Approximately 650 words. Academic writing varies depending on the discipline, but in general, an uncommon essay is a short piece of work that explores one topic in detail from multiple angles. These essays are useful for showing how different perspectives can help us understand a subject in depth. They may also compare more than one view on an issue (e.g., Marx and Freud's theories about human nature) or examine a series of events that have a common theme (e.g., an autobiography that examines the author's development as a person). Most commonly, however, they are original pieces that present new ideas or insights about their topics. Uncommon essays are written mainly for publication rather than assignment purposes. Although they are usually only a few pages long, there are some projects that require longer papers. Some disciplines have requirements for certain amounts of content in specific time frames (e.g., number of paragraphs for a thesis statement), but other than that there is no set word count for these essays. Because they are designed to be read rather than simply answered, uncommon essays often contain questions along with the information presented.