Question : String or binary data would be truncated error - ANSI_WARNINGS

I found plenty of references to this error in the archives.  The solutions listed are to truncate on the front end before inserting into the DB or using ANSI_WARNINGS OFF.

Now, I have

SET ANSI_WARNINGS OFF insert into sfe.publications (pub_link,pub_title,pub_type,pub_date,pub_text,pub_topic)..........etc

and all I get is a nondescript 500 Internal Server error page.  

My data type is text(16).  What is '16'?  and why can't I change that to a larger number?  

so, yeah, I need help on several fronts.  

Answer : String or binary data would be truncated error - ANSI_WARNINGS

>>Come on, there has to be something simple I am missing here.  <<
Yes.  You are using Enterprise Manager to view data that is longer than 900 bytes using SP4 and 1023 for previous Service Packs.  You should use SQL Query Analyzer instead, just make sure to increase the "Maximum characters per column (*)" from the default 256 to the maximum 8192 characters.