Should Linux Mint 16 be in the same partition?

I would keep it in one big partition and keep another partition for recovery. If you split it this would make it harder for recovery.

~good luck

It will work very well if installed on one partition. Many people use a separate small partition for swap;about 1.5 - 2 times the size of ram. You can use as many partitions as you wish and have each directory on a separate partition. The more partitions that you use will cause more work for reinstallation.

Unless you have strong reasons to use more than 2 partitions (security, encryption, etc) it is best to use just 2 partitions.

It really depends on how you use your computer. I use a separate partition for my /home directory, another for /opt, another for /temp. I do this so that I can remove linux and do a reinstall, upgrade, etc. without loosing my programs or data or settings. Doing this is for advanced users.

If you are not an advanced user (and if you were, you would not be asking this question), just put everything on one partition.