Page Numbers!

So I am slightly giddy this morning over one issue I am always telling my students not to worry about -- the length of a text!  Everytime I give an essay assignment, one of the first questions I hear from students is "How long does it have to be?" especially since I leave that type of information off my assignment sheets (generally).  I want students to focus on the IDEAS more than how much space they still need to take up.

Well, I just did some quick math and have discovered that my actual text-text so far is about 64 pages (not even counting two chapters that I am still in the note writing stage and haven't written yet) with about another 55 pages or so in data text (to show how I did my categories).  On top of that, I have an appendix that will include my syllabus for the class as well as the essay assignments themselves.  So not counting what I know I still need to work on, this puts me presently at about 130-140 pages.  Since 150 was the bare minimum that I was thinking I had to cough out, I am feeling pretty darn good that I am already at that number :D. 

Now, this is not to say that I don't have a lot of work to do.  I have bunches.  But I can see a tiny little piece of blue sky far ahead that tells me that I am going in the right direction.  I was pretty productive yesterday so I just have to hope that I can keep this up!

This week's goal?  I just finished compiling the data from the day class (my big pile of yellow folders).  Now I need to finish up the night class (blue folders) and start telling "the story" of the data as a whole (which will become my analysis/ results chapter!).  I have already noticed a few interesting patterns!