for what it's worth, for a 6-10 page paper for general purpose consumption (not a tech paper), it would take me about half an hour to an hour to outline a cogent thesis + argument, and anywhere from 2-4 hours to flesh out enough to qualify as a first draft. editing would usually take another 2-4 hours to get to a final draft.
on the other hand, short papers required disproportionately large amounts of effort because they'd start out at 6-10 pages and through painful process get pared down to the absolute bare minimum. then i'd discover that i'd have to get rid of another page or two. this would easily tack on another 4-6 hours of editing effort. so for a 4 page paper, i'd say you're doing rather well.
on the flip side, i can grind out a draft of a tech paper pretty darn quickly (3 odd hours), but that's largely because i hit the math hard and let the equations do my talking. of course, that time goes way up if any pictures / diagrams are required.
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mmmag
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Date: 2008-11-04 05:38 am (UTC)on the other hand, short papers required disproportionately large amounts of effort because they'd start out at 6-10 pages and through painful process get pared down to the absolute bare minimum. then i'd discover that i'd have to get rid of another page or two. this would easily tack on another 4-6 hours of editing effort. so for a 4 page paper, i'd say you're doing rather well.
on the flip side, i can grind out a draft of a tech paper pretty darn quickly (3 odd hours), but that's largely because i hit the math hard and let the equations do my talking. of course, that time goes way up if any pictures / diagrams are required.