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Is there a word I could use to ask for the number of pages required for an assignement formally in a sentence like:

I'd like to ask what should the approximate range? of the work be.

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  • For what it's worth, editors generally assign journalists and columnists a number of words - rather than pages - for an item. It's much easier to measure length by words than pages.
    – Ronald Sole
    Commented Aug 11, 2021 at 22:43

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Length is the best answer to fit in your sentence as written, but is ambiguous: It can mean the number of pages, or the number of words/sentences/paragraphs, or the number of minutes required to read the work, etc.

If you specifically want to know how many pages long the assignment should be, you will have to say that:

I'd like to ask, how many pages long should the work [or assignment] be?

Personally I find "I'd like to ask" to be redundant and unnecessary—of course you would like to ask, because here you are asking! But you can leave it in to couch the question in a slightly more subservient or respectful tone.

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  • It's worth noting that it is actually perfectly correct (and reasonably natural) to also just say "what should the approximate number of pages for the (work/assignment/etc) be?" In this case it is somewhat more natural to use "for" rather than "of", though..
    – Foogod
    Commented Aug 12, 2021 at 0:13

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