So, you’re assigned a 20-page paper when really you’re only used to 5-page papers. That’s pretty daunting. It’s a lot of space to fill. Therefore you’ll have to fill it with a lot of stuff. Four times as much stuff. Four times as large a topic. Four times as significant a claim!

Except that that’s not right at all. That’s the wrong multiplier. Go down that road and you’ll start trying to develop new theories of renaissance post-modernism, or a comprehensive description of the minority female healer in the modern consciousness.

A better multiplier is nuance or detail. Four times as much nuance is a wonderful thing.

From Jean Berko’s classic 1958 paper “The Child’s Learning of English Morphology,” published in Word, volume 14, pages 150-177.

Sometimes when I ask profs “what will your students have read recently, and can I have a copy” in preparation for classes, I get best answers. “We’ll have been reading about Wugs!”

I’m thinking my new mascot may be a Wug.