Question about page length of paper (Women and Gender Studies class)

Hi, I am new here. Didn't know where to post this.

I am a first year student at university and haven't had to do much writing as of yet.
So far, I have only written short 500 and 650 word essays for my English class.
Now, I was wondering how unacceptable it is to hand in a paper that is pages short of what is required?

I am really struggling with a 10 page paper for my Women and Gender Studies class. I have done all my research and stated everything I feel needs to be said and I am only at 7 pages. Is that terribly unacceptable to hand in - or no?

Well it obviously depends on how good the 7 pages are, but it certainly won't help you. I would strongly suggest trying to get it to ten pages. Maybe you could put in some citations or quotes?

Great question! The sources you consult are the firewood you burn to get your pages. Well, maybe that is a bad metaphor, but the point is that you could write 100 pages if you had 100 sources. For every source you consult, you can write another page. Write about each source in any way you want... agree, disgree, explain why it is not directly relevant... anything you want!

But you need to gather some more firewood. I can write a thousand pages if I have neough sources. And for every source, you will be able to write at least a paragraph or two... probably not a whole page, usually. Consult a database. You can finish it up in 5 hours!

If you don't have enough information you could always add more, I'm assuming. Have you written anything about Charlotte Perkins Gibson? There was also a good section of articles in the New York Times, I believe, that addressed changing statistics of employed women v. unemployed women. Is this an end of term paper or a regular essay? Essays are graded (usually) on quality and not quantity, so if you have a well written paper then you shouldn't worry to much.