Can any one advise how long it takes to read (carefully) a 4,000 postgraduate paper, and prepare feedback comments on it? Thanks

Hmm, I'll use the Walminski Essay Assessment Time Duration Equation. Assuming you can read one sentence, consisting of an average of 14 words, at a rate of one every 2 seconds, that's 8,000 seconds to read it all without thinking about it. So divide that by 60: 133.3 minutes, or 2 hours 13.3 minutes. Now, assuming you have an IQ of 140, what I'd expect for your average PhD student, we need to times the length of time required to think about it by your IQ, then times it by 1 000 000 000, which I reckon is roughly the number of brain neurons you'll use when assessing the work (carefully), divide the answer by 10 000 000 (which is the Peasucker academic brain function constant) and then times that by the average total number of intellectual demands on the postgraduate brain in a day, which is 20. It will therefore take you exactly 190.42857142857142857142857142857 minutes to 'read (carefully) a 4,000 postgraduate paper, and prepare feedback comments on it'.

Hope this helps.

I'd imagine it would take well over an hour to read properly, probably 2 or 3 in depth. Maybe more if the content was complex. Ignore Walminki's pointless post above.

But Commonsense, it's a 'how-long-is-a-piece-of-string' question. A case of suck it and see. So it was a pointless answer for a, largely, pointless question. The answer you've given, in fact, is a useless as mine, with an estimation that varies by a factor of 3. What if it has lots of drawings in it? What if the OP is not an expert in what he is reading and assessing? What if he's a slow reader? A fast 'un? What if? What if? ;-)

Shame people don't have a sense of humour. Take a look at David Shrigley's drawings.

Thanks. Is it that pointless a question? Just wondered if any one could say roughly how long it would take them. I have 10 to do and am just trying to gage it. Thanks. x

Forget the 'read carefully' bit - you soon get over that! My uni pays me a casual rate for each hour of marking, and expects me to mark 4000 words in an hour. So - you've got 10 hours in front of you.