How big are your papers? Some stats.

We are half-way done with the papers by now - that is in part due to taking a few early on.

A couple of descriptive stats: You might wonder how your writing style compares with others.

• Average number of pages for this hand-in: 10.1.
  A couple hit twenty plus. That's something you might not have time for on an exam.
• Myself I am on the terse side, and I would not recommend squeezing it down to the four pages I will post to Canvas next week; the shorter you write, the more you need to know precisely what you are doing, and so it will likely take you more time to edit it down than just submit what you actually did.  Besides, what if you have to discard a paper with too many answers on? 

Then file size. Submitting a handwritten work means scanning, converting, uploading and with over 275 hand-written submissions (and the odd typeset ones too), some have crashed and some of you have really gotten sweaty over the time taken to upload. Large files might be a pain to handle. If yours don't bother you - disregard the rest of this message. 

• Median filesize: 3.5 megabytes. Average is at 5.0, due to some monsters at 2 or 3 megabytes per page.
  • For reference: The scan settings at my local copier makes a B/W page around 140 megabytes.
    (That is not squeezed down to barebones minimum: we have had perfectly fine readable handwritten term papers at half that.)
  • If file size doesn't bother you, then it isn't worth spending effort to do anything about it. Canvas handles it fairly well, though with minor delays. But if your files are getting too much to manage, then you can certainly check your settings.

Nils (taking a break from grading now)