordcount, plus 10% but I know that CACHE did away with the wordcount a while ago. I have to say that when you are faced with markng 20 assignments, a maximum wordcount is a very good thing - so I imagine the feedback from tutors was taken into account in bringing back the wordcount!

 

It does sound to me as if your tutor has made a huge blunder here, and you're paying the price. No doubt you'll be making your feelings known once you've got to grips with tackling your assignment and have safely handed it in.

 

I'm not sure if you're doing your course with a college, or by distance learning, but is there time for you to arrange a meeting with your tutor to go through your assignment so you can get feedback about the sort of cuts you can make whilst still covering the criteria. It may be that using the strategies Karrie has suggested will be enough to reduce the wordcount, but it could also be that you are including too much information and are covering the criteria in too much depth.

 

Good luck - keep plugging away and you'll get there.

 

Maz

[Guest]

Thanks everyone for your support and ides, i shall certianly be taking these on board, I am doing the course at college one night a week but havn't seen my tutor since before christmas, I emailed her the half of the chache assignemt i had done at the time and asked her to tell me what to take out, i will do the same with the rest of the assignemt (which ihave nearly finished now mindfull of words). I have also asked her to do the same with my first assignment once this one is out of the way and off to CACHE so fingers crossed this will also help me understand the detail i need for my next assignment, I just cannot believe i asked about this before and now its a huge issue grrrrrrrr.

I am sure when we go back to college I will find i am not the only one with this problem.