Sub Rosa

Right now, OP - I totally agree with you.

Once upon a time, back in the time when the final BA year was probably half a decade ago, a 2,500 word essay would take about six days to write and less than a couple of days to turn round.  Now it takes nigh on a damn fortnight and trying to find the magical ten resources has been challenging (a problem if you have used a fair few citations from one essay - not so bad if you are directly quoting from the resources they have used).

I am not the only one caught up in pondering and making an idea stretch into an essay.  When asking 'What are the targets of Swifts 'A Modest Proposal'? I answered 'the English colonization of Ireland.'  That's great - 5 words down, 2,495 to go, but at least I have stretched it to the full word count.  Unlike a fellow classmate, who on being asked 'Irony works in satire, do you agree?' answered 'Yes I do' but has only got as far as 1,200 to argue that point.

I am looking for a couple more quotes from books, then I will complete the biblio, proofread and hit send.  Then rest a while to ponder the rest of the dissertation and the last of the satire essays.