My Top Tips for Beating Essay Word Counts
Word counts are the bane of my life. Seriously.
As a professional yapper studying for an English degree, it is a nightmare trying to condense my essays down to be within an acceptable range of the word count. Sometimes, I’m just too excited about my analyses (spoken like a true academic). Thankfully, being an editor as well as a student, I have learned how to summarise and reword my writing without having to sacrifice the best parts.
To help you overcome these same problems, I have compiled a list of top tips for you to implement in your essays.
Get rid of ‘that’
This is my first point of call when I have finished an essay. It’s a quick and easy way to potentially cut down a lot without needing to get rid of any of your hard work.
Though you may not notice it, we often write how we speak, which includes using the word ‘that’ a lot. I find I use it when I’m just trying to get my thoughts down on paper, and sometimes it just becomes a filler word rather than being useful in guiding the flow of the argument. You may also find you use ‘that’ unnecessarily and the sentence would make sense without it.
Once you’ve finished writing your essay, I recommend doing a quick Ctrl+F and searching for all the times you’ve used ‘that’ in your document. Read through each sentence you’ve used it in and see if it makes sense without it. If it does, great! You’re one word closer to being within your word count.
Are you saying something new?
There have been many times when I’ve been reading back through my essay and found I’ve said the same point in two sentences right next to each other. When you’re in the midst of writing, you may not notice yourself doing this, but it can be a big reason why your word count is so high.
When you’re reading back through (which you should always do), pay attention to the actual content of your writing. Are you just repeating yourself? How much of it is adding to your analysis? Don’t be afraid to scrap or rework parts of your essay to refine your argument.
Reword and rework
There are times when we don’t write things in the most concise way. As I said before, we write how we speak a lot of the time, or in a sort of ‘stream of consciousness’ way. When we’re frantically trying to beat a deadline, the priority isn’t ensuring our points are clear and concise; as long as something is down on the page, it doesn’t matter how it is written. But once the essay is done, you may want to look through it and see if you can rework phrases to be shorter.
If, like me, you habitually use subordinate clauses, a good starting point is seeing if you can either get rid of one or reword the sentence so everything is incorporated into the main clause. This can be a bit trickier than the other tips on this list as it requires more concentration and thinking outside of the box. I struggle to reword my writing because the sentence is already how I would naturally phrase it. Asking someone else to look over your essay can be beneficial for this reason. They may pick up on things you’ve completely missed and word sentences in ways you would never even consider.
‘Kill your darlings’
In the words of Stephen King, don’t be afraid to ‘kill your darlings’. This is my last resort if I am really struggling to cut my essay down. Thankfully, my course is pretty liberal with their word counts, so, as long as I am within a reasonable range and not writing unnecessarily, being over the count is fine. However, if you aren’t as lucky as I am, your word count is extremely strict, and you are still significantly over your goal despite trying everything else on this list, you may just have to sacrifice your weakest point.
You don’t have to scrap everything in this idea if you think you could combine elements with other analyses you have written. By all means, strip it for parts and stitch things together (as long as you stay under the word count). Anything to strengthen your argument is beneficial. But if you aren’t confident in a point which isn’t adding much to your essay, there is nothing wrong with getting rid of it. It can also help streamline your essay and improve your academic register in the process.
It’s not the end of the world
I hope this list has given you some tips to use in your essays and has relieved some of the stress word counts can cause. Speaking from my own experience, I can relate to the anxiety of seeing the counter tick up and knowing you have so much more to say. Though I’ve written this list to help you get closer to your word count, it’s important to remind you of this: the word count is not the end of the world. I am a big supporter of the phrase ‘quality over quantity’, which I think works in this situation. If you are making legitimate points that truly strengthen your argument, there is only so much you can cut down before you start causing damage to your essay. Don’t sacrifice the quality of your essay for the sake of an arbitrary number. As long as you are within a sensible range, you should be okay.
Remember to hydrate, read a book, and take a nap if you need one. I’ll see you again next time.
