8 Proven Methods to Reduce Essay Word Count, AI Included
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Yona Schnitzer
We all know how hard it is to write long essays with a minimum word count.
But sometimes, we're faced with the opposite challenge - keeping our essays under a maximum count.
How to Reduce Essay Word Count
1. Use an active voice instead of passive 2. Spot the fluff 3. Eliminate redundant words 4. Shorten wordy phrases 5. Stop using "What" and "There" as subjects 6. Drop the conjunctions 7. Forget the running starts 8. Use shorter words
Anyone who has ever tried covering complex topics with a maximum word ceiling can tell you that it can be challenging to reduce the word count without sacrificing the meaning or flow of your piece.
In this article, I’ll give you 8 easy tips to help you reduce the word count in your essays without compromising the quality of your writing.
![how to reduce an essay how to reduce an essay](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5f7ece8a7da656e8a25402bc/6677e58b3bfc0fab515ac0e7_Screenshot%202024-06-23%20at%2012.05.42.webp)
So, without further ado, here are 8 proven methods to reduce essay word count:
1. use an active voice instead of passive.
Using an active voice makes your writing more direct and concise. Passive voice often adds unnecessary words and can make your writing sound less engaging. For instance:
![how to reduce an essay how to reduce an essay](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5f7ece8a7da656e8a25402bc/65a91e4018777a29fa8f040a_Table%201.webp)
By switching to the passive voice, we’ve reduced our overall word count, while also making the sentence more engaging.
Be sure to check out our full guide on how to nail the active voice .
2. Spot the fluff
One of the easiest ways to reduce word count is to identify any unnecessary or redundant information in your piece. Whether it’s drawn out introductions, or repetitive information, there’s always something that you can do without. Some tools, like Wordtune can actually help you identify areas where you can afford to shorten your writing, or even entire paragraphs that you can cut out.
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3. Eliminate redundant words
Many sentences contain words that don't add any value to their meaning and can be easily removed. Very, for example, is a very common offender (see what I did there?). Instead of writing It was very cold outside, just write It was cold outside.
Here are some more examples of redundant words to help you get the idea:
![how to reduce an essay how to reduce an essay](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5f7ece8a7da656e8a25402bc/65ad10e59e2f2e7a353b205c_Table%202.webp)
4. Shorten wordy phrases
Another way to reduce word count is to identify and shorten wordy phrases.
For example, instead of writing "due to the fact that, " you can write "because."
Once you get in the habit of shortening your phrases, it will be like second nature. There are also some tools that can help you with that, like Wordtune's "shorten" feature, which can suggest shorter ways to write a sentence without sacrificing clarity.
![how to reduce an essay how to reduce an essay](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5f7ece8a7da656e8a25402bc/6677e675da14576ec0f47e86_Screenshot%202024-06-23%20at%2012.09.16%20(1).webp)
5. Stop using "What" and "There" as subjects
Using "What" or "There" as the subject of a sentence will add unnecessary words to your writing. Instead, you can rephrase the sentence to make the subject more specific.
For example:
![how to reduce an essay how to reduce an essay](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5f7ece8a7da656e8a25402bc/65ad10ed6aa5617c472e02eb_Table%203.webp)
6. Drop the conjunctions
Conjunctions such as "and," "but," and "however" can be used to connect two independent statements, but they also add unnecessary words to your sentence. Instead of creating one, long sentence that is put together by conjunctions, try writing two separate sentences instead. Usually you’ll find that these end up using less words overall.
For example:
![how to reduce an essay how to reduce an essay](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5f7ece8a7da656e8a25402bc/65ad11049ea01124093020c7_Table%204.webp)
This may seem like a small difference, but over the course of an entire paper, these small changes will really add up.
7. Forget the running starts
In writing, a "running start" refers to a sentence that begins with a word or phrase that does not provide any useful information and can be easily removed without affecting the meaning of the sentence. Common examples of running starts include words like "it," "there," "here," "this," and "that." These words often add unnecessary words to a sentence and can make the writing sound less direct and less engaging. Removing them can help to make your writing more concise and to the point.
![how to reduce an essay how to reduce an essay](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5f7ece8a7da656e8a25402bc/65ad111af7638567848585f3_Table%205.webp)
Pro Tip: Wordtune's "Shorten" feature is great at eliminating running starts.
8. Use shorter words
Sometimes, an assignment has a page limit rather than a word count, in this instance, it can be worth it to identify words that can be replaced with shorter words of the same meaning. For example, instead of writing " utilize ," you can write " use ."
Here are some other common words that can afford to lose a few letters:
![how to reduce an essay how to reduce an essay](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5f7ece8a7da656e8a25402bc/65ad1126e00057e5d24b2203_Table%206%20(1).webp)
Less is more
If you’re looking for tips on how to INCREASE word count, check out this article .
There are plenty of ways to reduce your word count without sacrificing the quality of your writing. Use these tips and tricks the next time you find yourself desperately trying to squeeze too many sentences onto one page. Keep in mind that whenever you shorten a text, you’re usually improving it by making it more readable and accessible to a larger audience.
Remember, when it comes to writing - less, is usually more.
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5 Best ways to Make an Essay Shorter
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Chris Drew (PhD)
Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]
Learn about our Editorial Process
If you are like me, you will find that you often struggle to stay within the word count in your essays.
In this article, I will show you exactly how to reduce your word count in your essay.
![how to reduce an essay How to make an essay shorter](https://helpfulprofessor.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/how-to-make-an-essay-shorter-e1553114210660.jpg)
If you go over the word count in an essay, there are some strategies to make your essay shorter that make sure you keep your marks high and, sometimes, make them even higher.
The trick to going over the word count is seeing this as a positive: you now have the chance to only present your absolute best arguments.
This is a luxury other students in your class just don’t have. Reducing your word count is actually your chance to get even further ahead!
The best essays have no dull, irrelevant or sub-par content. Every paragraph is on-point and designed to win you more and more marks. When editing your work, keep this in mind.
Below, I introduce five important strategies that will help you to reduce your word count in a way that will actually increase your mark!
- Delete your three Worst Paragraphs. …
- Listen for Weaknesses using Google Translate or Microsoft Excel Read-out-Loud.
- Re-Read the Marking Criteria.
- Shorten Paragraphs over 7 Sentences Long.
- Delete Irrelevant Words.
1. Delete your three Worst Paragraphs
I usually aim to go over my word count intentionally so I can creatively make the essay shorter in a way that increases my marks.
If I go over the word count, I can look back over my piece and find my worst performing paragraphs and remove them.
This not only helps me to ensure I present my best work to the teacher, it also forces me to admit that some of my writing is better than others. It keeps me critical of myself and always aiming for improvement.
Removing the worst paragraphs of an essay also ensures there are less boring, pointless or unanalytical sections of an essay. It means that the paragraphs I submit are the best sections – and that the teacher will be impressed throughout the piece.
To assess which paragraphs are best and worst, I do the following things:
- Find the paragraphs with the least or worst references in them. Teachers will scan over a paragraph to assess the quality of the references in them. Paragraphs with minimal referencing, too much referencing of just one source, or only references to non-academic sources, instantly get marked down by the teacher before they’re even read. These are also often the paragraphs that provide the least depth of information. That is because finding sources to reference in a paragraph often leads to adding detail that the source has provided.
- Find the paragraphs that are least convincing. When I re-read my paragraphs, sometimes I just think ‘the argument here is my weakest’. These are the ones I want to cut: they’re ones that won’t get me top marks. Teachers will lower your marks for any paragraph that doesn’t shine – so you’re best removing it.
- Rate your paragraphs out of 10. I often tell my students to delete their three worst paragraphs and they say ‘I like all of them!’ In this case, you will have to get brutal with yourself: rate every paragraph out of 10. This will help you make the hard decisions about which to lose.
- Combine two paragraphs into one. Sometimes I really like one sentence from a paragraph but don’t like the rest. If this is the case for you, have a go at extracting those good sentences from one paragraph and placing them in another one. Then, you can delete the not-so-good sentences from the original paragraph. If you do this, make sure all paragraphs still cohere around one key point.
2. Listen for Weaknesses using Google Translate or Microsoft Excel Read-out-Loud
Google Translate and Microsoft Excel both have read-out-loud options. Google Translate’s option is the easiest.
For Google Translate, simply search for ‘Google Translate’ on your internet search engine (or just click here ) to access it. Then, copy and paste the text into the translate box and press the ‘listen’ button:
![how to reduce an essay screenshot of the google translate widget](https://helpfulprofessor.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/google_translate.png)
For Microsoft Excel, you will need paste the whole essay into any cell and then activate the read out loud option.
This procedure is somewhat more complicated than Google Translate, but if you want to give it a go, you can get instructions from the Microsoft help website and go from there
Hearing your paper read out loud back to you can help you to identify which paragraphs or sentences are worth removing.
Here are some things to keep in mind while listening to the computer read your paper out loud to you:
- If a sentence feels like it’s too long and exhausting to listen to, you can bet your teacher will be exhausted, too;
- If a phrase seems awkward to hear, it will be awkward to read;
- If the paper seems to have lost its focus on the topic area, you’ll need to remove that section or edit it to ensure it links to the essay question.
Pause the read-out-loud each time you find a sentence long or awkward and work on shortening it.
Too often, students think long, complicated sentences with fancy-sounding words will get them marks. In reality, it’s the opposite.
Being able to describe complex concepts in a very easy, understandable way is a skill all top students learn to master.
The read-out-loud option can help you to see your paper from your marker’s perspective. Use it to your advantage and listen out for anything that sounds complicated, confusing, awkward or exhausting. Delete it or shorten it immediately.
Remember, the goal is to have your paper sounding short and clear.
3. Re-Read the Marking Criteria
When editing your work, it is best to have the marking criteria by your side at all times.
The marking criteria is the list of things the teacher is looking for when marking your essay. Sometimes it’s also called:
- Marking Criteria;
- Indicative Content;
- Marking Rubric;
- Learning Outcomes
These should be easy to find. Go to your course webpage (usually on Blackboard, Canvas, or Moodle depending on your university) and find where your teacher has provided details about your assessment. If there are marking criteria, this is where it would be.
Sometimes, teachers don’t provide marking criteria.
If the teacher has simply provided an essay topic or question, that means the chances are they don’t have a list of outcomes they are marking your piece against. In these instances, you will have to simply rely on the essay question.
When you have your marking criteria or essay question by your side, read each paragraph then look back to your marking criteria.
You need to ask yourself:
- Does this paragraph directly answer the essay question or marking criteria?
- Does this paragraph add new information that helps me answer the essay question?
If your paragraph is not linked directly to the essay question or marking criteria, you’ve just identified the paragraph you need to remove to reduce your word count.
4. Shorten Paragraphs over 7 Sentences Long
Teachers hate long paragraphs. Teachers are just like you and me. They get bored very fast.
Chances are, any paragraph over 7 sentences isn’t being fully read. The teacher might have only read the first three sentences and made their judgement about your work based on those three sentences!
That’s why the ideal paragraph should be between 4 and 7 sentences long. This length helps to ensure:
- You haven’t gone off on a tangent;
- You have provided some explanatory or example sentences, but not too many;
- You have focused only on one key idea in the paragraph.
Your paragraphs that are more than 7 sentences long will be your low-hanging fruit for reducing your word count. Read through each of these paragraphs and try to find a way to reduce it to only 6 sentences. Find those sentences that seem to drag on or add nothing useful to your discussion and delete them.
By reducing all paragraphs over 7 sentences long, you won’t only bring your word count down. You will also make your essay much clearer and easy to read.
In this way, you’re both reducing your word count and increasing your mark.
5. Delete Irrelevant Words
Going through your paper and deleting irrelevant words can often save you several hundred words and could shorten your essay enough to get you back within the required word count.
Irrelevant words are words that are overly descriptive, redundant, too emotive, or in first-person. These words tend to get the same point across in far more words than necessary.
Furthermore, you will find that in removing overly descriptive, redundant, emotive and first-person words, your work will be much improved.
This is because academic writing is supposed to be formal and direct. Writing too many words can make your marker think you have poor communication skills and do not understand academic writing requirements.
Check below for examples of how to reduce your word count by removing overly descriptive, redundant, overly emotive and first-person language.
- Overly Descriptive: The amazing thing about the industrial revolution was that it brought about enormous changes to the ways people transported themselves and communicated across the globe in such a short amount of time.
- Alternative: The industrial revolution brought about rapid changes in transportation and communication globally.
- Redundant: The sum of five hundred dollars.
- Alternative: $500
- Redundant: It was quite unique.
- Alternative: It was unique.
- Redundant: It was triangular in shape.
- Alternative: It was triangular.
- Too Emotive: The disgusting thing about communism is that it refuses to allow poor everyday people to improve their lives by creating their own businesses that might flourish and really help our their communities, too!
- Alternative: Communism prevents citizens from starting businesses that can help bring people and their communities out of poverty.
- In first Person: In summary, I believe that the Industrial Revolution was good for the whole world.
- Alternative: In summary, the Industrial Revolution was good for the world.
- In first Person: This author argues that Thomas Edison was the greatest mind of his time.
- Alternative: Thomas Edison was the greatest mind of his time.
Making your essay shorter can sometimes be an absolute nightmare.
By following the above five steps, you can find easy ways to reduce your word count while also improving your work.
If you are an advanced or ambitious student, you might find that you always go over the word count. This isn’t necessarily a problem.
Try to look at going over the word count as a positive thing. Going over the word count means you have the freedom to only present your best work. You have the chance to delete anything that isn’t absolutely focused on gaining you marks.
In the end, your final submission will be cleaner, easier to read and easier to mark. Hopefully, this will see your marks growing even more!
Let’s review one more time the five top ways the best students reduce their word count in an essay:
Five Top Ways to Make an Essay Shorter
- Delete your three Worst Paragraphs
- Use Google Translate or Microsoft Excel to Read your Paper out Loud
- Re-Read the Marking Criteria
- Shorten Paragraphs over 6 Sentences Long
- Delete Irrelevant Words
![how to reduce an essay Chris](https://helpfulprofessor.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Chris-200px-150x150.jpg)
- Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 25 Number Games for Kids (Free and Easy)
- Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 25 Word Games for Kids (Free and Easy)
- Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 25 Outdoor Games for Kids
- Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 50 Incentives to Give to Students
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How to Shorten an Essay: 4 Techniques to Reduce Word Count
If you need to shorten your essay by 100-500 words, or even more, you can use one or more of four techniques. You can clean up your sentences, remove repetition, summarize your examples, and/or cut out an entire section.
One of my subscribers recently asked me, “ How do I compress an essay of 700-1000 words, or even more, to just 300 words? ”
In this tutorial I will show you four easy ways to shorten your essay by as much or as little as you wish. I am giving them to you in the order you should try them out.
Here are four techniques to shorten your essay:
Technique #1: Sentence Cleanup
When I taught essay writing in college, I noticed that students wrote sentences that were just too wordy.
They used 20 words where 10 would have probably done the trick. If you examine your sentences, you’ll often find that you can say the same thing in much fewer words.
“In my opinion, there are many people who want to lose weight.”
This sentence contains 12 words.
Here’s how we can shorten it by performing a Sentence Cleanup.
First, you never have to say, “ In my opinion, ” because if it were not your opinion, you wouldn’t be stating it. Okay? So, let’s cross out “ in my opinion. ”
“ In my opinion, there are many people who want to lose weight.”
We just cut out three words.
Next, the phrase “ there are ” is usually unnecessary, and if you take it out, your sentence will become more elegant. So, let’s do it. Let’s just cross it out.
“ There are many people who want to lose weight.”
We also have to cross out the extra word “ who ” because it is only needed if you use “ there are. ”
We just got rid of three more words.
And so our sentence becomes:
“Many people want to lose weight.”
How many words is that? That is now a six word sentence. Guess what – we just cut this sentence in half.
![how to reduce an essay](https://www.tutorphil.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/1-3-early-illustrations.001.png)
Do this enough times in your essay, and it will get a lot shorter.
“How do I cut out 200 words from my essay to make it shorter?”
This sentence contains 14 words. Let’s perform a Sentence Cleanup.
Notice that it is pretty obvious that to cut out 200 words from an essay will make it shorter. Therefore, stating that you want to do it “ to make it shorter ” is unnecessary.
If we get rid of that phrase, we’ll cut out 4 words from this sentence and make it a lot more elegant.
“How do I cut out 200 words from my essay to make it shorter ?”
Technique #2: Removing Repetition
Repetition can be found on all levels – in a sentence, in a paragraph, or a section. When you reduce or eliminate repetition in your essay, you are making it less redundant. “Redundant” just means repetitive and therefore useless.
In the last example we just did, we eliminated a redundancy from a sentence. And that’s part of a Sentence Cleanup. But you can also find and eliminate entire redundant sentences.
Look for repetitive phrases, sentences, and even passages in your content and remove them.
Students often repeat things over and over, using different words, thinking that they’re writing great content. Those are your opportunities to significantly shorten your essay while improving it at the same time.
Here’s an example from a fictitious student essay. Let’s say the student writes about his trip to Paris and states:
“ I found that Parisians are very nice if you talk to them in French. ”
And then, in the same or even a different paragraph or section, the following sentence would appear:
“Parisians can be very nice people, but they really prefer that you speak French with them.”
Well, the two sentences say the same thing, just using different words.
So, what do you do?
Pick the longer sentence and just delete it.
![how to reduce an essay](https://www.tutorphil.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/1-3-early-illustrations.003.png)
Sometimes you will find a whole paragraph in your essay that is repetitive and can be removed without the essay losing any meaning. If you find such a paragraph, just delete it.
Technique #3: Zooming Out
Make sure that you go through your essay using the first two techniques before you employ this and the next one.
The only case where you would do Zooming Out first would be if you had to shorten your essay drastically – by 30% or more.
If you’ve cleaned up all your sentences and removed all repetitive content, and you still need to lose hundreds of words, the Zooming Out technique will really help.
Here’s how it works.
You may have heard that in essay writing, you are supposed to proceed from general to specific. Whether you stick to this rule really well in your essay or not, I want you to notice something.
In your essay, you make statements that are:
- very general
- less general
- somewhat specific
- very specific
The most general statement in your essay is the thesis because it summarizes the entire essay. And the most specific parts of your essay are examples .
So, in order to shorten your essay, you can summarize your examples. I call this Zooming Out because you are taking something that was very specific (zoomed in) and making it more general (zoomed out).
![how to reduce an essay](https://www.tutorphil.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/1-3-early-illustrations.004.png)
Let’s say you’re writing about the harms of second-hand smoking. And in one of the sections you provide an example of your friend or someone in the news who became seriously ill because she lived with a smoker for a long time:
“My friend Isabelle was married to a chain smoker. Her husband refused not only to give up his habit but even to reduce it. As years went by, Isabelle began to notice some respiratory symptoms. At first, she developed a light but persistent cough. Then, she started to feel out of breath more and more often. When she finally went to a pulmonologist, a test revealed that she had COPD, a serious lung disease.”
This example is 74 words long. And this is your opportunity to shorten your essay dramatically.
You can simply contract this example into one short sentence and write something like this:
“A friend of mine developed lung disease after having lived with a chain smoker for twelve years.”
Now, this sentence contains only 17 words. We just cut out 57 words just by Zooming Out on one example.
We are Zooming Out because we are no longer exploring this example in detail. We simply provide a fact without giving a lot of specific information.
So, look for these detailed examples in your essay and just summarize each of them into one short sentence.
Technique #4: Cutting out a Section
This technique works very well to cut out a big chunk of your essay in one fell swoop.
Let’s say that you wrote an essay in which you have four supporting points to prove your main point, your thesis.
![how to reduce an essay](https://www.tutorphil.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/1-2-cut-out-section.002.png)
If this is a 2,000-word essay, then each section is approximately 500 words long. But do you really need four reasons/sections to support your point?
Is it possible that if you provide only three supporting points, your essay will still work very well?
![how to reduce an essay](https://www.tutorphil.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/1-2-cut-out-section.001.png)
For example, if you argue that apples are a great food, you could have four supporting points, claiming that apples are:
But what if you simply took out one of these points? Let’s say that you eliminate the section about the portability of apples.
Will your essay still work? Sure it will. It will work just fine with the three remaining supporting points. And you just cut out 500 words (in a 2,000-word essay).
After you have cut out a section, make sure to go back to your thesis statement and edit it to reflect the change.
I’ll leave you with one final tip. When trying to choose which sentence, paragraph, or section to cut out from your essay, go for the content that you know is not the best.
For example, you may have a section in your essay where you quote too much. Or, perhaps you were not very careful in paraphrasing, and your passage sounds too much like the original source. These would be great bits of content to get rid of.
I hope this was helpful. Now go ahead and shorten your essay to your heart’s desire!
How to Write a 300 Word Essay – Simple Tutorial
How to expand an essay – 4 tips to increase the word count, 10 solid essay writing tips to help you improve quickly, essay writing for beginners: 6-step guide with examples, 6 simple ways to improve sentence structure in your essays.
Tutor Phil is an e-learning professional who helps adult learners finish their degrees by teaching them academic writing skills.
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Home ➔ Essay Length Questions ➔ How to Shorten an Essay Without Ruining It
How to Shorten an Essay Without Ruining It
High-school and college essays impose strict word limits to which students struggle to conform. It can be challenging to express your opinion, describe a historical event in full, or tell a good story within 500 words . When it comes to reducing the word count, most learners find it quite hard. “I struggle to shorten my essay without ruining it.” If your thoughts are similar to that, we will try to help you solve this problem.
To illustrate how you can reduce the word count in your paper without impairing its integrity, we will use sample sentences and go through a list of techniques you can apply. To shorten an essay, you can :
- Eliminate redundancy
- Combine sentences with similar meanings
- Avoid referring back
- Listen to your writing
Further, we will give examples of sentences that can be shrunk with their revisions.
Note: You can reverse some tips from our article about essay lengthening .
1. Edit out redundancies and reduce wordiness
What’s redundant? It’s something that exceeds what’s necessary or enough. Redundancy in linguistics implies the usage of words and phrases that repeat what has been already said or can be understood from the context. Although it can help the reader better understand emotions or situations in nonfiction, it’s unwelcome in academic writing. Hence, when trying to shorten your essay, start by eliminating redundancy. Wordy phrasing also falls under this section.
You can clutter your writing with repetitive phrases and needless words without even noticing it. You might want to make the text more detailed or get so inspired when writing that you can’t stop filling your sentences with adjectives and adverbs. That doesn’t mean you’re a terrible writer — you just need to do a bit of editing and reduce the essay’s word count a bit.
Eliminating redundancy
The best way to understand what can be cut out is to see if the meaning of the sentence stays the same when you do so.
Original: I was absolutely certain that each and every quote I provided in my essay about politics made my argument much more compelling.
Let’s edit and shorten the sentence above.
Edited: I was sure every fact in my essay made my argument compelling.
We removed 10 words, and the meaning hasn’t changed. Of course, we exaggerated our example for illustrative purposes.
As for what we deleted, the word “ certain ” doesn’t require a modifier because if you’re not completely certain, you are not certain anymore (if that makes sense). The words “ each ” and “ every ” mean the same, so we can remove one instance. You can remove “I provided” because you specify that the essay is yours, so it’s only logical that those quotes were provided by you. We removed “ about politics ” because this phrase doesn’t have anything to do with the rest of the sentence. And “ much more ” also can be omitted without changing the context.
Below is a list of redundancies, removing which you can make your college essay shorter.
![how to reduce an essay a list of redundant phrases that can be fixed to make an essay shorter](https://essayreply.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/redundant-phrases-wbg.png)
Eliminating wordiness
When revising your essay, make sure every word has its weight and role. Wordiness implies using phrases that can be replaced with one or two words without changing the meaning or choosing a sentence structure with too many articles and prepositions. Also, some words can be deleted without any harm to the text.
To eliminate wordiness, you can:
- Avoid using passive voice
- Replace heavy phrases
- Favor noun clusters
- Use verbs for action
- Stop the preposition train
- Use fewer fillers and qualifiers
Let’s look closer at each method.
Using the active voice
When you use the passive voice, the subject receives the action, and the action doer is often unknown. Instead, use the active voice whenever possible, especially if it’s critical to know who or what acts.
Original: The process of essay shortening is often found as a challenging task.
Edited: Students often find essay shortening challenging.
Simplifying long phrases
Writers might use longer equivalents of phrases in scientific papers or nonfiction, but you should simplify them in essays to reduce the word count.
Original: Due to the fact that the majority of papers have to fall in line with length limitations, students are necessitated to gain an understanding of how to put their thoughts into words clearly.
Edited: Because most papers must meet length requirements, students should learn how to express their thoughts clearly.
Below is a list of such phrases and their equivalents.
![how to reduce an essay a list of wordy phrases that can be replaced to shorten an essay](https://essayreply.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/a-list-of-wordy-phrases-e1571144139787.png)
Use noun clusters
Prepositions are also counted as words, so by reducing them, you can make your essay shorter.
Original: There are many processes in the industry that must be considered first.
Edited: You must consider many industry processes first.
Express action through verbs
When choosing between using a noun formed from a verb (nominalization) or the verb, opt for the latter.
Original: The economic destabilization is the consequence of the government’s failure to implement effective economic policies.
Edited: The government’s failure to implement effective economic policies destabilized the economy.
Reduce the preposition and article count
Some grammar and readability checking tools call a preposition-riddled sentence sticky or bogged down .
Original: One of the most crucial events in the history of humanity was the tearing down of the Berlin Wall.
Edited: The fall of the Berlin Wall was a momentous event in human history.
Reduce the number of fillers and qualifiers
Fillers are words that add no meaning and value to the sentence. Qualifiers are words that usually come before adjectives and change their quality. Check the list below for the most common words and phrases of these types.
Original: It’s quite important to note that the study revealed rather interesting results.
Edited: The study revealed intriguing results.
![how to reduce an essay qualifiers and fillers to remove and reduce word count](https://essayreply.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/a-list-of-fillers-and-qualifiers-to-remove.png)
You can use the essay shortening tips above as a way to improve your overall writing. If you learn to write without being wordy or using a lot of fillers, the quality of your text will rise a lot.
You can use these eliminating wordiness exercises by Purdue University to check yourself.
2. Combine sentences with similar meanings
When speaking, we use new sentences to elaborate on previous ideas and add a new meaning. Typically, we speak with longer sentences than in writing. If you write the same way you talk, it will take a toll on your essay’s word count.
Original: Many students find it difficult to write within the essay length limit imposed by schools. I also often struggle to fit my essays into the word count confines.
That sentence contains a lot of information that we can combine into a shorter passage.
Edited: Like many students, I find it hard to write essays within length requirements.
The sentence above conveys the same meaning but is much shorter. We got rid of 15 words, more than half of what we got first. Multiply this by all the instances you could compress, and the number could reach 100-150 words! Look for ideas that can be combined in one sentence.
Compress you examples
In your essay, the most specific parts are the examples, and contracting them is an excellent way of shortening your paper. When using someone’s story as an example, you might get carried away and start providing too many details spreading over five or six sentences. If your essay has such parts, “ zoom out ” and shrink them as much as possible.
If you can’t do that, think about replacing them with other examples.
3. Don’t refer to previous paragraphs
Avoid linking to previous information in an essay — it’s a waste of time. Phrases like “ as it was mentioned before ” or “ from the last paragraph, we can conclude ” are redundant. They disorient the readers and prevent them from moving forward.
Original: As it was mentioned earlier, we can improve our education system by…
Edited: We can improve our education system by…
Many students make this mistake when writing a conclusion . They give a mere summary of the body paragraphs when instead, you must tie them together and provide a broader context without sending the reader back.
4. Listen to your essay
Luckily, you don’t need to wait for thunder and get your essay struck by lightning to do that. Use Google Translate’s “ listen ” button or ask somebody to read it out loud for you. Once you hear your writing, you might identify the parts worth deleting. When listening to your essay being read out loud, pay attention to:
- Sentences that feel too long and hefty
- Awkward-sounding words and phrases
- Areas that stray off the topic
Each time you spot something from the list above, pause and reread that part to see if it can be fixed.
This recommendation puts you into the reader’s shoes and lets you cut out all the wordy and strange-sounding passages.
The best way to shorten an essay is by combining all our tips. After several revisions, you will shrink your text without destroying content.
Some online tools can also help you with that:
- Grammarly — its free version is enough to weed out all the fillers and qualifiers.
- OneLook reverse dictionary — can help you replace a wordy concept with one or two words and avoid repetition.
- ClicheFinder — get rid of cliche phrases or substitute them with shorter equivalents. “You can’t draw blood from a stone” can easily become “impossible” or “futile.”
- Smmry — it’s a tool that summarizes texts. Use it if you lack time, but don’t forget to proofread the result.
![how to reduce an essay banner logo](https://essayreply.com/img/logo_new.png)
Schools impose word limits to make sure students do not stuff their writing with lengthy phrases and learn to write clearly. Another reason is to ensure equality so that everyone does the same amount of research. Also, a word limit acts as a guide forcing you to be more to the point and plan your writing.
There are a few things that can help you stick to the word limit from the very beginning. First, create a clear thesis statement that allows you to narrow your focus and stay on the subject. Second, prepare a detailed outline that will define the ideas you want to include. Third, monitor the word count every ten or twenty minutes to see how much space you have left.
Besides the things we cover in our article, you can also try to replace phrasal verbs with their one-word versions (e.g., “ get back ” -> “ return ”). Many phrases that are separated with a comma can be safely removed from your essay (e.g., “ to be honest ” or “ in fact ”).
It depends, but a 10% margin should be fine. If another 100 words will make a difference, add them. However, you should always try to stay under the limit indicated in the requirements, especially for a college application essay. You might get away with writing a bit less text, whereas more will just annoy the reader.
The list of references
- Writing Concisely — The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- Effective Use of Language — University of Washington
- Writing Concise Sentences by the Capital Community College Foundation (with exercises)
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How to decrease your word count, without ruining your point.
Here's our comprehensive guide to writing shorter sentences, without affecting the strength of your argument
![how to reduce an essay Hugo Whitehead](https://blog.outwrite.com/content/images/size/w100/2018/08/Screen-Shot-2018-08-31-at-10.54.41-am.png)
Hugo Whitehead
Whether you're at school, university or writing your thirteenth book, you’ve probably got an incurable habit of writing more than you're supposed to. One minute you're struggling to get words on the page, the next you're way over your required word count.
To ease your worries, we've put together a comprehensive guide to writing shorter sentences, without changing the meaning of your content.
Check what is being counted:
First of all, check what is actually being counted. Often, your bibliography, footnotes, appendixes, and image captions aren’t counted in the word limit, so make sure you aren’t including them accidentally.
Watch out for repetition:
Without even realizing it, people will over explain and repeat themselves. Sometimes even good writers will include information twice. For example, “I went to university at the University of Technology Sydney”. Did you notice it? I didn't need to say “to university” because it is already stated in “University of Technology Sydney”. Instead, I should have said “I went to the University of Technology Sydney”. It might sound simple, but you’ll probably want to get someone else to read over your work to find these, as they’re rather hard to catch.
Remove adverbs:
Adverbs are usually unnecessary, and can weaken your writing. A quick thesaurus search will help you find a stronger synonym. For example, changing "very neat" to "immaculate" sounds better, and is one word shorter. You can find out more about the impact of adverbs on your writing in this article .
Remove adjectives:
In some cases, there is no need to over describe something. Especially, if you are trying to cut down you word count, you don’t need to say the day was cloudless, there was little wind, humidity was perfect and it was a lovely 27 degrees. Shorten it by using ideas that are familiar to people e.g. ‘it was a perfect summer day’. Your readers will know what a perfect summer day is like so you don’t need to waste words explaining it.
Use contractions:
This is a rather sneaky trick, but by contracting two words into one, you're easily reducing your word count without changing the meaning at all. For example, change “I have” to “I’ve” or “Would not” to “Wouldn’t”. Be careful though, if you are writing in formal context for an essay, CV or assignment, it’s best to avoid using contractions as they give a rather colloquial tone to your writing.
Use commas:
Sentences are typically used to convey one idea. However, if you can link two of your sentences together to discuss the same idea, do it. By using a comma or conjunction to link two sentences, you're bound to remove some words in the middle. For example, “Emily was so mean to me. She used to bully me” can be changed to “Emily was so mean because she used to bully me”. Make sure you don’t try and link every sentence as it will ruin the flow of your writing.
Eliminate wordy transitions:
Most good writers will try and link their paragraphs together with some form of transition. Whilst this gives flow from paragraph to paragraph, they can be wordy. Try and use a single word to link sentences. For example, use ‘Additionally’ instead of ‘In addition’, or ‘Opposingly’ instead of ‘In contrast’.
Swap out phrases for words:
From time to time, writers will use common phrases or idioms to help explain a situation. They are an easy way to cut out words. For examples, change “Volkswagen Golfs are a dime a dozen in Sydney” for “Volkswagen Golfs are common in Sydney”. Another example is “Jimmy was feeling under the weather on Monday after a big weekend”, which could be changed to “Jimmy was sick after a big weekend”.
Pick your best work:
If you have gone through you work and can’t find any easy spots to reduce your word count, the best thing to do is to re-read your writing and determine what your strongest points are. Focus on a few main points and keep the parts that you feel have the strongest impact on your reader.
It’s not an easy process. Cutting down your word count is a good skill to have, and no doubt you’ll have to do it at some point in the future.
Let Outwrite do it:
Can’t be bothered to do this all yourself? Check out Outwrite’s paraphrasing tool . It can help you rewrite sentences to make them shorter, clearer, and more compelling. Just sign up to our Pro plan, set your Rewrite goal, then get to work!
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- Writing Tips
Top Tips for Decreasing Your Word Count
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4-minute read
- 3rd July 2022
Cutting your academic writing down to meet a specific word limit can be tricky – sometimes more so than writing the essay itself! But don’t panic, you don’t have to start from scratch. There are some quick fixes that can help you get your word count down.
Below are our top tips for students who need to decrease their word count.
Look Out for Wordiness
It can be tempting, particularly in academia, to be wordy in your writing. Whether it’s intentional or not, most of us are guilty of this at some point.
To reduce your word count, look out for wordy sentences. If you can say the same thing in fewer words, make the change. Here’s an example:
Wordy: By far the most important aspect of this study to take into account is the way in which the participants responded to the final course of hair loss treatment.
Not wordy: The most important takeaway is how the participants responded to the final course of hair loss treatment.
Not only does reducing wordiness help decrease the word count, but it also makes your work easier to read and understand.
Eliminate Redundancy
One common source of wordiness is redundancy. This means using two words when one will do. Take the following sentence, for example:
Participants were then subjected to an unexpected surprise task.
Here, the phrase “unexpected surprise” involves a redundancy: i.e., Since a surprise is by definition unexpected, adding “unexpected” here doesn’t tell us anything. And this means we can cut “unexpected” without losing anything from the sentence.
Other common redundant phrases include “past history,” “consensus of opinion,” and “end result.” Keep an eye out for phrases like these so you can remove any redundant terms.
Watch Out for Nominalizations
Another common source of wordiness is nominalization . This refers to describing an action using a noun and a verb when a verb alone would work. For instance:
We conducted an investigation into the effect of sleep deprivation on memory.
Here, “conducted an investigation” is a nominalization comprising a verb (“conducted”) and a noun (“investigation”). But there is a verb form of “investigation” we could use instead:
We investigated into the effect of sleep deprivation on memory.
This simple switch immediately removes two words from the sentence. If you need to reduce the word count in a document, look out for places to make changes like this.
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Use Fewer Modifiers
Cutting back on modifiers such as adverbs and adjectives can be a good way to reduce the word count in a document. For example:
The whole experiment was massively impacted by the weather.
Here, while “whole” and “massively” do emphasize the extent of the impact described, they’re not essential to the meaning of the sentence. We could therefore rephrase more concisely and say:
The experiment was impacted by the weather.
Another one to look out for is “very.” A lot of the time, this can be cut as shown above. But you can also often change the word being modified to remove the need for the “very” in the first place.
For instance, while you might be tempted to say “very hungry” or “very happy,” you could look for a single term that communicates the same idea in each case (e.g., “famished” or “delighted,” respectively).
The key is to consider whether the modifying term is essential to the meaning of the sentence. If not, then it can usually be removed. If so, think about whether there is a single word that would express the same idea more concisely.
Use the Active Voice
Another great tip for reducing your word count is to use the active voice where possible.
People are often encouraged to use the passive voice in academic writing because it can give your work an objective, scholarly tone. But it can also be wordier than the active voice. For instance:
The recall task was then completed by the participants.
This sentence is in the passive voice because it foregrounds the task (i.e., the object of the action) over the participants (i.e., the people performing the action). But it would be more concise to phrase this in the active voice, placing the participants first in the sentence:
The participants then completed the recall task.
Looking for places to rephrase in the active voice throughout your work can therefore help to reduce the overall word count.
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7 Word Count Tips for Clear, Powerful Academic Writing
Maximum word limits are a pain in the butt. It’s kinda soul destroying to have to cut all the beautiful words you’ve just spent hours writing.
But they are there for a reason.
Word limits force you to write concisely so you can answer the question well without wasting words. I often felt like there was no way I could cut enough from my word count but, using my techniques below, I always managed to and the end result was a clearer, more powerful piece of writing.
In this blog post you’ll discover:
- Why you should cut the fluff from your writing
- Why you should try to reduce your word count
- 7 simple techniques to improve your writing today
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Your goal isn’t to write a literary masterpiece. You won’t get higher marks for knocking your tutor’s socks off with your elegant prose.
Instead – you need to get your ideas down on paper in the least amount of words possible. While your writing may seem less pleasant to read, your tutor will appreciate de-bloated writing…and you should gain higher marks.
Benefits of reducing your word count and improving the clarity of your writing:
- Your ability to control your language will give the reader the impression you are intelligent and educated
- Clear writing will help the reader understand your ideas and argument
- Cutting the fluff will allow you to include more valuable points so you can score the highest mark possible
If you manage to cut 100 words from an essay by using these tips, that’s 100 extra words to answer the question. Those 100 spare words could be used to craft seven or eight kick ass sentences that could gain you the marks needed to push you to the next grade.
7 Simple Ways to Reduce Your Word Count
1. get rid of redundant modifiers.
The use of redundant modifiers has crept into our everyday language so they’re hard to spot. Marketing messages often include redundant modifiers to attempt to add effect, such as, ‘ very unique ’. If something is ‘ unique ’ it is one of a kind. Adding ‘ very ’ does nothing to the meaning, adds an extra word and just sounds silly if you think about it. The same applies to the examples, ‘ added bonus ’ or ‘ absolutely certain ’.
Look through your writing to see if you’ve included any redundant modifiers. After awhile you’ll get in the habit of not using them.
Here's some examples you can edit to reduce your word count
Absolutely certain > certain
Added bonus > bonus
Basic essentials > essentials
Complete monopoly of the market > monopoly of the market
Crystal clear > clear
End result > result
Exact same > exact/same
Final outcome > outcome
Immediate vicinity > vicinity
Major breakthrough > breakthrough
Make plans in advance > make plans
New initiative > initiative
Natural instinct > instinct
Over exaggerate > exaggerate
Past experience > experience
Past memories > memories
Personal opinion > opinion
Postpone until later > postpone
Revert back > revert
Top priority > priority
True fact > fact
Very unique > unique
Weather conditions > weather
Written down > written
2. De-bloat your inflated phrases
Similarly, there are probably instances where you’re using two, three or four words where one would do. These can take a few edits to pick up but once removed your word count and clarity are improved pretty quickly.
Are indications of > indicates
At all times > always
At the present time > at present/currently/now
Collaborate/join together > collaborate/join
Completely ruined > devastated
Concerning the matter of > about
Despite the fact that > although
Due to the fact that > because
During the course of > during
For the purpose of > for
Has a tendency to > tends
Has knowledge of > knows
Has the ability to > can
In a situation in which > when
In order to > to/so that
In the event that > if
It is necessary that > must/should
On the other hand > conversely
On two separate occasions > twice
The majority of > most
There is a chance that > may/might/could
Until such time as > until
What the organisation aims to do is > the organisation aims to
Whether or not > whether
Will provide a summary > will summarise
With regards to > about
3. Redundant categories
Some people have a tendency to state an attribute or characteristic and then, perhaps in an effort to be more accurate, state its category too. For example, ‘ blue in colour ’ should just be ‘ blue ’. ‘ Small in size ’ should just be ‘ small ’. Remove these in your writing and sound smarter.
Attractive in appearance > attractive
Blue in colour > blue
Heavy in weight > heavy
Honest in character > honest
In a confused state > confused
Of a strange type > strange
Of cheap quality > cheap
Period in time > period
Small in size > small
Unusual in nature > unusual
4. Remove ‘that’
Some words take up precious word count but add nothing. The most common is ‘ that ’ which is fairly harmless but, over the course of an entire essay, could increase the word count. You won’t always be able to remove ‘ that ’ and maintain clarity, but search your document and see if removing them alters the meaning of the sentence.
Ensure that you make relevant use of both articles
This is the book that she wrote
The report that was approved by the board
I want to buy that car
5. Delete adverbs
Adverbs can weaken academic writing by detracting from what is being said. Using adverbs frequently will bloat your writing and can disrupt a reader’s flow. Don’t add a descriptive word to a verb, instead just use a descriptive verb. For example, ‘ dropped rapidly ’ can become ‘ plummeted ’.
Search your text for the word ‘ very ’ or adverbs ending in ‘ ly’ and see if they can be replaced while maintaining clarity.
Eat noisily > gulp
Drop rapidly > plummet
Look angrily > scowl
Run quickly > sprint
Say quietly > whisper
Very big > enormous
Very tired > exhausted
6. Eliminate redundant pairings
The English language is so rich we often have too many words to choose from . Rather than choosing one and sticking to it we tend to pile them on top of each other. A simple idea can quickly become a bloated sentence filled with pointless words.
Look out for some of the examples below and shorten them to reduce the word count but maintain clarity
(Also do this where you’ve created your own list of descriptive or explanatory words.)
First and foremost
Hope and trust
Each and every
So on and do forth
Over and done with
One and only
Few and far between
Peace and quiet
Hope and desire
Tidy and presentable
7. Remove ‘helping words’
This technique can take a little practice to implement but it can reduce your word count quickly. Sentences including words in the form of ‘ be ’ or ‘ have ’ can often be edited and rearranged to reduce word count and add clarity. Check your writing for these sentences.
First, one has to analyse the situation > first, analyse the situation
The report was prepared by Psychology students > Psychology students prepared the report
This report has been prepared to analyse… > this report analyses/aims to analyse…
His duties were classified in the report > the report classified his duties.
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How to shorten an essay (2022 Top Expert Guide)
Table of Contents
What comes to a naive mind when dwelling on “ how to shorten an essay ” is that, it is a tedious and meticulous task.
How to shorten an essay
Shortening an essay is not difficult when you grab the right tips and tricks. These are the best common ways to make your assigned essay shorter in terms of pages. Some of these methods may reduce the essay by three or four pages. Some may cause more pages, and some may create a more elusive outcome.
Experiment with your submission and find the ideal combination. Do not worry about the assignment due date; focus on the cat.
The five best ways to make an essay shorter include:
1. Start with a thesis statement. A good thesis statement is the foundation of a well-rounded paper. When you begin your essay, make a clear statement. Be able to back that statement up if necessary, but be prepared to argue for it in a strong sense. Avoid the sentence “I believe that X.” Instead, state a thesis to help the reader understand exactly how you feel and why.
2. Read your essay out loud. This will help you find areas that need improvement, and it will keep you aware of the pace of this activity.
3. Take notes. It is easy to get caught up in this activity and lose sight of what else needs to be done. Make a note of the best ideas that come to you while doing this research activity.
4. When writing the thesis, write down how you will prove or support it. Read your essay aloud again, and look for areas where you need more information.
5. If your project is expository, the most commonly misunderstood aspect is the conclusion. You need to write the conclusion at the end of your project. Make sure it is clear, concise, and to the point.
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Paraphrasing
Can we shorten our essays through paraphrasing? Yes, we can. However, many students mistake rewording what they learn in the book. To create a properly-written paraphrase, you need to understand the original text and also be careful to maintain its organization.
Paraphrasing language that is poor, vague, or missing essential details can have a significant impact on the audience. To write a good paraphrase, you need to practice and review it before publishing.
The best way to write a good paraphrase is that the writer expresses his ideas in his own words. While paraphrasing, ensure your reader understands what you mean by your sentences and writing.
Write More Concisely – Tips to Shorten Your Essay
Need help on how to shorten an essay ? Shortening your essay is not a difficult thing to do, but it might require some effort. You will have a concise and engaging essay if you follow these steps!
Here are eight proven tips to shorten your essay:
1. Use simple, everyday words. Don’t try to conceal yourself behind big words. They will only exacerbate your flaws.
2. Remove any unnecessary words.
Examine your adverbs (strongly, gratuitously), adjectives (large, great), and qualifiers (very, somewhat). The majority of the words you don’t need can be found here. Consider whether they are necessary. If not, get rid of them.
3. Avoid using nominalization.
How many times have you suffocated a verb by making it a noun?
(delude – delusion, exclude – exclusion, contract – contraction) Stop it!
4. Avoid using these five words too close to a verb.
Desist from using the words’ take,’ ‘give, “make,’ ‘conduct,’ and ‘come’ too close to a verb or a nominalized verb phrase. They detract from the clarity of your sentences.
Example: ‘The organization needs to take the defects into consideration.’ should be ‘The organization needs to consider the defects.’
Other tips to shorten your essay include:
5. Make use of strong, specific verbs and nouns. This allows you to avoid using the passive voice, cut down on wordiness, and eliminate modifiers and qualifiers.
6. Make use of the active voice.
You must use the active voice if you follow plain language rules. It assists you in simplifying your message and saying precisely what you want to say. The active voice eliminates uncertainty. We are always aware of who is doing what. The Hemingway App assists you in identifying passive voice.
7. Avoid using jargon.
Overused phrases in a company or industry lose all meaning. Please refrain from using the terms’ like, ‘think outside the box,’ ‘win-win situation,’ ‘low-hanging fruit,’ and ‘pushing the envelope.’ Your readers will ignore you if you don’t say what you mean.
8. Avoid using verbs that require you to ‘tell.’
When used to describe something, these ten verbs will unnecessarily increase your word count.
These ten verbs are appeared, mused, seemed, thought, wondered, seemed, felt, decided, heard, and realized. Stay away from them.
Shortening an essay requires a lot of focus, but the payoff is well worth the effort. Try out these tips, and soon you’ll be able to significantly shorten your essay without removing any significant content from the piece.
Think about your essay like a puzzle. You can add and subtract individual pieces to make the picture stronger.
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Pam is an expert grammarian with years of experience teaching English, writing and ESL Grammar courses at the university level. She is enamored with all things language and fascinated with how we use words to shape our world.
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How to Reduce Your Essay Word Count
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When it comes to writing essays, there are two frequent issues that arise; the word count is either too low or too high for the stated range of the essay. For those who perpetually end up with too few words, you need to figure out ways to increase your essay word count . For those who frequently find themselves with too many words on the page, there are some simple steps to take when editing to help reduce the number of words while at the same time making it a stronger piece of writing. Below are some suggestions to do this.
Rank Your Arguments
If you find you’re well above your word count maximum, the first step is to rank the points you use to substantiate your argument. By ranking the importance of the arguments you make in the essay, you can eliminate ones which aren’t as important as others, keeping the essay strong while removing large portions of writing. If you don’t want to eliminate any of the points, you can still reduce word count by mentioning all the arguments, but not writing as much detail about those not as strong as the more important points.
Focus on the Main Point
Once you determine what the important arguments are for your essay, read through it looking for any paragraphs or sentences which fail to address your main argument(s) or topic. It’s easy to accidentally go off on tangents when writing, and eliminating these tangents can help reduce word count. The more focused you can remain on your topic and arguments, the more concise your writing will be.
Use the Best Verb
This may sound obvious, but a lot of writers don’t do this well. When writing, always use the perfect verb rather than one that’s close, but not perfect. When you use the best verb possible, it will reduce the amount of writing you do in most cases. This is due to the fact that when you use a verb that’s not quite correct, you usually need to add more words to clarify your meaning. Here’s an example:
“They beat the opposing team by a lot of points.”
While “beat” is accurate in this case, it’s not the perfect verb because they not only beat the team, they beat the team by a lot. Using the better verb “trounce” in this instant will reduce the word count while still giving the same meaning as the longer sentence.
“They trounced the opposing team.”
Remove Adverbs
Look through your essay and see if you find any adverbs, especially adverbs which have “ly” endings. In many instances, these adverbs end up being filler words which end up being placed in the writing because it’s the way we talk, but the words don’t add anything beneficial to the actual essay. Go through the essay and ask if each one is needed and remove those that aren’t. Some words you may want to look out for are (click on image to expand to see better)
![how to reduce an essay list of ly adverbs](https://wordcounter.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/ly-adverbs-463x600.jpg)
Remove Adjectives
Much in the same way as adverbs make their way into writing, multiple adjectives are used when one (or none at all) would suffice. Read the essay to see if all of the adjectives used are needed, and remove those which don’t add to the meaning of the sentence being written. Some common adjectives to look for are:
able, bad, big, different, early, first, few, good, great, high, important, large, last, little, long, new, next, old, other, own, public, right, same, small, young
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I hate maximum word counts because I can never stay under them. Why do teachers do this to me? Why can’t I just write as much as I want?
If you saw what the majority of students turn in for homework, you would understand perfectly why there is either a maximum or minimum (sometimes both)for writing assignments.
This is such a challenge sometimes. I hate editing because I love all my words. It helps to know how to reduce the word count even though I don’t want to do it. I think teachers should let us write as much as we want. Isn’t that helping us to be better students than limiting the amount we can write?
Limiting the amount you can write is actually something that can help you write better. It forces you to clean up your writing and only make the most necessary points which will make it more concise and accurate. Editing is more important than the actual writing to write well for most people. Your teacher is doing you a great service by limiting the amount you can write.
This isn’t a problem. The problem is reaching a minimum word count. Anyone who complains about writing too much doesn’t know what a real writing problem is.
You’re correct! Because obviously there is only one type of writing style!
A classic case of someone thinking that the world revolves around them and not understanding that just because it’s not a problem they have, others can’t have it. A very narrow world view. You might want to actually try and see things from the perspective of others every once in awhile.
I write too much. I’ wordy. I always have to reduce word count. It’s as much of n issue for me is not having enough words is for you. I hate it when people dismiss problems of others jus because it happens not to be a problem for them.
This may not be an issue for you, but it is for many people like me. It’s pretty self-centered of you to think that only your specific problems matter.
Clearly your still in primary school. Just to inform you while I was in grades 6-12 I was always over the minimum/maximum word limits. Today in college I’m easily 1500+ over my maximum limit without headers, intros, and sources. I’m not saying your issue isn’t real I’m just explaining there’s always a flip side to a problem/issue.
I’m wordy. Far too wordy. I do my best writing when I have to edit myself and these ideas are good places for me to begin. I wish I could stay under my professor’s word count limits, but it never happens I guess it’s better than writer’s block, but it’s still an issue.
Learning to write concisely will improve your writing so much. It’s not easy, but it can make a huge impact on the points you’re trying to convey. it’s worth practicing it.
Yes, I agree!
I’m wordy. My best writing is edited, and these will help. I wish I could adhere to word limits. Better than writer’s block!
Editing is such an under appreciated part of writing. I love the quote that says that great writing is composed on the editing block. Reducing your word count shouldn’t be viewed as a chore but as an opportunity to improve your writing. Being able to get your point across concisely is a great skill to have.
I agree. Most students don’t realize the importance of good editing and how it can greatly improve their writing. I believe students should spend at least as much time editing their essays as they do writing them.
I always do this! I tend to write double the word count and spend the same amount of time editing it, it not more time! It’s so difficult and I have it but I enjoy the idea of it making me write better and improve my academic writing. The most difficult bit is that I feel it’s all relevant and then having to condense it as a academic writer whilst still making the assignment flow. Argh! Uni problems!
Me Too!! I’m a bit crazy with writing! ;p
This is soooooo true and they don’t really teach you this in school. They tell you to write, but not to edit. I would have loved it if I was given a document that I had to keep the same meaning and important points, but shorten it by 200 words. It’s a skill I didn’t learn well in school but you need in the real world.
This is a new problem for me. I used to always be under word count, but recently I’ve started to always go over word count. I thought that being under was bad, but being over seems to be even more difficult. I’m not good at editing so it takes me so long to get under word count.
Editing is a lot like writing. The more you practice, the better you will get at it. Don’t get frustrated and continue to work on your editing skills. You’ll be surprised at how much better your writing gets the more you practice them. Good luck!
Seriously, who ever needs to reduce their essay word count? Everyone I know is always trying to make their word count. Do these people just write random things to get that high of a word count? That makes no sense…
ha ha. I assume you’re still in middle or high school with a comment like this. One day you’ll learn that writing can be fun and interesting, and when that happens, you won’t have enough space to write everything you want.
The thing is I am in middle school and always go 1000 words over the limit in my assignments. A good strategy that I use is to create a new document and copy and paste each paragraph. each time I copy a paragraph I try to delete some unnecessary words. This strategy works really well and it helps me a lot when doing assignments
For me i always go over because as I’m writing and sourcing things, I find other useful sections that provide good arguments and compassion’s. Currently I’m on a 3000 word essays and Iv done 4700 without an intro. My references are 700 so I’m technically 1000 over. I’m really struggling to condense it.
There’s an easy way to reduce your word count that works great for me every time. JUST DON”T WRITE SO MUCH!
I don’t know if you were being serious or not, but for some people that’s easier said than done. I tend to be wordy in my first drafts, and so when I go back through I cut a lot of words while editing. If I only wrote the exact number of words required the first time through, my grades would be a lot worse than they are. When I edit, I make my essays a lot better. I think most people do. If you’re only writing first drafts of any assignment, you’re not putting your best work forward. While your advice seems like it’s simple, it actually is bad advice for those who want to get good grades.
I think it’s difficult for people who have a hard time reaching a word count minimum to understand how difficult it is for those of us who have a hard time staying under word count. Although they are completely opposite problems, they are just as difficult for both sides. It’s kind of like two sides of the same coin.
It is, but those needing more words can source and add information, arguments and comparisons. But for those that have already done this it is difficult to cut and priorities your work based on what’s relevant or proves a better argument.
What if you have a lot to say on the topic? Should I just dumb down my writing because the teacher says that I have a maximum word count that I’m not supposed to exceed? Sometimes it’s important to write a lot when there’s a lot to be said.
Some of us like to write with detail and that can also make your word count extremely high. By toning down your piece and being a bit more general, it might also help decrease your word count.
I worry when I do this that I’m losing marks as I’m not explaining myself from cutting the work I did
I recently have found that I no longer have trouble reaching assigned word counts, but now I am constantly going over them. I’m not sure how this happened. Even worse, I think being over word count is even harder than being under it. Who would have thought?
I think this is a common problem as people become better writers. As you become more confident in your writing, you tend to write more. The previous writing problems turn into editing problems. the good news is that as you get better at writing, your wordiness will tend to go down again. Just like it to practice to increase your word count, it will take practice to reduce your word count as well.
I happened to be a wordy writer. I never seem to be able to stay under the assigned word count on my essays. I found that one of the best ways to reduce the amount that I write is to take the time to outline before I even start writing. If I outline and I see that the outline is too long, I know my writing is going to be long. That gives me the opportunity to focus on the most important points of the essay which helps to keep the word count down. I don’t know if this will work for everybody, but it works well for me and I thought I would share it in case it helps somebody else.
Use contractions when possible, use active voice and leave out the unnecessary adjectives. Be careful of going on tangents and stay on topic. Idioms and cliches are you enemy.
I’m 478 words over my essay maximum and I have no idea how I’m going to get it under the limit. All the words are important and if I cut anything, it ruins it. Why do I always have so much to say?
Were you able to get your essay under the limit? Learning to be concise in your writing is difficult, but it will make your writing a lot better in the long run.
Well Stephanie, you don’t have to take out anything! If you just write, maybe your teacher will give you easier stuff!
No, not quite.
Hey Stephanie, i totally feel you 🙁 I’m really wordy and i feel that adds to the uniqueness of my essays but sometimes it does get out of hand. Removing those words kind of ruins the flow of my essays and i don’t really know how to go about it :/
The best thing you can do for your writing is to learn to edit well.
That’s easy to say, but how do you learn to edit well? I want to reduce the number of words in my essays, but they all seem important. I don’t want to edit out words that are important to the essay. If all seem important, then how do you choose which ones to eliminate?
Practice. Editing is like writing…the more you do it, the better you become. You don’t even have to write to practice editing. take something someone else has written and see if you can make it read more cleanly. It can be fun and addicting.
You don’t even have to write to practice editing
Take the ‘even’ out for example.
Hi everyone! I need some help. I want to write a Book, but I can’t think of anything to write about! So can anyone Please Hep Me!!!
Write about the journey that lead you to writing a book. All the notable series of events
That is a really boring story. (At least mine is)
One day My friends Zoey, wrote a book, and it was really good, so I started to write one as well…
See, boring.
But thanks!
My time has come! I’ve got a lot of ideas, but I want to read the book, not write it. How about a person who has a normal, twenty-first century life falls into a different time, and everyone keeps insisting they belong there as a person the protagonist has never heard of. The protagonist knows that they don’t, but as time goes on, you, as the author, slowly reveal that everyone from that time is right and the protagonist was imagining their other life. Just an idea!
Write about something that you like or love tho do. I wrote a book about animals.
Of, and, but, by are evil words for me. Always get me.
im 1000 words (and counting) over the word limit, its due tomorrow and i wanna die
A few other tips:
1) Use the search bar to find the times you have said ‘that’ because most of the time you don’t actually need it for the sentence to make sense.
2) Also, you can try and reduce a phrase into one word. A a cause of this… = consequently…
3) If you are writing someone’s name (eg. an author or a president), then you can just use their surname.
4) This tip works particularly if you are writing a history essay, I always just say ‘America’ instead of ‘the USA’/’the US’. Also ‘The USSR’ instead of ‘The Soviet Union’ (also just say Britain, not the UK or Great Britain).
5) Sometimes you just have to look through and consider re-wording sentences: John Gaddis’s argument states that “Kennan was the architect of the Cold War” Gaddis disputes “Kennan was the architect of the Cold War”
“consequently” obviosuly does not mean “as a cause of this”
Great Britain is not the same as the UK.
I mustn’t write more than 150 words in my essay and it’s making me crazy :C
That’s not an essay, that’s a paragraph! I’m having trouble getting below 750.
Jesus Christ, what?
I did not say anything.
I’m submitting my English essay into the departments contest and the limit is 800 I originally had 1,332. These tips from both articles and comments are helping bunches let’s hope I can get it under the limit!
I’m 1500 words over on my dissertation.. i’ve used all these methods and i’m still way over the word limit.. H E L P
Have you tried to to move around sentences and maybe try to then get rid of some that don’t matter anymore?
I have this problem – I am currently over by 1046 words. But, through this process I have finally found a solution. Plan my paragraphs in advance making sure I estimate how much I should write for each paragraph; by using this as a mental guide as I write, I will know when to stop before I get the end and it’s all a bit too late.
I am 150 words over my 1000 word essay. I got into a essay writing mood and was going for 2 hr before i looked at my word count. All of my words are important but I have to get rid of some.
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How to Shorten an Essay – Steps with Examples
Published by Ellie Cross at November 10th, 2021 , Revised On January 31, 2024
Do you need to shorten an essay because you stuffed it with too many unnecessary arguments and information? Did you use too many unwanted phrases to increase the wordiness? Worry not! This article provides the steps you need to shorten an essay and keep it focused.
With enhancing levels of education, the level of scrutiny also went up substantially. Teachers and graders do not appreciate wordy and lengthy essays that astray from topics or arguments. Deviation from the central argument can result in the deduction of marks and pose a neglectful impression of the author.
Essays make up a considerable part of academic curricula. The importance of essays keeps increasing with the increasing level of education. We now see students writing essays from kindergarten until graduation on several topics to showcase their knowledge on the subject.
By making logical and focused arguments in the essay, students can gain recognition by trying to persuade the audience with their writing skills.
To avoid losing marks, make sure to keep your essay captivating. Boring narratives can cause the readers to lose interest in your essay. So, it’s better to avoid using unrelated arguments to increase wordiness. Ideas that are not composed well will not get you the grades you desire.
The following recommendations will surely be helpful for you to shorten your essay and avoid the repercussions of a bland essay.
1. Your Essay Outline is the Key.
Before starting an essay, authors usually ponder about the essay and create a rough essay sketch in their minds. Creating a good outline is of fundamental importance. One must scribble down all the ideas and narratives that come to mind. The following steps involve research; the researched material must be penned alongside the initial outline.
Once you are done with the groundwork, the next step involves removing, rejecting, and crossing anything and everything that does not support the thesis statement . Almost every college, school, or application essay has a word limit. A good outline with to-the-point material can help you stick to the topic and create a concise, well-written essay.
2. Reduce Redundancy
Essays above the allowed word count limit are prone to mismanagement while writing. One such case is using redundant vocabulary while writing.
We are prone to overexplain a stance and forget that the sentence or word used previously offers enough explanation to the readers. There is no need to write an extra sentence. Reduce redundancy to make your writing appealing and concise. Let us consider the following example.
“Children were playing football in the park with the ball.”
The highlighted portion of the above sentence is unnecessary as football is played with the ball and, even if avoided, can provide enough knowledge about children’s activity. Scrapping the redundant phrase will remove four words from the sentence. This technique can be instrumental when shortening an essay before submission.
Also read: How to write an argumentative essay
3. Combine Sentences with Similar Meanings
Combining sentences that convey similar meanings can shorten the essay. This can be done by compressing similar sentences to eliminate undesirable words from the sentences. A little conscious effort can help you identify parts that can be merged, significantly reducing the word count. Consider the following example,
“Children were playing football in the park. My son was also playing football with them.”
“My son was playing football with the children in the park.”
The above two sentences reflect how you can compress different sentences together, and the new sentence delivers the same meaning but with a lesser word count. As in the example, the first sentence is composed of 15 words, whereas the combined sentence’s word count is 10. So, we can eliminate five words.
Extending this approach to seven to ten sentences can help us cut at least 50 words.
Also read: How to write a narrative essay
4. Avoid Overusing Prepositional Phrases.
Writing is an arduous task. A writer is prone to overuse wordy sentences repeatedly using prepositions. You will unconsciously increase the length of the sentence if you overuse prepositions. The example below will give you an idea of why you need to be vigilant about prepositions’ use.
“Here is the schedule of the work for today. (9 words)”
“Here is today’s work schedule. (5 Words)”
The first sentence uses several prepositions hence adding to the length, whereas the second sentence is concise and delivers the same message with increased efficiency. Review your essay for such errors before submission. You can quickly identify many instances where you can use relatively efficient sentences and avoid using excessive prepositions.
Reviewing requires a good focus. If you feel like you have done all you can, then you can seek help for your essay from your friend or tutor.
Also read: How to write a descriptive essay
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5. Using Concise Words
The English language is famous for its vast vocabulary. There are always words that you can use in place of wordy phrases. This practice will reduce the length and magnify the appeal of the essay. There are several dynamic words that you can use in place of wordy sentences.
The examples you are going to counter below can be used as a vanguard in your writing.
“It is raining very heavily (5 words)”
“It is pouring (3 words)”
Here, three words were alternated by a single word. The new sentence is concise, delivers the meaning with intensity, and supplements more appeal to the phrase. Similarly,
“He was very afraid. (4 words)”
This approach will not only make help you shorten your essay but also reduce verbosity.
Also read: How to write an SAT essay
6. Get Rid of Anything That Doesn’t Add Value.
Review your essay by keeping the central argument or topic in focus. If you find any points that do not add value to your main argument or are irrelevant to the main idea, it is advisable to omit those sentences from the essay to shorten the essay’s length.
Most students are used to over-expanding ideas by adding details. However, it would be best to abide by the word limit set by your college or school. If you are struggling to improve your essay, you can get professional help from our essay experts .
Here is a quick guide on how to buy an essay from EssaysUK.
Frequently Asked Questions
How to shorten an essay.
To shorten an essay, start by removing unnecessary words, phrases, or sentences that do not contribute to the main message. Ensure each paragraph serves a clear purpose and eliminate repetitive information. Use concise language, combine or rephrase sentences, and focus on the most relevant points while maintaining coherence and clarity.
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Before we describe a narrative essay, it will make sense to understand what is an essay and what are the different types of essay.
A student of the school, college, or university is assigned to write academic essays throughout the academic career. An essay can be described as a brief composition of informative writing.
Expository essays are all about describing or explaining an idea, a topic, or a method in a rational and reasonable manner without their personal bias”. They involve thorough research to establish an impartial and composed view towards any given topic or idea.
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How to Shorten an Essay: Reduce Word Count but keep Points
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Shortening an Essay
When writing an essay, you may need to shorten it by reducing its word count to the number required by your instructor. In this case, you might have some words you need to eliminate in the essay. Also, you may have to shorten the paragraphs.
Read on for a comprehensive guide on 7 ways how you can shorten your essay but still make the points you intended to keep in the paper. If you need help to shorten your essay, just get in touch with our online essay writers, and the team will help you score an A
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How Do I Make My Essay Shorter
It is possible to shorten your essay or reduce the word count to meet the requirements during the editing process. The editing process should be the last step in writing your essay. The following are some of the most effective techniques to shorten your essay.
When it comes to writing essays, there are two types of students; those who write beyond the word count and those who write below the word count.
For those who write beyond the word count, you can use simple techniques to shorten an essay.
1. Rank your Arguments’ strengths and weakness
The first technique for making your essay shorter is by ranking your arguments. If your essay is longer than the requirement, rank the points used to support your arguments.
![how to reduce an essay Use Strong Arguments only](https://gradebees.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Use-strong-Arguments-only.jpeg)
A good essay should contain only the most vital and valid points.
If you find some of your weak supporting points, eliminate them while removing the unnecessary wording.
Students will often be tempted to present a multifaceted point of view to support a single point.
While this may demonstrate your knowledge of the subject, it will add unnecessary content to your essay.
To avoid this and reduce the essay’s length, carefully select the most relevant and vital points.
However, if you still want to include all the points, you can minimize the details, especially within weaker points. This will make your essay shorter.
2. Focus on the Main Point of your Essay
This is a very practical technique for making your essay shorter. When given an essay to complete, the instructor expects you to come up with a topic and support it throughout your essay.
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Valid arguments within each paragraph of your essay should support the topic and the thesis statement.
Therefore, if your essay is longer than recommended, look for sentences or entire paragraphs that do not address or support your essay’s main point or topic.
Students may find themselves accidentally going off-topic and including other unnecessary wordings and arguments to make their essays appear “smarter” or well-written.
This can result in unnecessary words and sentences beyond the required word count.
If you identify such unnecessary arguments within your essay while editing, eliminate them to focus more on your main point and achieve the target word count.
3. Eliminate the use of Verbiage
You should eliminate the verbiage if you want to make your essay shorter. This is especially relevant when writing academic essays where you are required to present your arguments professionally and straightforwardly.
Eliminate any extra information or words that do not add value to your point or overall argument. Such verbiage is some of the weak words to avoid in writing essays and research papers.
You can eliminate unnecessary adjectives, adverbs, generalizations, clichés, and lengthy verb phrases here. You can do this while performing the first and second techniques mentioned above.
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4. Write Short Sentences using the Active Voice
As we have noted, academic essays will require you to present your arguments straightforwardly. Using the active voice while constructing your sentences will help you achieve this while keeping them brief.
![how to reduce an essay Use short sentences to shorten essays](https://gradebees.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/use-short-sentences.jpeg)
While this may not apply to all sentences within your essay, try to begin most of your sentences using the subject.
In this case, the subject is the thing or person performing an action. This should be followed by the action the subject performs.
If you use the passive voice, where you describe how the object is acted upon, then your sentences will be longer and contribute to the unwanted length of the essay.
For example, take a simple sentence like, “John plays basketball regularly.”
This sentence is in the active voice because John (subject) performs the action of playing basketball (object).
Now take a sentence like, “basketball is regularly played by John.” The second sentence is in passive voice because it describes how the object (basketball) is acted upon.
The first sentence in the active voice comprises 4 words, while the second sentence in the passive voice comprises 6 words. Therefore, you can see that writing in an active voice shortens your essay.
5. Utilize the most Applicable Strong Verbs
This may seem obvious, but many students cannot find the most applicable verbs. They find those that are close instead of using the perfect verb.
If you want to shorten your essay, find the best verb that conveys a precise meaning.
![how to reduce an essay apply strong verbs to shorted paragraphs](https://gradebees.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/apply-strong-verbs.jpeg)
This is because when you use an imperfect verb, you will end up using more words to clarify the meaning.
Here is an example to clarify what is meant by using the most applicable verb:
“John’s team defeated the opposing team by several points.”
Using “defeated” in the above sentence is not grammatically wrong. However, it is not the best verb to use because John’s team not only defeated the opposing team, they all defeated them by several points.
If you wish to reduce the word count while maintaining the same meaning, you can use the verb “trounce” in place of “defeat.” The new sentence will be:
“John’s team trounced the opposing team.”
6. Quote from the most Relevant Sources
In academic essays, you may be required to provide quotes from secondary sources to support your essay. The number of sources needed depends on the length of the paper. For instance, a 4-page paper may require more secondary sources than a 2-page one.
However, if you find that you have used several quotes that are lengthening your essay, retain quotes from secondary sources that are most related to your topic, and eliminate the rest. Again, only cite the sources that are most relevant to your topic.
7. Avoid Block Quotes
The best way to avoid longer essays is by avoiding direct quotations from other authors. This can be done by paraphrasing their content and just citing the sources without using many words.
Avoiding block quotes will make the paragraphs short and your arguments more captivating to the reader. Therefore, avoid using essay or sentence generators, as these will quote other sources.
However, note that using external sources to support your points and arguments is always advisable when writing an essay. Such supporting content is important for the grades and to back up your claims.
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Weak Words to Avoid in Writing an Essay
Now that we have explored the most applicable methods or techniques that can help make your essay shorter, it is important to identify the unnecessary things to avoid in an essay to avoid going beyond the word count.
1. The passive voice
As we have noted, the passive voice makes your sentences unnecessarily lengthy. On the other hand, the active voice makes the sentences more compelling and clear because they are straight to the point.
Consequently, the active voice uses lesser words compared to the passive voice. Therefore, it is important to avoid the passive voice in an essay.
2. Adverbs and Adjectives
![how to reduce an essay adverbs and adjectives](https://gradebees.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/adverbs-and-adjectives.webp)
While adjectives modify nouns while adverbs modify verbs, good and well-utilized words in a sentence do not require modifying.
In most cases, adjectives and adverbs weaken strong nouns and verbs, thus weakening your overall writing.
Such weak words add no value to your paragraphs; you must avoid them when writing an essay.
When editing your essay and you find adverbs with “ly” as their endings, you can eliminate them because they act as filler words that add no value to the point you are trying to communicate.
When it comes to adjectives, they do not add meaning to the sentence and are, therefore, unnecessary.
3. Conjunctions
Conjunctions such as and, or, however, but, and, e.g., connect two different sentences that can be written independently. They are unnecessary when you want to make an essay shorter.
These are some of the words that make an essay ridiculously long and create the need to be precise. Eliminating them reduces the word count and shortens the essay.
4. Running Starts and Needless Transitions
Running starts are commonly used phrases that act as an introduction to the sentence. They include “it is, “there is, “the fact that, “and so on. This is basically the opposite of what we discussed in our post on making an essay longer, as we outlined.
Those phrases add unnecessary words to your essay. Needless transitions can be “furthermore,” “then,” indeed,” “however,” and so on.
The bottom line is that when you are told to write a specific number of pages or meet a particular word count, it is imperative to meet the requirements because you will lose some points.
5. First-Person Language
This is a common thing in any essay writing task. It is always advisable that one should avoid using first-person language when writing an essay. This is because the first person is not formal and tends to be confrontational.
Instead of first-person or second-person language, always use a third-person approach. While this does not contribute i reducing the word count, it gives a lot of formality to your essay and puts a warm reading tone.
In addition, using the third person promotes the objectivity of your arguments by presenting them in a manner that can relate to any person, in this case, your readers. Read our guide on avoiding the first-person language in an essay and apply that in your future writing.
Following the above tips will make it easier to shorten your essays.
Watch this video to learn more about this.
![how to reduce an essay YouTube video](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/8eQtcTTMb5o/hqdefault.jpg)
With over 10 years in academia and academic assistance, Alicia Smart is the epitome of excellence in the writing industry. She is our managing editor and is in charge of the writing operations at Grade Bees.
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How to Shorten an Essay?
Essay writing can be very challenging. A student who’s writing an essay should come up with the right logical structure, figure out what types of evidence you’re going to use, choose an appropriate style, etc. Besides, all this hard work may lead to a moment of frustration.
You may put a lot of effort into writing your brilliant draft, and then you may realize that you need to get rid of something to meet the word count requirements. The more effort you invest in the writing process, the more difficult it can be to figure out what you should remove.
No matter how challenging this task can be, educators think that students must be able to write concisely and avoid redundancy. Therefore, word count requirements can be very strict. For instance, when writing a college application essay , you should be able to fit all your thoughts into a 500-word limit.
While making your essay shorter, you should also make sure that it will still be impressive. To shorten your essay properly, you should know what to focus on, and this simple guide will help you.
How to reduce essay word count
- Identify irrelevant content
- Cut down on prepositions
- Eliminate the sentences that don’t add value
- Remove unnecessary modifiers and qualifiers
- Remove weaker paragraphs
- Eliminate redundant words and phrases
- Merge sentences by combining their meaning
📌 Shorten your essay by removing irrelevant content
The key to shortening your essay without making it weaker is to make sure that everything that you write is perfectly relevant. However, it may not be easy to get rid of irrelevant content in your essay because if you didn’t consider it somewhat relevant, you wouldn’t include it, in the first place. If you want to get a good grade, you may add various details and explanations to make your essay more engaging.
Including some background information and details is actually a great solution if you want to impress your audience with an informative essay, but we recommend that you think twice before writing any additional information because you should also follow the word count requirements.
Ask yourself, do you really need to include this information? Is it perfectly relevant? Is it necessary to include when writing about your topic? Does it contribute to the overall meaning?
📌 Use prepositions moderately
Prepositions are very useful words because they can help you create a smooth flow of thoughts and put words together to communicate complex ideas. If you take a look at prepositional sentences in your essay, you may realize that many of such sentences won’t make any sense if you remove prepositions from them.
Although prepositional sentences can be very useful, they also have their flip side: they make your essay longer. Given that rewriting such sentences without prepositions can be impossible, a good solution is to remove such phrases completely.
📌 Apply the ‘zoom out’ technique
This approach can be very effective if you realize that you need to shorten your essay significantly. For instance, if you should shorten your essay by 200 or 300 words, this is the right approach. This method is quite simple.
The traditional college essay structure involves writing more general statements first and then adding more specific statements. By moving from general to specific, you can create a proper logical structure so there’s no surprise that many tutors and guides recommend this approach.
When editing your essay, you can see more or less specific information, and the most specific elements of your essay are examples. Although you may want to use more examples to make your essay more unique, if you need to shorten it, you can leave just a few vivid examples and get rid of all the other examples that are not really important.
Zoom out and paint the picture with broad strokes, focusing on the general information. This way, you might be able to shorten your essay considerably.
📌 Get rid of modifiers, qualifiers, adverbs and adjectives
Let’s face it, some verbs can be easily eliminated from your paper without ruining the context. It’s also important to keep in mind the importance of avoiding unnecessary generalization in essay writing. Unnecessary generalization makes your essay weaker. Qualifiers and modifiers can help you avoid generalizations by slightly changing the overall meaning of a sentence.
Words like “some,” “often,” “possibly,” “could,” “sometimes,” “completely,” and others can make your writing more nuanced. However, these words might also make your essay longer, and usually, you can remove them without changing the general meaning of the sentence. Therefore, we recommend that you don’t overuse such words when writing and remove some of them when editing.
📌 Remove the weakest paragraphs to reduce the word count
Another approach that can help you write a strong essay that meets strict word count requirements is to intentionally exceed the word limits when writing so that you can remove entire paragraphs when editing. This is especially helpful if you have to write a really short essay of 200 words .
A great thing about this approach is that you force yourself to admit that some things that you write are much better than others so you can consider your college essay from a teacher’s perspective.
You may want to remove paragraphs that lack references or have references to unreliable sources. You may also think of what paragraphs are the least convincing. Make sure to leave the strongest paragraphs that actually contribute to the topic and that can impress your audience.
📌 Remove redundant words to stay under a word limit
When writing your paper, you may use some unnecessary words that don’t add any meaning. For example, here is a sentence that can be shortened easily: “When writing essays, you should make your essays concise so they won’t be too long.” Here, you can remove the second word “essays,” as well as the end of the sentence because if your essay is concise, it means that it isn’t too long.
For instance, a shortened sentence may look like this: “When writing essays, you should make them concise.” Although the new sentence is just a little shorter, if you remove redundant words in the entire essay, the difference in length might surprise you.
📌 Merge sentences by combining their meaning
To shorten your essay without damaging it, you should make sure that you convey your thoughts concisely. Concise writing will not only help you meet all the requirements but also make your essay more straightforward and easy to read. When editing your essay, pay attention to consecutive sentences that focus on the same idea.
Try to say the same with fewer words by combining the meaning of two sentences and merging them into one. Just make sure that the final sentence isn’t too long because long complex sentences will make your essay difficult to read.
No matter if you’re a high school, college or university student, the writing process is difficult by itself, and it can be especially difficult when dealing with strict requirements regarding the word count. In this helpful guide, we considered a few effective methods that can help you shorten your essay without damaging its meaning.
There are many things you can get rid of while also keeping your academic paper informative and impressive. Moreover, shortening and eliminating unnecessary things can help you improve your essay, making it easier to read, straightforward, logically consistent and more digestible for a reader.
In case if shortening an essay seems like an unbearable task, you can turn to an essay writing company to get it written from scratch or copy-edited down to the required word count.
Frequently asked questions
How can i shorten my college essay.
If your college essay goes over the word count limit , cut any sentences with tangents or irrelevant details. Delete unnecessary words that clutter your essay.
You can speed up this process by shortening and smoothing your writing with a paraphrasing tool . After that, you can use the summarizer to shorten it even more.
Frequently asked questions: College admissions essays
When writing your Common App essay , choose a prompt that sparks your interest and that you can connect to a unique personal story.
No matter which prompt you choose, admissions officers are more interested in your ability to demonstrate personal development , insight, or motivation for a certain area of study.
The Common App essay is your primary writing sample within the Common Application, a college application portal accepted by more than 900 schools. All your prospective schools that accept the Common App will read this essay to understand your character, background, and value as a potential student.
Since this essay is read by many colleges, avoid mentioning any college names or programs; instead, save tailored answers for the supplementary school-specific essays within the Common App.
Most importantly, your essay should be about you , not another person or thing. An insightful college admissions essay requires deep self-reflection, authenticity, and a balance between confidence and vulnerability.
Your essay shouldn’t be a résumé of your experiences but instead should tell a story that demonstrates your most important values and qualities.
When revising your college essay , first check for big-picture issues regarding your message and content. Then, check for flow, tone, style , and clarity. Finally, focus on eliminating grammar and punctuation errors .
If you’re struggling to reach the word count for your college essay, add vivid personal stories or share your feelings and insight to give your essay more depth and authenticity.
If you’ve got to write your college essay fast , don’t panic. First, set yourself deadlines: you should spend about 10% of your remaining time on brainstorming, 10% on outlining, 40% writing, 30% revising, and 10% taking breaks in between stages.
Second, brainstorm stories and values based on your essay prompt.
Third, outline your essay based on the montage or narrative essay structure .
Fourth, write specific, personal, and unique stories that would be hard for other students to replicate.
Fifth, revise your essay and make sure it’s clearly written.
Last, if possible, get feedback from an essay coach . Scribbr essay editors can help you revise your essay in 12 hours or less.
Avoid swearing in a college essay , since admissions officers’ opinions of profanity will vary. In some cases, it might be okay to use a vulgar word, such as in dialogue or quotes that make an important point in your essay. However, it’s safest to try to make the same point without swearing.
If you have bad grades on your transcript, you may want to use your college admissions essay to explain the challenging circumstances that led to them. Make sure to avoid dwelling on the negative aspects and highlight how you overcame the situation or learned an important lesson.
However, some college applications offer an additional information section where you can explain your bad grades, allowing you to choose another meaningful topic for your college essay.
Here’s a brief list of college essay topics that may be considered cliché:
- Extracurriculars, especially sports
- Role models
- Dealing with a personal tragedy or death in the family
- Struggling with new life situations (immigrant stories, moving homes, parents’ divorce)
- Becoming a better person after community service, traveling, or summer camp
- Overcoming a difficult class
- Using a common object as an extended metaphor
It’s easier to write a standout essay with a unique topic. However, it’s possible to make a common topic compelling with interesting story arcs, uncommon connections, and an advanced writing style.
Yes. The college application essay is less formal than other academic writing —though of course it’s not mandatory to use contractions in your essay.
In a college essay , you can be creative with your language . When writing about the past, you can use the present tense to make the reader feel as if they were there in the moment with you. But make sure to maintain consistency and when in doubt, default to the correct verb tense according to the time you’re writing about.
The college admissions essay gives admissions officers a different perspective on you beyond your academic achievements, test scores, and extracurriculars. It’s your chance to stand out from other applicants with similar academic profiles by telling a unique, personal, and specific story.
Use a standard font such as Times New Roman or Arial to avoid distracting the reader from your college essay’s content.
A college application essay is less formal than most academic writing . Instead of citing sources formally with in-text citations and a reference list, you can cite them informally in your text.
For example, “In her research paper on genetics, Quinn Roberts explores …”
There is no set number of paragraphs in a college admissions essay . College admissions essays can diverge from the traditional five-paragraph essay structure that you learned in English class. Just make sure to stay under the specified word count .
Most topics are acceptable for college essays if you can use them to demonstrate personal growth or a lesson learned. However, there are a few difficult topics for college essays that should be avoided. Avoid topics that are:
- Overly personal (e.g. graphic details of illness or injury, romantic or sexual relationships)
- Not personal enough (e.g. broad solutions to world problems, inspiring people or things)
- Too negative (e.g. an in-depth look at your flaws, put-downs of others, criticizing the need for a college essay)
- Too boring (e.g. a resume of your academic achievements and extracurriculars)
- Inappropriate for a college essay (e.g. illegal activities, offensive humor, false accounts of yourself, bragging about privilege)
To write an effective diversity essay , include vulnerable, authentic stories about your unique identity, background, or perspective. Provide insight into how your lived experience has influenced your outlook, activities, and goals. If relevant, you should also mention how your background has led you to apply for this university and why you’re a good fit.
Many universities believe a student body composed of different perspectives, beliefs, identities, and backgrounds will enhance the campus learning and community experience.
Admissions officers are interested in hearing about how your unique background, identity, beliefs, culture, or characteristics will enrich the campus community, which is why they assign a diversity essay .
In addition to your main college essay , some schools and scholarships may ask for a supplementary essay focused on an aspect of your identity or background. This is sometimes called a diversity essay .
You can use humor in a college essay , but carefully consider its purpose and use it wisely. An effective use of humor involves unexpected, keen observations of the everyday, or speaks to a deeper theme. Humor shouldn’t be the main focus of the essay, but rather a tool to improve your storytelling.
Get a second opinion from a teacher, counselor, or essay coach on whether your essay’s humor is appropriate.
Though admissions officers are interested in hearing your story, they’re also interested in how you tell it. An exceptionally written essay will differentiate you from other applicants, meaning that admissions officers will spend more time reading it.
You can use literary devices to catch your reader’s attention and enrich your storytelling; however, focus on using just a few devices well, rather than trying to use as many as possible.
To decide on a good college essay topic , spend time thoughtfully answering brainstorming questions. If you still have trouble identifying topics, try the following two strategies:
- Identify your qualities → Brainstorm stories that demonstrate these qualities
- Identify memorable stories → Connect your qualities to these stories
You can also ask family, friends, or mentors to help you brainstorm topics, give feedback on your potential essay topics, or recall key stories that showcase your qualities.
Yes—admissions officers don’t expect everyone to have a totally unique college essay topic . But you must differentiate your essay from others by having a surprising story arc, an interesting insight, and/or an advanced writing style .
There are no foolproof college essay topics —whatever your topic, the key is to write about it effectively. However, a good topic
- Is meaningful, specific, and personal to you
- Focuses on you and your experiences
- Reveals something beyond your test scores, grades, and extracurriculars
- Is creative and original
Unlike a five-paragraph essay, your admissions essay should not end by summarizing the points you’ve already made. It’s better to be creative and aim for a strong final impression.
You should also avoid stating the obvious (for example, saying that you hope to be accepted).
There are a few strategies you can use for a memorable ending to your college essay :
- Return to the beginning with a “full circle” structure
- Reveal the main point or insight in your story
- Look to the future
- End on an action
The best technique will depend on your topic choice, essay outline, and writing style. You can write several endings using different techniques to see which works best.
College deadlines vary depending on the schools you’re applying to and your application plan:
- For early action applications and the first round of early decision applications, the deadline is on November 1 or 15. Decisions are released by mid-December.
- For the second round of early decision applications, the deadline is January 1 or 15. Decisions are released in January or February.
- Regular decision deadlines usually fall between late November and mid-March, and decisions are released in March or April.
- Rolling admission deadlines run from July to April, and decisions are released around four to eight weeks after submission.
Depending on your prospective schools’ requirements, you may need to submit scores for the SAT or ACT as part of your college application .
Some schools now no longer require students to submit test scores; however, you should still take the SAT or ACT and aim to get a high score to strengthen your application package.
Aim to take the SAT or ACT in the spring of your junior year to give yourself enough time to retake it in the fall of your senior year if necessary.
Apply early for federal student aid and application fee waivers. You can also look for scholarships from schools, corporations, and charitable foundations.
To maximize your options, you should aim to apply to about eight schools:
- Two reach schools that might be difficult to get into
- Four match schools that you have a good chance of getting into
- Two safety schools that you feel confident you’ll get into
The college admissions essay accounts for roughly 25% of the weight of your application .
At highly selective schools, there are four qualified candidates for every spot. While your academic achievements are important, your college admissions essay can help you stand out from other applicants with similar profiles.
In general, for your college application you will need to submit all of the following:
- Your personal information
- List of extracurriculars and awards
- College application essays
- Transcripts
- Standardized test scores
- Recommendation letters.
Different colleges may have specific requirements, so make sure you check exactly what’s expected in the application guidance.
You should start thinking about your college applications the summer before your junior year to give you sufficient time for college visits, taking standardized tests, applying for financial aid , writing essays, and collecting application material.
Yes, but make sure your essay directly addresses the prompt, respects the word count , and demonstrates the organization’s values.
If you plan ahead, you can save time by writing one scholarship essay for multiple prompts with similar questions. In a scholarship tracker spreadsheet, you can group or color-code overlapping essay prompts; then, write a single essay for multiple scholarships. Sometimes, you can even reuse or adapt your main college essay .
You can start applying for scholarships as early as your junior year. Continue applying throughout your senior year.
Invest time in applying for various scholarships , especially local ones with small dollar amounts, which are likely easier to win and more reflective of your background and interests. It will be easier for you to write an authentic and compelling essay if the scholarship topic is meaningful to you.
You can find scholarships through your school counselor, community network, or an internet search.
A scholarship essay requires you to demonstrate your values and qualities while answering the prompt’s specific question.
After researching the scholarship organization, identify a personal experience that embodies its values and exemplifies how you will be a successful student.
A standout college essay has several key ingredients:
- A unique, personally meaningful topic
- A memorable introduction with vivid imagery or an intriguing hook
- Specific stories and language that show instead of telling
- Vulnerability that’s authentic but not aimed at soliciting sympathy
- Clear writing in an appropriate style and tone
- A conclusion that offers deep insight or a creative ending
While timelines will differ depending on the student, plan on spending at least 1–3 weeks brainstorming and writing the first draft of your college admissions essay , and at least 2–4 weeks revising across multiple drafts. Don’t forget to save enough time for breaks between each writing and editing stage.
You should already begin thinking about your essay the summer before your senior year so that you have plenty of time to try out different topics and get feedback on what works.
Your college essay accounts for about 25% of your application’s weight. It may be the deciding factor in whether you’re accepted, especially for competitive schools where most applicants have exceptional grades, test scores, and extracurricular track records.
In most cases, quoting other people isn’t a good way to start your college essay . Admissions officers want to hear your thoughts about yourself, and quotes often don’t achieve that. Unless a quote truly adds something important to your essay that it otherwise wouldn’t have, you probably shouldn’t include it.
Cliché openers in a college essay introduction are usually general and applicable to many students and situations. Most successful introductions are specific: they only work for the unique essay that follows.
The key to a strong college essay introduction is not to give too much away. Try to start with a surprising statement or image that raises questions and compels the reader to find out more.
The introduction of your college essay is the first thing admissions officers will read and therefore your most important opportunity to stand out. An excellent introduction will keep admissions officers reading, allowing you to tell them what you want them to know.
If you’re struggling to reach the word count for your college essay, add vivid personal stories or share your feelings and insight to give your essay more depth and authenticity.
Most college application portals specify a word count range for your essay, and you should stay within 10% of the upper limit to write a developed and thoughtful essay.
You should aim to stay under the specified word count limit to show you can follow directions and write concisely. However, don’t write too little, as it may seem like you are unwilling or unable to write a detailed and insightful narrative about yourself.
If no word count is specified, we advise keeping your essay between 400 and 600 words.
In your application essay , admissions officers are looking for particular features : they want to see context on your background, positive traits that you could bring to campus, and examples of you demonstrating those qualities.
Colleges want to be able to differentiate students who seem similar on paper. In the college application essay , they’re looking for a way to understand each applicant’s unique personality and experiences.
You don’t need a title for your college admissions essay , but you can include one if you think it adds something important.
Your college essay’s format should be as simple as possible:
- Use a standard, readable font
- Use 1.5 or double spacing
- If attaching a file, save it as a PDF
- Stick to the word count
- Avoid unusual formatting and unnecessary decorative touches
There are no set rules for how to structure a college application essay , but these are two common structures that work:
- A montage structure, a series of vignettes with a common theme.
- A narrative structure, a single story that shows your personal growth or how you overcame a challenge.
Avoid the five-paragraph essay structure that you learned in high school.
Campus visits are always helpful, but if you can’t make it in person, the college website will have plenty of information for you to explore. You should look through the course catalog and even reach out to current faculty with any questions about the school.
Colleges set a “Why this college?” essay because they want to see that you’ve done your research. You must prove that you know what makes the school unique and can connect that to your own personal goals and academic interests.
Depending on your writing, you may go through several rounds of revision . Make sure to put aside your essay for a little while after each editing stage to return with a fresh perspective.
Teachers and guidance counselors can help you check your language, tone, and content . Ask for their help at least one to two months before the submission deadline, as many other students will also want their help.
Friends and family are a good resource to check for authenticity. It’s best to seek help from family members with a strong writing or English educational background, or from older siblings and cousins who have been through the college admissions process.
If possible, get help from an essay coach or editor ; they’ll have specialized knowledge of college admissions essays and be able to give objective expert feedback.
When revising your college essay , first check for big-picture issues regarding message, flow, tone, style , and clarity. Then, focus on eliminating grammar and punctuation errors.
Include specific, personal details and use your authentic voice to shed a new perspective on a common human experience.
Through specific stories, you can weave your achievements and qualities into your essay so that it doesn’t seem like you’re bragging from a resume.
When writing about yourself , including difficult experiences or failures can be a great way to show vulnerability and authenticity, but be careful not to overshare, and focus on showing how you matured from the experience.
First, spend time reflecting on your core values and character . You can start with these questions:
- What are three words your friends or family would use to describe you, and why would they choose them?
- Whom do you admire most and why?
- What are you most proud of? Ashamed of?
However, you should do a comprehensive brainstorming session to fully understand your values. Also consider how your values and goals match your prospective university’s program and culture. Then, brainstorm stories that illustrate the fit between the two.
In a college application essay , you can occasionally bend grammatical rules if doing so adds value to the storytelling process and the essay maintains clarity.
However, use standard language rules if your stylistic choices would otherwise distract the reader from your overall narrative or could be easily interpreted as unintentional errors.
Write concisely and use the active voice to maintain a quick pace throughout your essay and make sure it’s the right length . Avoid adding definitions unless they provide necessary explanation.
Use first-person “I” statements to speak from your perspective . Use appropriate word choices that show off your vocabulary but don’t sound like you used a thesaurus. Avoid using idioms or cliché expressions by rewriting them in a creative, original way.
If you’re an international student applying to a US college and you’re comfortable using American idioms or cultural references , you can. But instead of potentially using them incorrectly, don’t be afraid to write in detail about yourself within your own culture.
Provide context for any words, customs, or places that an American admissions officer might be unfamiliar with.
College application essays are less formal than other kinds of academic writing . Use a conversational yet respectful tone , as if speaking with a teacher or mentor. Be vulnerable about your feelings, thoughts, and experiences to connect with the reader.
Aim to write in your authentic voice , with a style that sounds natural and genuine. You can be creative with your word choice, but don’t use elaborate vocabulary to impress admissions officers.
Admissions officers use college admissions essays to evaluate your character, writing skills , and ability to self-reflect . The essay is your chance to show what you will add to the academic community.
The college essay may be the deciding factor in your application , especially for competitive schools where most applicants have exceptional grades, test scores, and extracurriculars.
Some colleges also require supplemental essays about specific topics, such as why you chose that specific college . Scholarship essays are often required to obtain financial aid .
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Automatic Word Count Reducer
Summarize any writing piece with this word count reducer in 3 steps:
- Add the passage you want to cut.
- Choose the desired number of sentences to keep in the passage.
- Click "Reduce" and enjoy the result.
Number of sentences in results:
Original ratio
100 % in your summary
Charachters
Why may you need to use an automatic online word count shortener?
The need to preserve a specific word count is called the essay's " scope " – an extent of analysis a student should not exceed in a particular assignment. In these cases, a paraphrasing generator that can remove redundant words and help you keep within the assigned word count.
- 🔢 What Is Essay Word Count?
✍️ Word Count for Various Essays
- ✂️ Tips to Shorten an Essay
🔗 References
🔢 what is essay word count & why does it matter.
As you will quickly notice at school, college, or university, every assignment contains specific instructions that cover the word count your home task should include.
Why are they important?
This is done primarily to minimize your effort and help you plan the working schedule. For instance, you will understand that you need to reserve 2 days for a 3,000 -word essay and can manage a 500 -word essay in 2 or 3 hours.
Besides, the word count sets the scope for your research; you will surely need to check fewer literary sources for a 500-word essay and visit a library a couple of times to write a large-scale 5,000-word study.
In other words, the word count of your essay task sets the limits for your study effort and gives you hints about the depth of research you need to conduct to meet the professor's requirements.
A practical guide may also help you determine the time and scope of various academic assignments . Here is a comparative table with word counts for assignments at different study levels.
Essay type | Word count | What's expected from you? |
---|---|---|
300-1,000 words | The majority of school tasks for essay writing refer to construction. Thus, you're expected to produce an essay for 2-3 pages on average, which falls within this word count range. | |
1,500-5,000 words | You may receive different essay tasks depending on the department where you study. But in most cases, they start at 5 pages in length and can reach up to 20 pages in length to let you examine a subject in greater depth. | |
2,500-6,000 words | These essays are more like , as they require extensive research and the use of scholarly evidence to structure your argument. | |
200-600 words | Admission essays are usually short and have very strict word count requirements. They are meant to introduce yourself to the committee and prove that you're worth a college or university spot. |
✂️ Tips to Reduce Word Count in an Essay
If you're not ready to use a word count reducer and want to do everything manually, here are a couple of workable techniques for word count optimization.
- Avoid redundant beginnings . It's good practice to start a sentence with a subject. This way, you will avoid extensive "running starts," such as "as a matter of fact," "summing the presented evidence," etc. Your sentences will be simpler to read and free from redundant phrasing.
- Use active voice . Passive-voice phrases always add a couple of redundant words to a sentence. If you don't really need to disguise the doer of the action, you should use active voice only. You'll see how neat and clean your text will sound.
- Remove adjectives and adverbs . Adjectives and adverbs are frequently used in literary language, as they add vivid details and shades of meaning to notional words. However, they often create clutter in academic writing and are fully avoidable in most cases. So, you should consider removing most of them to make the text more readable and shorter.
- Don't exceed 25 words in a sentence . Academic writers are often tempted to sound more scholarly with long, overloaded sentences, including many compounds. In reality, such writing efforts rarely pay off, as they confuse the readers and disguise the core message the writer wanted to deliver. Thus, it's better to divide long sentences into several parts. Using this trick, you can avoid redundant transitions and simplify the content flow.
- One idea at a time . A logical progression of an academic text is a vital criterion of readability. Thus, you should explain relationships between variables or focus on one supporting argument at a time, avoiding a discussion of several factors in one go. This technique will improve your text's comprehension score and free readers from overly complex argumentation, causing a cognitive overload.
In all other cases – a lack of time, no desire to go through the entire text again – welcome to our word reduction tool that will make your editing job a breeze. Try our title maker and paraphraser to write and polish your essay quickly.
❓ Word Count Reducer FAQ
❓ how to count words in an essay.
It's pretty easy to control your word count in an essay. You should activate this function in your Word file, and a small tab at the bottom of your page will update you about the document's current word count as you type the essay's content. You can also click on "Statistics" in the Word menu to learn additional statistics about your text, such as the number of characters with and without spaces and the number of lines, sentences, and paragraphs you currently have.
❓ What is the word count for a college essay?
Word count is a specific number of words (or a range of words) that your professor assigns for writing. For instance, your university tutor may require students to write from 1,000 to 1,500 words in one essay. Thus, you can't compose fewer than 1,000 words (the paper should be at least 1,001 words), and you shouldn't write more than 1,500 words. A standard threshold for exceeding the assigned word count is 10% (so it's okay to submit a 1,650-word essay).
❓ How to reduce word count in an essay?
There are many techniques for word count reduction, such as cutting the articles, conjunctions, transition phrases, and running starts from the text. You may also consider changing passive-voice phrases to active voice or replacing some complex, sophisticated phrases with simpler words.
❓ What does a summarizer do?
A free text compressor available on our website can reduce the word count of your essay by removing redundant words that don't hold any vital meaning and can be removed without losing the text's quality. You can reduce the word count and combine several sentences into one automatically to achieve high-quality text reduction.
- How to reduce word count without reducing content
- How to Increase or Decrease Your Paper’s Word Count
- Summarizing - Academic Integrity at MIT
- Summarizing - University of Toronto Writing Advice
- Writer's Manual: Academic Summary - LibGuides UU
Reduce Word Count Generator
Cut your word count without reducing the content. This tool is very easy to use:
- Paste the text.
- Mind that there is a 15,000-character limit.
- Choose text reduction options.
- Click the button.
- Copy the text to the clipboard.
⭐️ Word Count Reducer: the Benefits
- ✒️ What Is Cut-Down-Word-Count Generator?
- ✂️ How to Cut Down Words?
- 👍 Word Cutter Do's & Don'ts
🖇️ References
🔀 Flexible | Choose the length of your summary. |
---|---|
🤗 User-friendly | Enjoy the intuitive interface of the word reducer. |
💸 Free | Cut down words online for free. |
🚅 Fast | Get the result in several seconds. |
✒️ Reduce Word Count Generator: What Is It?
Cut-Down-Word-Count Generator is a free online tool that summarizes texts and reduces sentence and word count. It cuts out unnecessary words , phrases, and sentences but doesn't change the sense of a text. This is a helpful instrument for students, journalists, and other people who work with loads of written information.
Besides reducing your writing, you can also use the tool to summarize books, short novels, and articles on any topic. Artificial intelligence finds keywords and decides which sentences and words are the most essential.
The tool is also fully compatible with Grammarly – you can edit the text on our page if you have an extension.
✂️ How to Cut Down Words in My Essay?
Automatic tools are great when you need to work with extensive text . However, consider manual summarizing for more flexibility.
Here's how to reduce your word count manually:
- Find and highlight the key messages . If you do it thoroughly, you will preserve the initial sense of a text.
- Cut out adjectives and adverbs . Many of them are just filler words that serve only the aesthetic features of a text. That is why you won't lose the main points if you delete them.
- Look for synonyms and synonymic collocations . To avoid plagiarism in academic papers, use synonyms when referring to another author's thoughts. And you will still need to give them a reference.
- Change structures . Simplifying sentences is another way to reduce the word count. Just rewrite lengthy and overcomplicated grammar.
- One paragraph – one idea . Each section should focus only on one idea or answer one question. Keep your paragraphs at 200-300 and sentences at 15-25 words.
Words and Phrases to Avoid
You will also need to work on vocabulary . In this part, we will explain how to avoid excessive wording and bring your essay to academic standards.
Don't Use | Examples |
---|---|
. These are unnecessary for sentence structure; you can remove them without altering the text. | Stunning, ugly, beautiful, horrible, great, boring, fantastic, obviously, of course, very. |
. Better think of shorter and less overused phrases. | Think outside the box, play your cards right, time will tell. |
. Informal words and phrases are not appropriate in academic writing. | A bit, a couple of, kind of, sort of, you, your. |
. Replace them with one word or remove them. | |
. Sometimes it is better to use more wordy structures to make the text appropriate. |
👍 Word Cutter for Essays: Do's and Don'ts
This list of practical recommendations will help you use the word remover to its max.
- Don't paste long texts . The word limit allows us to summarize extensive passages, but we don't recommend it. Instead of cutting the whole text, work with each part separately.
- Don't simply copy and paste the results into your essay . You will likely need to modify the reduced text to create a smooth final version.
- Divide texts into logical parts . The AI will identify the main points quicker and have fewer error risks. It will also make it easier for you to navigate and spot mistakes.
- Check the results . It will be easier for you to manually correct inaccuracies at the very first stage. The tool is fast, but the human brain is more capable of understanding writing subtleties.
- Remove plagiarism . This is not a paraphrasing tool , so you must work on plagiarism. If it is just for personal use, you can leave the text as it is. Otherwise, you will need to quote or paraphrase the text to avoid plagiarized content.
- Work on word choice . Some texts you use might not be suitable for academic writing or your instructor's requirements. Devote some time to put the vocabulary in order.
📝 Word Reducing Example
Check out this example of a text summarized by our word reducer.
Original text
In the current study, several limitations of the research are necessary to mention. While random sampling will ensure representativeness and a low level of bias, there is a risk of limited outcomes in quantitative analysis. Since the questionnaires use structured and close-ended questions, there is a possibility of limited outcomes, which means that the results cannot always represent the actual occurrence in generalized forms.
Since respondents have limited response options that the researcher designed, the outcomes thus ultimately depend on the perspective taken by a scholar when creating the questions. Another significant limitation of the study is the limited availability of secondary data that can be applied to the research context. While the subject matter is widespread, there has been little research on implementing a sports education instructional program at educational facilities. Finally, data may not be robust enough to make conclusions regarding study findings.
Full text: Jeddah University: Sports Health Education Instructional Program - 4403 Words | Free Paper Example
Reduced version:
Since the questionnaires use structured and close-ended questions, there is a possibility of limited outcomes, which means that the results cannot always represent the actual occurrence in generalized forms. Another significant limitation of the study is the limited availability of secondary data that can be applied to the research context. While the subject matter is widespread, there has been little research on implementing a sports education instructional program at educational facilities.
Updated: Aug 24th, 2023
- 10 Tips for Cutting Your Word Count | The University of Adelaide
- Top Words to Avoid in Academic Writing | Useful Advices & Tricks
- Summarizing: How to effectively summarize the work of others | SFU Library
- The Writing Center | When to Summarize, Paraphrase, and...
- Call to +1 844 889-9952
Word Count Reducer
Have you exceeded your assignment word limit and now wonder how to cut your essay length? Try our word count decreaser! It will shorten your paper while preserving its meaning.
Create a summary of any academic text with this summarizing software! It will generate a synopsis for you in 3 simple steps:
How often do you exceed the word count by more than 10%? How often do you lack the required amount of words? In many cases, writing a text of the exact size is difficult. However, teachers assess your ability to squeeze all required content into a particular volume, especially in admission essays.
Use our handy free online tool – a word decreaser – if you’re clueless about what to cut out from your writing.
- ✂️ How to Use the Word Decreaser?
✅ Word Cutter: the Benefits
- 🕰️ When to Use the Tool?
- ✍️ How to Cut Words?
- 🤩 Why Choose This Tool?
- 🔗 References
✂️ Word Count Decreaser Guidelines
When you realize that your text requires reduction, you may follow two paths – edit it on your own or take advantage of modern technology. Our smart word count decreaser will do the job for you! The entire process is automated and lets you submit an essay with an exact word count without losing the important content.
Here’s how you can use the decrease word count tool:
- Paste your text into the first window;
- Select the number of sentences you want the summary to have;
- Choose to see the keywords of the text;
- Press “Decrease” and review the result.
The best about our tool is that you won’t spend hours editing your writing masterpiece. You can quickly decrease word count online and experiment with several word combinations to find the best match.
Use the “Show keywords” option if necessary. | |
You don’t need to download unnecessary software. | |
No longer need to pay or use trial versions. | |
Enjoy the word cutter designed for educational purposes. |
🕰️ Word Cutter – When to Use It?
Let’s discuss the propriety of using the decrease word count generator and explain the cases when you’ll find it useful.
Exceeding the Word Count (Essay, Research Paper, Thesis)
Each academic assignment has a specific word count based on the contents and depth of the research.
- A standard essay usually ranges from 500 to 2000 words;
- A research paper is rarely smaller than 2,500-3,000 words;
- Theses and dissertations have more extended word counts, from 10,000 to 25,000.
So, if you’ve hopelessly run out of the required word count and still need to cover some vital sections, turn to our word count reducer. The tool will cut words from the essay or dissertation to let you meet the word limit. You can stipulate the number of sentences it should contain and highlight the keywords to preserve the core content.
Making a Book Review
A book review is a detailed yet concise analysis of the book’s contents, main plot twists, and characters. Students of humanities departments, especially Literature, often need to make book reviews and reports based on the studied material. But do you have time to read all the books and then write reviews? If not, our word count reducer can help you receive a short, manageable summary in a few seconds. Read it, get the book’s content, and write a review in one go without spending several days on full-size book reading.
Writing an Abstract
You may often need to complete an abstract for an essay, dissertation, or other academic manuscripts , which should not exceed 200-250 words. Producing such a concise summary is often challenging, as your work is large and contains many valuable facts you might want to cover. Our word reducer will do the job for you. Just instruct it on what to focus on, and the tool will generate a brief, informative abstract, keeping the data you need.
Paraphrasing
Students often have to read, process, and synthesize dozens of scholarly works when writing academic papers, like essays or coursework. The challenge here is to refer to sources in a non-plagiarized way , so you should dedicate enough time and effort to paraphrasing. Though our keyword reducer will not make the summarized content unique (paraphraser will), it will identify the key facts and points for further paraphrasing .
In this section, you’ll find the key advantages of this word reducer.
✍️ How to Reduce Word Count?
Many students ask, “how can I reduce my word count?” This task requires careful editing and content review so the process may take hours. We’ve compiled some handy tips to guide you in this process and hone your word-count-reduction skills.
Try to take a step back and keep only your main idea in mind. You’ll quickly see how many redundant details can be dropped painlessly. | |
Verb forms are active, dynamic, and expressive. Thus, if you have a phrase like, “she led the battle and won the award by competing with ten people,” think of replacing it with, “she beat ten competitors.” | |
Synonyms and meaning enhancers are acceptable in literary language, but they can easily be sacrificed when writing a scientific piece. | |
These parts often contain irrelevant details and repeat the things you say in the body. So, keep these sections down to a minimum. | |
Prepositions and conjunctions make your text coherent, but sometimes it’s better to split the sentence in two. Just like with the previous sentence in this paragraph – removing “but” will do a favor to it. |
🤩 Why Choose This Reduce-Word-Count Generator?
As you can see, reducing the word count can be a tedious task. Our free online tool can do the job for you by speeding up the process of word cutting.
- You can shorten the text without losing its quality and key information.
- You stay in complete control of the word reduction process.
- You can compare the original text’s word/character/sentence count with in the output section.
- You can see keywords for a quick review of the core content.
- You are able to copy the result with one click.
What’s more, the tool comes with a detailed, user-friendly interface that will make your experience a breeze. It’s free to use, and you can enjoy it without limitations for any academic challenge.
Updated: May 17th, 2024
📎 References
- How to Reduce Your Essay Word Count – Word Counter Blog
- 10 Tips for Cutting Your Word Count – the University of Adelaide
- Paraphrasing – Purdue OWL® – Purdue University
- Writing an Abstract for Your Research Paper; The Writing Center; UW–Madison
- Research Paper Structure
Exciting News!
I’ve joined the team at magellan college counseling and now provide an even greater depth and breadth of college guidance. .
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- Aug 20, 2021
10 Tips to Trim Your College Essay
Updated: Sep 25, 2021
Is your college essay over the word count? Do you need space to add just a couple more key sentences? Use these tips to reduce words and strengthen your writing.
![how to reduce an essay You've got this](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/nsplsh_e3f2762285d84154b9f722fca685f0f1~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_147,h_147,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,blur_2,enc_auto/nsplsh_e3f2762285d84154b9f722fca685f0f1~mv2.jpg)
1. Eliminate adverbs
Look at your use of the word “very” and “ly” words, such as really , extremely , truly , completely , and absolutely .
Do they enhance your story?
Or are they redundant?
Example...(redundant)
He screamed loudly becomes He screamed.
Is there a better way to write it? Can you replace the “-ly” with a stronger adjective or verb?
He ran quickly becomes He raced.
She ran quickly becomes She sprinted.
When appropriate, revise or delete adverbs.
You do not need to remove every adverb, but limiting them (approximately one to every 300 words) will strengthen your writing.
2. Use adjectives sparingly
Writers often use adjectives to beef up their nouns. Instead, use stronger nouns.
A difficult problem becomes a quandary.
A huge hill becomes a mountain.
3. Omit unnecessary transition words
Look for a single word or short phrase followed by a comma.
These include because of this, in fact, first, last, hopefully, to be frank, quite frankly and in conclusion .
Highlight the words or phrases, then read the sentences without them. Does the sentence still make sense?
Ultimately, I realized failure teaches lessons for future success.
I realized failure teaches lessons for future success.
Delete the adverbs that do not add to the meaning.
4. Replace helping (auxiliary) verbs and use a stronger verb
He is going to be attending becomes He will attend.
I was thinking becomes I thought.
I am an avid reader becomes I read avidly.
5. Turn some nouns into verbs
I concluded is better than I came to the conclusion.
This painting portrays life and beauty is better than This painting is a portrayal of life and beauty.
6. Turn a passive sentence into an active sentence
Revise It was impressed upon me from an early age... to
I learned at an early age...
The sentence becomes shorter and more “action-oriented” and puts the focus on "you" the writer.
Pro tip: Here's a quick video where my colleague, Eveyln, teaches students how to turn a passive sentence into "I" focused action sentence.
7. Use contractions
I could not believe... becomes I couldn't believe...
Contractions sound friendlier, more personal, and more genuine. And they save word space.
8. Eliminate most of your thats.
Read the sentence without them. Remove them if they do not add to the sentence.
I want to read that book. [keep - it adds]
The book that I read was long. [delete - does not add]
The book I read was long.
9. Use possessive nouns
Read through your essay and look for "of the" phrasing when describing a noun.
Use the noun's possessive form to eliminate words.
The intricacy of the design amazed me.
The design's intricacy amazed me.
10. Use the plural when possible
Articles like "the" and "a" can be cut by converting the noun from the singular to plural.
Whenever I eat a tamale, I'm transported back in time.
Whenever I eat tamales I'm transported back in time.
It may seem like these revision strategies save only a couple of words per edit, but you will find they add up quickly. Use these ten tips to make your essay more compact and readable.
Bonus tip to gauge your essay's readability
Get a “read” on your writing’s readability with the Hemmingway App .
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The Impact of Nursing Informatics Essay
- To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
- As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
- As a template for you assignment
Topic and Rationale
Ai impact on staffing and turnover, nursing informatics skills used for the assignment, pros and cons of ai in addressing staffing issues, conclusion and future.
For the healthcare sector, nursing informatics is vital. It helps to reduce the level of stress and chance of mistakes and align better information exchange. Moreover, using the newest approaches, it is possible to address the most nagging issues and find solutions to them. Thus, nurse understaffing, shortage, and turnover are the main problems of the modern healthcare sector. Moreover, the problem will become more significant in the future because of the aging population, burnout, and violence in healthcare (Haddad & Toney-Butler, 2022). Understaffing negatively impacts patients’ outcomes, meaning that there is a higher risk of missed treatments if understaffing exists (Metcalf et al., 2018). Lack of nurses might also be associated with higher mortality rates in units (Glette et al., 2017). For this reason, it is vital to find a potent solution that might help to address the negative tendency and eliminate it. AI is viewed as one of the possible tools to address turnover and reduce it (Burky, 2022). Technology can help automate most processes within healthcare, such as planning, reducing the time needed to hire, and improving retention rates (Burky, 2022). In such a way, the information provided above proves the relevance of the selected topic and its significance. The nursing shortage is linked to increased costs, lower nursing and client satisfaction, and retention (Haddad & Toney-Butler, 2022). The higher workload resulting from the decreased number of specialists leads to a higher chance of a mistake. For this reason, it is vital to understand how AI can be used to address the issue.
In general, it is expected that the implementation of AI will help to attain positive outcomes and successfully manage the problem of understaffing and turnover. For instance, using AI platforms, such as Works, it is possible to achieve several significant improvements in the staffing process (Burky, 2022). The program uses specific algorithms to analyze the needs for employees and shifts and offers numerous options to fill existing and future gaps (Burky, 2022). As a result, it is possible to expect enhanced interaction with potential candidates, their selection, hiring, and retaining. The hospitals will have a pool of potential candidates who can be used when a certain vacancy emerges (Bukry, 2022). It will be a significant step towards resolving the problem of understaffing and nursing shortage. Moreover, the timely staffing process initiated based on data provided by AI will help decrease the implicit cost of turnover. The reduced risks of adverse outcomes will help to save costs needed for their management and address patients’ dissatisfaction. Additionally, AI applications might analyze numerous employees’ applications and ensure the right candidates are selected for the right vacancies. It will help to create a positive and effective environment with higher engagement rates and reduced turnover intentions (Xiao et al., 2021). Finally, AI can optimize scheduling and time management, reducing stress and work overload.
At the same time, it is vital to consider potentially negative impacts. Reliance on technology reduces personal interaction, which might impact the atmosphere within a collective and cooperation between individuals (Chrisos, 2019). Moreover, AI lacks an understanding of the corporate culture, meaning that current accomplishments and interactions might be disregarded. It might impact the effectiveness of various leadership styles and cultural incorporation.
When working on the offered assignment, it was vital to use nursing informatics skills. To create the basis for the discussion, it was vital to perform an Internet search for credible data that can support the major arguments used in the paper. Moreover, nursing informatics implies an enhanced understanding of how knowledge can be extracted from the selected sources. Information from the selected peer-reviewed articles was employed to support the major assumptions and prove the importance of AI in healthcare. It required the ability to investigate the discovered source, find the main ideas, and rephrase them or quote when necessary. At the same time, it is inappropriate to cite other investigators’ ideas as it will not expand the existing body of knowledge. It means that they were integrated into the body of the paper to ensure the current research is relevant and offers fresh ideas. It also required the correct analysis of the level of evidence and facts related to practice to understand the latest tendencies and how they are essential for practice. It requires looking for other sources, comparing them, and performing an Internet search to guarantee the correctness and credibility of conclusions formulated in the course of research. Furthermore, the project required knowledge of innovation in technologies such as AI, their major peculiarities and how they are used to look for possible applications, and how they can improve the work of the healthcare sector. Finally, the assignment was performed by using critical and analytical skills necessary for constructing the argument by using available resources and evidence.
However, when discussing the role of AI in addressing the problem of staffing, it is vital to consider both advantages and disadvantages that might be associated with integrating the solution. As stated previously, using innovations in healthcare leads to enhanced results and reduced burnout, which is attained due to several factors. First, improved planning and scheduling lead to lower pressure and workload, which is vital for outcomes. Second, timely staffing and hiring procedures contribute to better unit functioning, planning, and further evolution, which is also one of the evident pros of the proposed solution. In such a way, the positive alterations mentioned above lead to reduced burnout and turnover rates and help medical units to function effectively. At the same time, as with any technology, AI has some specific drawbacks that should also be considered while implementing it. First, AI applications cannot consider the existing organizational culture and the behavioral patterns peculiar to teams within a particular unit. It means that there is a high risk of deteriorated relations within a collective because of the lack of human factors and subjective attachments. Moreover, AI might fail to consider existing leadership issues and models while planning and making decisions about staffing (Chrisos, 2019). It might create the basis for problematic followership and the inability to align effective interaction between leaders and subordinates. In such a way, most disadvantages associated with the use of AI to address staffing issues are linked to the lack of personal aspects (Chrisos, 2019). It means that managers should be ready to perform additional measures to support high motivation levels among nurses and ensure they have positive relations with each other.
Altogether, it is possible to admit that the healthcare sector experiences numerous challenges nowadays. Understaffing, burnout and high turnover rates are one of the most topical issues that impact the quality of care and patient outcomes. For this reason, their addressing and resolution are the primary tasks of specialists working within the sector. Under these conditions, nursing informatics can be viewed as an integral component of the sphere’s future. The examples provided above show that existing technologies can help to promote the positive change required at the moment. AI can help to address staffing issues in several ways. Platforms such as Works might process information about employees, their skills, and their experiences to ensure a hospital has a pool of specialists needed to fill existing gaps. Moreover, Ai is effective in planning and scheduling, which will reduce stress and burnout among nurses. As a result, technologies will save time for caring and building relations, which is essential for interpersonal relations. That is why it is vital to recommend focusing on technologies as the method to boost effectiveness within healthcare. Leaders should facilitate innovation integration as it is the way to minimize the number of mistakes because of the human factor and create the basis for future improvement. As one of the most promising technologies, AI should be broadly used in nursing due to its ability to address staffing and turnover issues. Resolving these problems will help to improve the quality of patient care and contribute to better outcomes. In conclusion, further investigation of how AI and technologies can be used in nursing is necessary. It will help perform tasks requiring analysis of big amounts of data and providing accurate solutions.
Burky, A. (2022). From finding the right candidates to keeping them, how hospitals are using AI to address workforce needs . Fierce Healthcare. Web.
Chrisos, M. (2019). What are the positive and negative impacts of automation in HR? TechFunnel. Web.
Glette, M.K., Aase, K., & Wiig, S. (2017). The relationship between understaffing of nurses and patient safety in hospitals—A literature review with thematic analysis . Open Journal of Nursing, 7 , 1387-1429. Web.
Haddad, L., & Toney-Butler, T. (2022). Nursing shortage . StatPearls. Web.
Metcalf, A., Wang, Y., & Habermann, M. (2018). Hospital unit understaffing and missed treatments: Primary evidence . Management Decision , 56 (10), 2273-2286. Web.
Xiao, Y., Dong, M., Shi, C., Zeng, W., Shao, Z., Xie, H., & Li, G. (2021). Person–environment fit and medical professionals’ job satisfaction, turnover intention, and professional efficacy: A cross-sectional study in Shanghai . PloS one , 16 (4), e0250693. Web.
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Check out 10 More Ways to Reduce Your Word Count in Academic Writing. Want cheat sheets to help you reduce your word count? Get access to our free writing toolkit! Get Access Crystal Herron, PhD, ELS. Crystal is an editor, educator, coach, and speaker who helps scientists and clinicians communicate with clear, concise, and compelling writing.
So, without further ado, here are 8 proven methods to reduce essay word count: 1. Use an active voice instead of passive. Using an active voice makes your writing more direct and concise. Passive voice often adds unnecessary words and can make your writing sound less engaging. For instance:
In this article, I will show you exactly how to reduce your word count in your essay. If you go over the word count in an essay, there are some strategies to make your essay shorter that make sure you keep your marks high and, sometimes, make them even higher.
The most general statement in your essay is the thesis because it summarizes the entire essay. And the most specific parts of your essay are examples. So, in order to shorten your essay, you can summarize your examples. I call this Zooming Out because you are taking something that was very specific (zoomed in) and making it more general (zoomed ...
Original: The process of essay shortening is often found as a challenging task. Edited: Students often find essay shortening challenging. Simplifying long phrases . Writers might use longer equivalents of phrases in scientific papers or nonfiction, but you should simplify them in essays to reduce the word count.
Here's how to rewrite your sentences to decrease your word count, without affecting the strength of your essay. Here's our comprehensive guide to writing shorter sentences, without affecting the strength of your argument. ... If you have gone through you work and can't find any easy spots to reduce your word count, the best thing to do is to ...
To reduce your word count, look out for wordy sentences. If you can say the same thing in fewer words, make the change. Here's an example: Wordy: By far the most important aspect of this study to take into account is the way in which the participants responded to the final course of hair loss treatment.
Discover 7 tips to reduce your word count, cut the fluff and create more powerful essays. Improve the clarity of your writing for higher university grades.
How to shorten an essay. Shortening an essay is not difficult when you grab the right tips and tricks. These are the best common ways to make your assigned essay shorter in terms of pages. Some of these methods may reduce the essay by three or four pages. Some may cause more pages, and some may create a more elusive outcome.
This may not reduce your word count, but it will make your essay easier for the reader to process. Using a longer form of the word can also be a trap for the unwary, as some words that appear to be longer versions of another word, may actually have a different meaning, for example Zconcept [ ≠ Zconception.
2. Reduce redundancy. Redundancies are instances in which a term or phrase unnecessarily repeats words or meanings. You can easily condense redundancies to reduce the length of your text—with the added bonus of also boosting clarity. Example 2. Original: Our results show that the protein is small in size and located near to the cell membrane ...
When it comes to writing essays, there are two frequent issues that arise; the word count is either too low or too high for the stated range of the essay. For those who perpetually end up with too few words, you need to figure out ways to increase your essay word count.For those who frequently find themselves with too many words on the page, there are some simple steps to take when editing to ...
Almost every college, school, or application essay has a word limit. A good outline with to-the-point material can help you stick to the topic and create a concise, well-written essay. 2. Reduce Redundancy. Essays above the allowed word count limit are prone to mismanagement while writing. One such case is using redundant vocabulary while writing.
In fact, you really can't write a great essay that's vulnerable, unique, and detailed unless you first give yourself permission to explore a variety of ideas and scenes. As an author who's had to cut more than 20K words from her novels, I often tell my students: "Overwrite" first and "underwrite" later. Then, when you're closing ...
To avoid this and reduce the essay's length, carefully select the most relevant and vital points. However, if you still want to include all the points, you can minimize the details, especially within weaker points. This will make your essay shorter. 2. Focus on the Main Point of your Essay.
While making your essay shorter, you should also make sure that it will still be impressive. To shorten your essay properly, you should know what to focus on, and this simple guide will help you. How to reduce essay word count. Identify irrelevant content; Cut down on prepositions; Eliminate the sentences that don't add value
An effective use of humor involves unexpected, keen observations of the everyday, or speaks to a deeper theme. Humor shouldn't be the main focus of the essay, but rather a tool to improve your storytelling. Get a second opinion from a teacher, counselor, or essay coach on whether your essay's humor is appropriate.
️ Tips to Reduce Word Count in an Essay. If you're not ready to use a word count reducer and want to do everything manually, here are a couple of workable techniques for word count optimization. Avoid redundant beginnings. It's good practice to start a sentence with a subject. This way, you will avoid extensive "running starts," such as "as a ...
Professional copywriter Kim Siever shares with you 5 of the tricks he's learned over the last 30+ years writing and editing.https://buff.ly/2T2SlAK=====...
️ Reduce Word Count Generator: What Is It? Cut-Down-Word-Count Generator is a free online tool that summarizes texts and reduces sentence and word count. It cuts out unnecessary words, phrases, and sentences but doesn't change the sense of a text.This is a helpful instrument for students, journalists, and other people who work with loads of written information.
Exceeding the Word Count (Essay, Research Paper, Thesis) Each academic assignment has a specific word count based on the contents and depth of the research. A standard essay usually ranges from 500 to 2000 words; A research paper is rarely smaller than 2,500-3,000 words; Theses and dissertations have more extended word counts, from 10,000 to ...
Is your college essay over the word count? Use these tips to reduce words and strengthen your writing. top of page. Exciting News! I've joined the team at Magellan College Counseling and now provide an even greater depth and breadth of college guidance. Learn More. HOME.
Welcome to Turnitin's new website for guidance! In 2024, we migrated our comprehensive library of guidance from https://help.turnitin.com to this site, guides.turnitin.com. During this process we have taken the opportunity to take a holistic look at our content and how we structure our guides.
Chrisos, M. (2019). What are the positive and negative impacts of automation in HR? TechFunnel. Web. Glette, M.K., Aase, K., & Wiig, S. (2017). The relationship between understaffing of nurses and patient safety in hospitals—A literature review with thematic analysis.