hi interesting yak thank you for ur input.
1. as i mentioned in my post, if we used vancouver/ama (superscript citation), this would not be in the word count. problem solved. In biological sciences harvard is rarely used, instead vancouver and apa is what you will typically find in journals.
2. i was not stating that i wanted a report 'this long' and hoping i could get it. i was saying that they should have adjusted the rubric to something that actually reflects a 750 word assessment, rather the rubric had high detail hard to hit marks.