Most students have experienced a few sleepless nights worrying about the word count of an essay. After all, you don’t want to write too little. And writing too much is almost as bad! However, if this sounds like a familiar problem, you might find these tips helpful.
The word limit for an essay reflects how much you’re expected to write. Most universities allow around 10% leeway either side of the suggested figure. If you’re not sure what the rules are about this at your university, check your style guide or ask a supervisor.
The word count matters for two reasons:
In either case, your marker may have a lot of work to get through, so they will appreciate concise writing! But how can you make sure you get the word count right in a document? The keys lie in planning and editing.
How do you ensure your work is the right length? The first step is to plan before your start writing. To do this effectively, you’ll need to:
You can then see how much space you have to make your argument. And if you find that you don’t have enough words available per section, you can revise your essay plan to focus on the most important points.
Say your plan doesn’t quite work out, though. What then? Well, if you’ve written too much, there are a few things you can do. These include:
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Having your work proofread can help with these issues. However, if you need to reduce the word count in your work by a large amount, you may need to make bigger cuts.
This will mean looking for arguments or examples in your work that aren’t essential to your point. In a longer thesis or dissertation, you may also be able to move some information to the appendices.
There’s no trick to boosting the word count in an essay. But there are things you shouldn’t do! For example, you shouldn’t add extra words unless they offer something useful. Unnecessary waffle will make your work hard to read, and your marker will spot it quickly.
Instead, reread your essay and look for things to expand on, such as:
If you find it difficult to know what to write, a little extra research should help. The key is that anything you add should contribute to your work as well as your word count! And if you need any help proofreading your essay, our academic writing experts are available 24/7.
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