how to shorten an essay by 300 words

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. 

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.

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). 

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. 

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?

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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8 Proven Methods to Reduce Essay Word Count, AI Included

Table of contents

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.

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:

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.

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:

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.

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: 

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:

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.

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:

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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How to Write a Profile Essay

How to quote a poem in an essay, how to write a why us essay, how to shorten an essay.

Sometimes, when writing, the topic includes so many nuances and interesting details, that you just don’t notice how you are getting carried away. And so, you end up exceeding the necessary word count. What should you do? Well, the answer is clear – just shorten your text! However, we know that it is hard to cut out the parts of your own creation. No worries though, as we are going to show you the way to make your essays shorter (and all without losing the important details).  

Basic Strategies on How to Reduce Word Count

Those of you who are interested in gardening will understand this allusion: shortening an essay can be a bit like trimming a bonsai tree. And for those of you who are not fans of such activities, this simply means that for the essay, you want to cut back without losing the essence. Now, to get you started, we have prepared some fundamental strategies.

Use Active Voice Instead of Passive

Switching to active voice makes your writing more direct and engaging but also helps in reducing unnecessary words. Passive voice can be wordy and less impactful. For instance:

Spot the Unnecessary Fluff

Identify and eliminate any redundant or excessive information in your essay. Long-winded introductions, repetitive details, and off-topic tangents can all be trimmed down. If you’ve written multiple sentences to explain a single idea, see if you can combine them into one concise sentence.

Eliminate Redundant Words

Many words we use in writing don’t add much value and can be cut out. Words like “very”, “quite”, “basically”, or “really” often fall into this category. For example:

Use Shorter Words

Sometimes, replacing long words with shorter synonyms can help you stay within page limits. For example, instead of writing “elevate,” you can write “raise.” This not only saves space but also makes your writing more readable.

How to Shorten Sentences

Shortening sentences is a great way to make your writing more concise and impactful. One effective method is to avoid using vague subjects like “What” or “There.” These often add unnecessary words. Instead, make the subject more specific, which not only shortens the sentence but also clarifies the meaning. 

• Original: There are many factors that influence the results. 
• Revised: Many factors influence the results. 

Similarly, the word “that” is often overused and can be eliminated without changing the meaning of the sentence. For instance, 

• Instead of writing: “We found that the cells that were treated showed improvement,” 
• You can streamline it to: “We found the treated cells showed improvement.”

Another strategy is to remove unnecessary adverbs and adjectives . Strong verbs and nouns usually don’t need modifiers, so cutting these out can tighten your writing. For example, 

• “The extremely long and detailed report was very informative”
• Can be shortened to: “The detailed report was informative.”

In addition, instead of using conjunctions to connect multiple ideas in one sentence, try breaking them into separate sentences . This a)reduces word count and b)makes the text clearer. 

• Original: “The project was challenging, but we completed it on time” 
• Can be simplified to: “The project was challenging. We completed it on time.”

Transitions like “indeed,” “then,” or “furthermore” can also often be removed without affecting the flow of your writing. For example, “Furthermore, we found the solution to be effective” can be streamlined to “We found the solution effective.”

Finally, phrases like “there are,” “it is,” and “the fact that” can often be rephrased to make your writing more direct and concise. 

• Instead of writing: “It is important to note that the results are conclusive,” 
• You can say: “The results are conclusive.”

How to Make an Essay Shorter: Tips & Tricks

All of the strategies we’ve discussed above will certainly help you make your essay the required word count. However, these are not the only approaches you can use. Probably the most unconventional option here is to use a paraphrase or a special sentence shortener tool to help you. These technologies use AI to quickly scan through the text and identify all the fluff and filler words that can simply be deleted.

Try Using AHelp AI Content Shortener For Free

And, if you still want to use manual editing, one of the quickest ways is to get rid of unnecessary or ancillary information. For instance, if your essay is about George Washington’s policy positions, avoid including details about his personal life unless they directly impact his political career. Besides, clear and direct arguments are not only more persuasive but also much clearer and can save you precious words. Building up your argument with hefty explanations can dilute its impact.

Additionally, look into whether your text has any unnecessary prepositional phrases. This can significantly tighten your writing. Instead of saying,

• “For many people, the reality of an entry into a new area of employment is cause for a host of anxieties,” 
• You can simplify it to, “Changing careers makes many people anxious.”

Finally, targeting paragraphs with widows and orphans (weird namings but bear with us) can help you save space. A widow is a lone word or short group of words at the bottom of a paragraph, while an orphan appears at the top of a page. By restructuring sentences or combining shorter sentences, you can exclude these dangling words and gain an extra line of space. 

At the end of the day, getting the hang of shortening an essay will not just make your text fit in the word count. It will also improve your writing, making it clear and punchy.  Think of it as a way to make your ideas stand out and grab your reader’s attention. So, next time you’re editing, remember these tips and make your writing more impactful and easier to read.

How do I shorten an essay by 300 words?

To shorten your essay by 300 words, first, find any redundant or repetitive information. Look for sentences or paragraphs that restate the same idea and combine or delete them. Also, check for any overly detailed descriptions or examples that can be trimmed down without losing the main point. You can also simplify complex sentences and cut out any unnecessary words or phrases. 

How do I delete 200 words from an essay?

Deleting 200 words is not a hard task. Start by going through your essay and identify any filler words or phrases that don’t add much value to your argument. Next, look for any sentences that can be combined or rephrased more concisely. Finally, consider removing any examples or details that, while interesting, aren’t essential to your main points. With a careful review, you’ll find that those 200 words can disappear pretty easily.

How do I shorten my essay online?

Several online tools can help you shorten your essay. Websites like WordCounter or online editing tools like Grammarly can highlight redundant phrases and suggest more concise alternatives. Yet, the best option is AHelp AI Content Shortener or Paraphraser. They offer special technologies to help rewrite your sentences more briefly, excluding unnecessary details. Additionally, you can also use essay summary tools that automatically condense your text. You can also find a Summarizer Service on the AcademicHelp platform as well. Whoever service you use, just make sure to review the changes to make sure your essay still flows well and retains its original meaning.

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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.

• Have your assignments done by seasoned writers. We work 24/7. Just email us at:
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How to Shorten an Essay: Reduce Word Count but keep Points

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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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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.

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:

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

• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 10 Reasons you’re Perpetually Single
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 20 Montessori Toddler Bedrooms (Design Inspiration)
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 21 Montessori Homeschool Setups
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 101 Hidden Talents Examples

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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.

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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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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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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At the moment, a maximum of 600 words can be summarized at once, within a few seconds. Want to summarize more? Just paste another block of text. There’s no limit on how much text you can summarize with our text summarizer .

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⭐️ Word Count Reducer: the Benefits

• ✒️ What Is Cut-Down-Word-Count Generator?
• ✂️ How to Cut Down Words?
• 👍 Word Cutter Do's & Don'ts

🖇️ References

✒️ 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.

👍 Word Cutter for Essays: Do's and Don'ts

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• 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

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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...

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How to Shorten a College Essay to Meet the Word Limit

The college application essay is one of the most important components of applying to college. Application essays require a lot of time and effort, so you want to make sure you don’t make easy-to-overlook mistakes such as going over your college application word count.

Unfortunately, many students leave their admissions essay as the last step of their application process after studying for the SAT and learning how to request letters of recommendation. High school students don’t have the time, energy, experience, or organizational skills to prioritize their essay word count and word limits when writing their draft and receiving personal statement editing , recommendation letter editing , or cover letter editing , depending on your admissions documents. 

The good news is that being over the word limit in your admissions essay is not the end of the world. You’ve managed to output a lot of writing for your college essay. That’s a good starting point for revisions. All quality and successful admissions essays  go through the revision process, and a big part of the revision process includes reducing word count.

This article will explore the following topics:

How flexible is the college essay word limit?

• Can you go over/under the college essay word count?
• Why staying under application essay word limits is so hard
• How to shorten the length of your admissions essay
• Get help to cut down your college essay word count
• FAQ about how to shorten your essay length: Advice from editing experts

Your essay must stay within the required word limit whether you’re applying directly to your university or through the Common Application, which has become synonymous with the college application process. 

The Common App specifies the word limit required for each essay. Even though this has changed over the years– from 650 to 500 words in the past –the current Common App essay word count is somewhere between 250 to 650 words. 

Can you go over the essay word limit?

You must be careful about staying within the word limit for each application. Look at the essay prompts closely. Unless specified,  never go over the word limit for a college application essay .

It might be impossible to go over the essay word limit

Some universities may allow you to mail in a copy of your admissions essay, but most will use online applications with text fields that may cut off your essay if it goes over the maximum word count.

Admissions officers may just stop reading or toss out your essay

Admissions officers are busier than Santa’s elves during the winter holiday season. They read dozens if not hundreds of essays per day, and most of those will be rejected. If you fail your application, make sure it’s due to the content or something else; failing due to a simple word limit mistake would be a waste!

Following directions is a key component of being a student

If you told someone to do something and you were in the position to enforce it, would you accept the wrong result if 100 other people were waiting and did it right? Of course not. Therefore, the least you can do is to follow any instructions regarding college essay word limits to show admissions officers you will be a competent student at their school.

Can you go under the essay word limit?

While going over the word limit is a clear and decisive issue, it’s a bit trickier to determine how short your college application essay should be. 

Pay attention to minimum word limits and word ranges 

Some essay prompts will have a suggested minimum– for example, 500 to 650 words. As mentioned above, online text input fields may cut you off at the maximum word count. Some may even have some red text reminding you to input at least 500 words. But you should always double-check these word count guidelines.

The essay is your opportunity to shine

Why would you be so lazy as to only write the minimum amount for your personal statement? This is a great opportunity for you to stand above and apart from other applicants, and choosing your words wisely while presenting your story fully is important.

Add some concrete examples

Examples of events and actions can help you meet the correct word count range. This also reduces redundancy in your writing while reinforcing and supporting your main points. College admissions officers love to hear about your unique experiences.

Why do students find essay word limits difficult?

Why staying under essay word limits is so hard

We now know several reasons why keeping your college essay length in the correct word range so you don’t violate any word limit is important. But  why is staying under essay word limits so hard? 

The essay has no structure or organization

The most effective things are stated simply. And the most effective college admissions essays organize, structure, and communicate efficiently. That doesn’t mean your personal statement will be short; it means that each point should be concise. 

For example, split your writing into clear paragraphs. Organize your essay into separate sections for your academic, leadership, volunteer, and personal experiences. Be sure to add a section on extracurricular activities. Make your structure clear to the reader so that word count will only be a minor consideration. 

The essay does not focus on the essay prompt

If you are having difficulty cutting your word count, look for sentences or even entire paragraphs that are not relevant to the essay prompt. Adding unnecessary information is an easy trap to fall into. Your anecdotes or stories might be interesting and funny, but do they help illustrate why you want to attend UC or Stanford? 

The essay lacks proper vocabulary and verb usage

This tip is more subtle but can really help you reduce essay length and word count. When writing, always use the most appropriate verb, preferably one verb only. It will drastically reduce your word count overall. This is because when you choose the wrong verb, you often must add more words to clarify. 

Average/Wordy:   “I hit the ball so hard it went over the fence.” 

Exceptional/Concise:  “I smashed the ball over the fence.”

The verb “hit” is a solely descriptive action verb. It provides no context about the degree to which you hit the ball, which is why “so hard” or other adverbs are naturally added to regular verbs to provide extra information. Changing the verb completely to something more engaging like “smashed” provides all the context you need. And you just saved 4 out of 11 words!

The essay uses a traditional introduction/conclusion structure

Many students applying to college fall into the trap of trying to fit their essay into a traditional structure consisting of an introduction, body, and conclusion.

With only 650 words, you can recover your word count by skipping the formal rigid essay structure. Instead, dive right into your essay. Your content and experiences are the most important components of your application essay, and you need every word.

Tips to reduce the length of your application essay

Here are some simple tips to cut down the length of your essay. Start with some broad admissions essay tips  first and move on to the easier grammar and proofreading-related steps below.

Remove adverbs

Here’s how to find if your admissions essay has a lot of adverbs: Look for “ly” words around your verbs. Often, these types of adverbs are just filler words and a reflection of spoken conversational English rather than accomplishing anything meaningful. Go through your essay and decide if each adverb is truly necessary. 

Unnecessary adverbs:   “ate quickly”, “ran quickly”

Stronger verbs:   “devoured”, “rushed”

Here is a list of common adverbs you can remove to reduce your essay’s word count:

Remove filler words

Filler words are another crutch or may just be used out of habit. Go through your essay right now with “ctrl + f” or “cmd + f” for Mac users and delete every instance of  actually  and  very.  We promise they add nothing important to your writing. 

Example 

Filler words:  “I found myself actually surprised about how much I learned”

No filler words:  “I was surprised at how much I learned”

The word “actually” is pretty much useless. You must clearly state that you were surprised. Further, “finding yourself” is a conversational filler that comes off as unprofessional.

Avoid using too many prepositional phrases

Prepositions are common linking words such as  of ,  to ,  for ,  by ,  from ,  in , and  on . These are highly dependent on the context of your personal statement, especially when you reference narrative elements in your past. Go through your essay carefully and make changes to reword your sentences and cut down your essay word count.

Too many prepositional phrases:  “I struggled to work in a team in order to get a good grade in the group project”

Fewer prepositional phrases:  “I struggled with the team aspect of the group project”

There’s no need to verbalize that you worked in a team or to mention the grad aspect. Furthermore, these prepositional phrases add extra length to your sentences, which will not help you meet the essay word count.

Be clear and concise. Cut down your word count.

Be direct and decisive in your writing

Students are often told to avoid overgeneralizing groups of people or ideas but that they should also be precise in their English writing. This can lead to the author failing to commit to a concept and coming off as unsure or weak.

An overreliance on modifier words such as adjectives and adverbs is often the culprit. 

Too many modifiers:  “Although my high school grades were  sometimes   slightly  less than average, I  was able to  outperform  many  of my classmates, who often struggled to improve.”

Stronger verbs and adjectives:  “Although my high school grades were inconsistent, I later outperformed my classmates, who struggled to improve.”

You can see how the improved version appears more matter-of-fact, consistent, and even confident despite the admission of lower grades. 

Don’t be a narrator 

Do not waste time restating the common app essay prompt or telling the reader what you will discuss next. This would be fine for an informative article (like the one you’re reading now), but not for an application essay. Eliminating these structural road markers will greatly cut down your word count.

Too much narration:  “I will start by discussing my leadership experiences…” or “The next important part of my academic background was my….”

Less narration:  “I gained leadership experience when…” or “One of my academic achievements was…”

Consider college essay editors for extra help

Get help from a professional college essay editor

The college admissions and application essay landscape is very competitive, and this has led students to seek an edge. One reason why application essay editing services are so popular is due to their speed and quality. They free up students to prepare more college applications and focus on the content of their personal statements instead of drilling down things like grammar and essay word limits.

One of the best things applicants can do is write as many college admissions essays as possible without worrying at all about grammar or word count. Organize your essays by the essay prompt category (e.g. “Why X university?” or “Tell us about an obstacle you overcame”).

Then, send ONE type of each essay to a reputable proofreading company that offers  college essay editing services . When you get your changes back, apply them to all essays of that category. This minimizes the cost but gets you the most benefits. 

FAQ: How to shorten your admissions essay

Advice from our editing experts , can a college essay be longer than 650 words.

• The standard word count for the Common app essay is 650 words. Rule 1) Follow any explicit word limit guidelines. Rule 2) Always go under the limit as opposed to over the word limit.

Can you use contractions and abbreviations in college essays?

• Yes. For college application essays, use contractions and abbreviations. 

Do citations count towards the college essay word limit?

• Every word in the text field or on your page counts towards the essay word limit. Avoid using citations in a college essay as it is not an academic paper.

Does the title count towards the college essay word limit?

• Do not restate the essay prompt or add a title to your essay. If you are submitting a separate MS Word document, add the title or essay prompt (along with your name) as the .doc name. 

How many pages is 650 words?

• A 650-word college application essay will be under 1 page.

How do you shorten long sentences?

• Start by 1) eliminating helper verbs and adverbs, 2) removing redundancy, 3) remove filler words such as “very” and “actually,” and 4) make sure every sentence supports the overall point of the paragraph.

How many paragraphs is a 650-word essay?

• A 500-word essay is 3 to 4 paragraphs. A 650-word essay is 4-5 paragraphs. Your essay should be less than 1 page single or double-spaced.

How to Write a 300 Words Essay (+ Examples for Students)

What is a 300-word essay?

It’s an academic paper students write in school or college. The goal is to express an idea, state an argument, or analyze a topic. The only problem with such essays is their concise format.

Your task is to meet the required length but convey information in the logical manner. How is it possible with such restrictions? How to format such a short essay?

In this article, you’ll find a few  samples of 300-word essays. Also, you’ll learn the rules of structuring and formatting such papers right.

Example of 300 Words Essay

Let’s begin with examples (1). A 300-word essay looks like this:

Who am I essay: 300 words sample

A “Who am I?” Essay is a part of the application process for those entering college or university. You get a prompt to describe yourself and tell your goals and motivations. In other words, it’s a personal essay telling admission officers why you want to be their student.

Here’s the sample of such papers:

Bonus: Who Am I Essay: 500 Words Sample

How to Write a 300-Word Essay

Writing a 300-word essay in education is about being brief yet informative. Such tasks check your ability to build arguments and communicate points. Structure it to cover all essay parts and follow the assigned citation style.

300-word essays have a standard structure: an intro, a core, and a conclusion. The body is for organizing and representing the main points. Below you’ll find five techniques to do that.

5 methods of structuring a 300-word paper

• Essence. Write everything that comes to your mind about the topic. Then, re-read it and point out three main ideas to cover in your essay. Describe them one by one when writing a paper’s body. 
• Three points. Make a list of sub-topics related to your essay’s theme. Then, expand each sub-topic with three more points. Finally, choose three sub-topics with most relevant points to support your thesis. Take them to describe in an essay’s body. 
• 3+1. It involves four steps: State a thesis, introduce it, expand on it, and finish your essay. The last step is the “+1” in the technique’s name. The trick is to write a conclusion first and then continue with other essay parts.
• Divide. Write each part of your essay separately. Re-read each paragraph once you have it to revise if something looks wrong. When ready, move to another essay part.
• Simple. Introduce a topic with 12 distinct points, grouping them into 3 blocks with 4 sentences each.

What does a 300-word essay look like?

Use this template to structure your 300-word paper. Here’s what to include in each part:

A 300-word essay introduction:

• Start with introducing your topic.
• State your thesis (the main idea of your essay).
• List the main supporting ideas you’ll discuss to prove it.

How to structure body paragraphs:

As a rule, you write three body paragraphs in an essay. Given the restricted length, each should be short and up-to-pont. Please avoid too many transitional words, long descriptions, or complex sentence structures.

Structure essay body paragraphs like this:

• Write a lead sentence introducing the paragraph’s idea.
• Explain it: 1-3 sentences.
• Provide 1-2 examples.

Concluding your 300-word essay:

Restate all the points you covered in an essay. (You can take them from the introduction and paraphrase.) Finish with the food for thought for readers: a statement, a question, etc.

300-word essay format

Final tips on writing short essays:

• Be concise; no fluff. Cut all sentences that sound too generic or look unnecessary.
• Focus on a catchy beginning and a strong conclusion.
• Write as you speak; then revise each sentence for language patterns and clarity.
• What is 300 words in an essay?

300 words in an essay is the length of a standard academic paper you write in school or college. Depending on formatting, it takes 0.6 pages (single-spaced) or 1.2 pages (double-spaced). This short writing piece is best to share ideas or analyze assigned topics briefly.

• How many paragraphs is a 300 words essay?

A 300 words essay follows a 5-paragraph structure. The first paragraph goes for an introduction, three — for a body, and the final one — for a conclusion. This rule isn’t strict: Your essay body can be one or two, not three, paragraphs (2). Check the prompt’s guidelines before writing.

• How many pages is a 300-word essay?

It’s around 1-1.5 pages, depending on the formatting. Font size and spacing may differ from one prompt to another. In general, a 300-word essay is about 0.6 pages if single-spaced and 1.2 pages if double-spaced.

References:

• https://www.academia.edu/6009297/300_word_essay  
• https://www.csusm.edu/writingcenter/cougarswrite/thisibelieve/index.html
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Essay Papers Writing Online

Learn the best techniques for writing a concise and impactful 300-word essay effortlessly.

Effective communication is the cornerstone of any successful endeavor, and the ability to express oneself concisely is an invaluable skill. In a world constantly bombarded with information, being able to convey your thoughts and ideas in a concise, yet impactful manner is more important than ever. Whether you are a student faced with the challenge of writing a 300-word essay or a professional looking to sharpen your writing skills, this comprehensive guide will equip you with the tools and strategies necessary to craft a powerful piece.

While the thought of condensing your thoughts into a mere 300 words may seem daunting, fear not. With a well-defined plan and some clever strategies, you will be able to make every word count and leave a lasting impression on your readers. In this guide, we will explore a variety of techniques that will help streamline your writing process and ensure that your essay is both concise and compelling.

One of the most important aspects of writing a 300-word essay is selecting a strong topic. Your topic should be specific enough to allow for depth and analysis within the limited word count, but broad enough to captivate your audience. The key is to choose a topic that genuinely interests you, as this will make the writing process more enjoyable and ultimately result in a stronger essay.

Understand the Prompt

When embarking on the journey of writing a 300-word essay, it is crucial to fully grasp the prompt given to you. In order to effectively address the topic at hand, it is essential to understand its requirements and objectives.

The prompt serves as a guide that directs your thoughts and ideas, shaping the entire essay. It outlines the main theme or question that needs to be explored, allowing you to focus your efforts and convey a clear message to your readers. Therefore, taking the time to carefully analyze and comprehend the prompt is of utmost importance.

To comprehend the prompt, one must carefully read and identify key terms or phrases. These terms provide clues as to what the essay should encompass, such as analyzing, contrasting, or evaluating a specific concept or topic.

Furthermore, it is crucial to consider the context in which the prompt is presented. Is it asking for your personal opinion, an analysis of a given text, or an exploration of a specific event or idea? By understanding the context, you can tailor your writing style accordingly and ensure that your essay remains relevant to the prompt.

Another important aspect of understanding the prompt is identifying any limitations or guidelines provided. This may include word count restrictions, specific formatting requirements, or even the inclusion of certain sources or references. By taking note of these instructions, you can ensure that your essay meets all the necessary criteria set forth by the prompt.

Finally, once you have a clear understanding of the prompt, it is recommended to brainstorm and create an outline of your essay. This will allow you to organize your thoughts and ensure a logical flow of ideas within your 300-word limit.

In conclusion, understanding the prompt is the foundational step towards writing a successful 300-word essay. By comprehending the requirements, identifying key terms, considering the context, and noting any limitations, you can effectively shape your essay and communicate your ideas in a concise and coherent manner.

Plan Your Essay

Before you start writing your 300-word essay, it’s crucial to create a solid plan. Planning your essay helps you organize your thoughts and ensures that you cover all the necessary points in a coherent and structured manner.

1. Define your topic:

First and foremost, clearly define the topic or question that your essay will address. This will give you a clear focus and prevent your essay from becoming too broad or unfocused.

2. Conduct research:

Once you have a clear topic, conduct thorough research to gather relevant information and supporting evidence. This will enable you to present a well-informed and well-rounded argument in your essay.

3. Create an outline:

An outline serves as a roadmap for your essay, helping you structure your thoughts and ensure a logical flow of information. Divide your essay into sections and subheadings, and outline the main points you will cover in each.

4. Develop a thesis statement:

Your thesis statement should clearly state the main argument or point you will be making in your essay. It should be concise, specific, and thought-provoking, acting as a guide for the rest of your writing.

5. Organize your ideas:

Once you have a clear thesis statement and outline, organize your ideas in a logical order. Start with a strong introduction, followed by body paragraphs that support your thesis, and end with a conclusion that summarizes your main points.

6. Consider word count:

Since you are writing a 300-word essay, it’s important to be mindful of your word count. Ensure that each paragraph and sentence contributes to the overall argument and removes any unnecessary information or repetition.

7. Revise and edit:

Finally, before submitting your essay, take the time to revise and edit your work. Check for grammar and spelling errors, ensure that your ideas are clear and concise, and make any necessary changes to improve the overall flow and coherence of your essay.

By following these planning tips and taking the time to organize your thoughts, you will be well-equipped to write a strong and concise 300-word essay that effectively communicates your ideas. Remember, a well-structured and coherent essay is more likely to leave a lasting impression on your readers.

Focus on the Main Idea

When writing a 300-word essay, it is crucial to focus on the main idea. This means that you need to clearly identify the central theme or argument that you want to convey to your readers. By honing in on the main idea, you can ensure that your essay remains focused and coherent.

One way to identify the main idea is by brainstorming and organizing your thoughts before you begin writing. Consider what you want to say and the key points that support your argument. This will help you create a clear outline for your essay, allowing you to stay on track and avoid straying off topic.

Once you have identified the main idea, it is important to make sure that all the information you include in your essay directly supports and reinforces this central theme. Each paragraph should have a clear connection to the main idea, and any irrelevant or unnecessary information should be eliminated. This will keep your essay concise and focused.

In order to effectively convey the main idea, it is also important to use language and vocabulary that is precise and specific. This will help you articulate your thoughts clearly and avoid any ambiguity or confusion. Additionally, using examples and evidence to support your main idea can strengthen your argument and make it more convincing to your readers.

By focusing on the main idea, you can ensure that your 300-word essay is concise, coherent, and effective. Remember to identify the central theme, organize your thoughts, and use precise language to convey your argument. With these strategies, you will be able to write a compelling essay that keeps your readers engaged from beginning to end.

Keep Sentences Short and Simple

In order to effectively convey your ideas in a 300-word essay, it is crucial to keep your sentences short and simple. By utilizing concise sentence structures and avoiding unnecessary complexity, you can ensure that your message is clear and easily understood by the reader.

Long and convoluted sentences can easily confuse the reader and make it difficult for them to follow your line of thought. Instead, opt for shorter sentences that express a single idea or concept. This will not only enhance the readability of your essay but also make it more engaging for the reader.

Simplicity is key when it comes to writing a concise essay. Avoid using overly technical language or jargon that may alienate your audience. Instead, strive for clarity and precision in your choice of words. Use clear and straightforward language that is accessible to a wide range of readers.

Additionally, it is important to avoid unnecessary repetition or redundancy in your sentences. Each sentence should contribute new information or expand upon the previous point. Aim to eliminate any unnecessary words or phrases that do not add value to your essay.

To ensure that your sentences remain short and simple, it can be helpful to read your essay aloud. This will allow you to identify any lengthy or complex sentences that may need to be revised. Additionally, seeking feedback from others can provide valuable insight into the clarity and coherence of your writing.

In conclusion, keeping sentences short and simple is essential in writing a successful 300-word essay. By using concise sentence structures, avoiding unnecessary complexity, and utilizing clear and straightforward language, you can effectively convey your ideas to the reader. Remember to eliminate any redundancy or repetition in your sentences and seek feedback to ensure the clarity of your writing.

Use Transitional Words and Phrases

One of the key elements in writing a 300-word essay is the use of transitional words and phrases. These linguistic tools play a crucial role in connecting ideas and making the essay flow smoothly.

Transitional words and phrases act as bridges between different paragraphs, sentences, and thoughts, allowing the reader to follow the writer’s logic easily. They provide a sense of coherence and help to create a well-structured and organized essay.

When used effectively, transitional words and phrases can enhance the clarity and readability of your essay. They can help you express your thoughts more precisely, establish relationships between different ideas, and guide the reader through your arguments and supporting evidence.

Examples of transitional words and phrases include “however,” “therefore,” “nevertheless,” “furthermore,” “in addition,” “similarly,” “on the other hand,” and “consequently.” These words and phrases signal shifts in thought or provide connections between different concepts and arguments.

To maximize the impact of transitional words and phrases in your essay, consider the specific context in which they are used. Choose words and phrases that accurately convey the intended meaning and create a seamless flow between sentences and paragraphs.

However, it is important to use transitional words and phrases judiciously. Overusing them can make your essay sound repetitive or formulaic. Instead, focus on using them strategically to strengthen your arguments and improve the overall coherence of your writing.

In conclusion, incorporating transitional words and phrases into your 300-word essay is an essential aspect of effective writing. By using these linguistic tools correctly, you can create a well-structured essay that guides the reader through your ideas and arguments with clarity and coherence.

Revise and Edit

Improving your essay is an essential step towards achieving a polished and cohesive final piece of writing. After finishing your initial draft, it is crucial to dedicate time to revise and edit your work. This process allows you to identify and correct any errors or inconsistencies, enhance the clarity and coherence of your ideas, and ensure that your essay meets the desired word count. Here are some strategies to help you effectively revise and edit your 300-word essay:

1. Review for Clarity and Flow:

Read through your essay carefully to ensure that your arguments and ideas are presented clearly and logically. Look for any unclear sentences or ideas that may confuse the reader. Consider whether your paragraphs flow smoothly from one to another and if necessary, make revisions to improve the overall organization and coherence of your essay.

2. Check for Grammar and Spelling:

Proofread your essay to eliminate any grammar or spelling errors. Use spell-check tools, but also be mindful of common mistakes that may not be detected by these utilities. Pay attention to subject-verb agreement, verb tense consistency, punctuation, and capitalization. Correct any errors to ensure that your essay reads professionally.

3. Trim Excess Words:

Review your essay to identify any unnecessary or redundant words or phrases. Look for opportunities to replace wordy expressions with more concise alternatives. By eliminating unnecessary words, you can improve the overall clarity and conciseness of your essay.

4. Seek Feedback:

Share your essay with others and ask for their honest feedback. They can provide valuable insights and suggestions for improvement. Consider their perspectives and critique to refine your essay further. Incorporate their suggestions into your revision process to enhance the overall quality of your writing.

5. Proofread Again:

After implementing revisions based on feedback, take the time to proofread your essay once more. This final step ensures that you have addressed all the required changes and that your essay is error-free and ready to be submitted.

By revising and editing your 300-word essay, you can refine your writing, eliminate errors, and enhance the overall quality of your work. Dedicate sufficient time to this process to ensure that your final essay is well-crafted and impactful.

Proofread Your Essay

Once you have finished writing your 300-word essay, it is essential to carefully review and proofread your work. This final step ensures that your essay is free from errors, inconsistencies, and typos that can negatively impact its overall quality and clarity.

Proofreading allows you to identify and correct any grammatical mistakes, spelling errors, or punctuation issues that may have slipped through during the writing process. It also gives you an opportunity to refine your writing style, ensuring that your ideas are communicated effectively and concisely.

When proofreading your essay, it is helpful to take a break after finishing the initial draft. This break will allow you to approach your work with a fresh perspective and a critical eye. During the proofreading process, carefully read each sentence and consider whether there are any improvements you can make to enhance the overall coherence and flow of your essay.

In addition to checking for errors and improving the clarity of your writing, proofreading also gives you a chance to evaluate the overall structure and organization of your essay. Ensure that your ideas are presented in a logical and coherent manner, with each paragraph supporting a central theme or argument.

It can also be beneficial to read your essay aloud during the proofreading process. This technique can help you identify any awkward or confusing sentences that may need revision. Additionally, listening to your essay being read aloud can help you gauge the overall tone and voice of your writing, ensuring that it aligns with the intended message or purpose of your essay.

In conclusion, proofreading your 300-word essay is a crucial step in the writing process. It allows you to identify and correct errors, improve clarity and coherence, and refine your overall writing style. By taking the time to carefully review your essay, you can enhance its quality and ensure that your ideas are effectively conveyed to your readers.

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By Katherine Watson

Finally finished your assignment but realised you’re over the word count? Or perhaps you’re half way through writing and are already way over? Here are some tips for how to reduce your word count.

Remember that word counts are given from a reason; they are a guideline for the depth and scope you are expected to meet in an assignment. However, self-editing is also a great opportunity to tighten up your argument and strengthen your work as a whole.

What to cut

Consult the assignment guidelines.

If available, do refer back to the original assignment guidelines. It is not uncommon for the parameters of the assignment to be set out by your lecturer. Any guidelines are here to guide your structure and word allocation. If there were three topics you were asked to cover in this assignment, and you’ve spent 60% of your word count on the first topic and only 40% divided between the other two, then you probably want to look at reducing this first topic.

Too much description

It is far more common for students to use up their word count with description than analysis. In general, to reach a first or 2:1, you will need plenty of evaluation and analysis. This should be afforded a heavy weighting in each paragraph and the essay as a whole. If you have large sections which are predominantly descriptive, consider whether it is all necessary.

How to cut it out

Remember that deleting single words will only get you so far.

Combing through your work to shorten wordy phrases, remove ‘the’ or ‘that’, and delete extraneous adjectives and adverbs will tighten up your sentences and is a great way to make your writing clearer. However, this is not the strategy for removing hundreds (or thousands) of words.

Be clear on your argument

What is your main argument? What information do you need to convey along the way to make it? These are questions you should reflect upon throughout essay planning and writing. However, even right at the end, these prompts can help you streamline your writing. Your argument should have a logical progression, each paragraph and section should lead to the next, and offer new understanding that serves your overarching argument.

Imagine a series of stepping stones across a river; it is your job to lay these stones so that the reader can reach the other side. Each stone is one of your paragraphs, starting with the introduction and ending with the conclusion. When you are clear on your destination (aka your main argument) you can exercise more objectivity and decide whether all your paragraphs are necessary. There might be some stones that are slightly to the left or right of the main route but introduce an interesting perspective or example. You may decide that they should not occupy a paragraph (or stone) of their own but be added in as a footnote or summarised into a sentence and combined with another paragraph.

Once you are clear on your argument, it is easier to be clear on the function of each paragraph. If you are able to summarise in one sentence the role of a paragraph [Tip: this can act as your opening sentence for that paragraph] then you can refine that paragraph further. Are all the examples offered in that paragraph necessary for getting the point across? Can you get to that point more quickly rather than attaching a preamble?

Avoid repetition and use signposting

If your argument has a logical progression, there should be no need to repeat points you have already made. Sometimes students may deploy repetition to reaffirm their argument, or to make links with new information. Rather than using a whole paragraph to make a link, you can achieve the desired effect in a single sentence with the use of a signposting phrase. For example, ‘Building upon my earlier argument…’, ‘As discussed previously…’, ‘Having considered […] we will now consider…’

Set the parameters of your discussion

If there is content that you don’t have the word count to include, reflect on this in your introduction. This will warn you reader what they should not expect. You can add in a sentence such as: ‘This scope of this essay is limited to…’ ‘This decision was made because…’ As long as you provide clear reasons and have still satisfied the assignment guidelines, you can’t go wrong. Setting the parameters of an essay is an important skill and will empower you to keep your writing more focused and relevant.

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Text Reducer Online

Need to quickly make a summary? Try the text reducer that we offer below. This tool can summarize academic pieces of any level.

This text reducer will make an outstanding summary of any academic writing piece. All you have to do is follow these 3 steps:

• ❓ Why Use the Tool?
• 🧮 How Long Should a Paper Be?

✂️ How to Reduce a Text: Best Tips

🔗 references, ❓ text reducer: why use it.

Academic writing is all about instructions and discipline in their observance. Each genre within its framework always has a standard structure and volume.

Sometimes, the result exceeds the required word count, and you have to shorten it. But as most students postpone their homework to the last, they have no time to work on its shortening. Thus, they end up deleting some paragraphs and ruin the logic. It also happens that a section or chapter takes a disproportionate share of text.

Our text reducer is designed especially for such situations.

All you need to do is:

• Preset the desired number of sentences in the final version;
• Let the tool do all the nasty job for you.

Besides, you can use the same software as a summary generator.

🧮 How Long Should Academic Papers Be?

Before describing what can be deleted without thinking, consider the ultimate purpose. Below, you’ll find the main genres of academic papers and their estimated length.

High School Essay

The standard length of a high school essay is 300 to 1000 words . The suggested word count is not just about the size – it is a complexity barometer. The length sets the boundaries for your argument. For instance, a short 300-word essay needs a focused topic and a brief list of ideas. A more extended variant would allow for a broader approach and a more complicated argumentation.

Distribute the words in a 1000-word essay according to the following scheme:

• Introduction – 100-200 words;
• Each paragraph in a 5-paragraph essay – about 250 words;
• Conclusion – 100-200 words.

Research Paper

Graduate and undergraduate study levels will require you to prepare term papers and academic reports. A standard research paper can take about 5000-6000 words . Still, the exact length and the availability of specific sections (see below) depend on the discipline and teacher’s requirements.

• Title page (50-100 words): include the title, author’s name, and affiliation.
• Abstract (up to 250 words but usually much shorter than that): overview the research project.
• Introduction (about 500 words): explain why the topic is worth studying and identify the unresolved issues. Include a thesis statement (1 or two sentences) presenting your research intentions and hypotheses.
• Methodology (500 to 1000 words): present the methods you have employed to perform the research.
• Findings (as much as necessary to present the results but within the required word count)
• Discussion (up to 1000 words): point out the implications of the findings and suggest the directions for future research.
• Bibliography (usually limited by the number of items, not by the word count).
• Tables and figures (their length does not count in the overall sum).

Book Review

A book review is typically between 1000 and 1500 words but depends on the purpose and format. There’s a world of difference between a review of a fictional and a scientific book. But in both cases, the aim is to help the reader form an initial impression of the work. For a more detailed word count explanation, address this structure:

• Introduction (150 words);
• Author’s qualifications (100 words);
• Presentation of the sources (applicable to a scientific book: 200 words);
• Critique (unlimited but within the maximum word count);
• Conclusion (150 words).

Thesis/Dissertation

A Master’s thesis is up to 40,000 words , and a Ph.D. dissertation is about 80,000 words . But their components are relatively the same. Here’s an example of word count distribution for a thesis or dissertation.

• Introduction (5% of the total): you can slightly extend it to 10%.
• Literature review (5-10% of the paper): if you incorporate this section into the introduction chapter, increase the word count accordingly.
• Methods (20% of the total).
• Results (50% of the text): you can increase or decrease the methods and results sections in proportion to each other.
• Discussion (15% of the total).

The remaining sections (bibliography and appendices) don’t count for the overall paper length.

Reduction of your final word count is always an unpleasant thing to do:

• There is a hazard of losing the essence of your writing.
• You might delete something that makes the text unique and beautiful.
• Deleting every word means you wrote them in vain (and wasted your time).

Check the following assignment details before spotting the things your text could do without. Thus, does the overall paper length comprise:

• The list of references;
• The footnotes;
• The abstract .

If they do count and your writing is still too long to be submitted, here’s how you can resolve the issue.

Tip #1: Shorten the introduction and conclusion

The introduction and conclusion are essential but not the principal parts of an academic paper. Their function is to summarize, not repeat what will or has been said in the main body.

Look through the introduction for any details covered later on and delete them.

Read the conclusion, making sure there are no “new” ideas you haven’t discussed before.

Tip #2: Delete the Chapter-Linking Passages

Many people have a habit of writing a mini-summary at the end of each section and “reminding” them about it in the next one. This practice is redundant and wastes your time and word count.

Make the closing paragraphs as short as possible. The readers remember what they’ve just read, so a brief recall of the critical points will suffice to make your argument clear.

Tip #3: Make the Style More Straightforward

A research paper or essay is not a literary contest work. It is about conveying your ideas and substantiating them. The person reviewing your text most likely won’t read into it but quickly scan it through. Your purpose is to put your thoughts on paper with the minimum words. This is how you can do this without prejudice to the contents.

Look for Redundancies

This category includes:

• Sequences of synonyms (“The text is unnecessary and redundant”);
• Unnecessary epithets (“a good example”: would you include a bad one in your writing? “A difficult dilemma”: are there easy dilemmas?);
• Frequently repeated adverbs (“even,” “just,” “so,” and “too” rank among student’s favorites);
• Explanatory phrases (“bring to an end” equals “finish”);
• Self-repeating passages.

Don’t be afraid to lose some nuances for the benefit of brevity. Besides, if you delete words from a sentence, and it remains relatively the same, those words are redundant.

Simplify the Sentences

Feel free to split all the complex sentences united with “and” or “but.” First, you’ll get rid of some useless words. Second, the readability of your text will only benefit from it.

Get Rid of Prepositions

The English language allows you to express many things in multiple ways. You can equally say “a school of Fine Arts” and “Fine Arts school.” It will become much easier to read when your text is unloaded from prepositions.

You Can Do without Auxiliary Verbs

Although they make your writing more “polite,” you’ll be surprised how much space they take. Your paper will look great without all those “might” and “could.” Just write what you mean without tentativeness.

Tip #4: Apply a Text Minimizer Tool

Under time pressure, you won’t be able to dedicate yourself to refining the already completed text. Try using our sentence reducer for hard-to-read passages. If you need to shorten the entire paper online, this text reducer is at your service free of charge.

Updated: Sep 13th, 2024

• How long can the academic paper be? – Quora
• Term Paper Guidelines Length Content Style
• How to shorten an article before submitting to a journal
• 8 Ways to Reduce the Word Count for Your Research Paper
• The Ultimate Guide to the 5-Paragraph Essay – ThoughtCo

I'm teaching my kids financial literacy and self-compassion. My immigrant parents didn't have the tools to do the same for me.

• Growing up in a low-income immigrant family, my parents parented for survival.
• I am raising my children differently by teaching them about financial literacy and self-compassion.
• This comes with feelings of excitement, envy, and guilt.

As I sit on our backyard swing and watch my 6-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter play, I cannot help but think that the way I parent is different from how my immigrant parents raised me.

They parented for us to survive, allowing me to parent my children to thrive .

Growing up, I remember my parents using coupons and rain checks, and comparing supermarket ads to find the cheapest options. I learned these shopping techniques passively while watching them discover how supermarkets operate in the US and translating for them. This is in stark contrast to the way I parent, where my son is an active learner.

I take my son shopping with me

When it comes to shopping for food , I teach my son to find the best deals while balancing that out with finding healthier options, which tend to be more expensive. I help my son read and compare the prices of items. We then check the ingredient list for the sugar and salt content.

I feel guilty being able to afford healthier options than my parents could, but I also feel excited about pointing out to my son items on sale, like two for $4 canned olives.

Sometimes, when he wants something, I ask him: Do we need it, already have it at home, or is it on our shopping list? There is always a dialogue about why we are buying certain items and not others.

Related stories

I'm teaching my kids financial literacy.

I learned minimally about financial literacy but was determined to teach my kids more; I purchased a worksheet by " Teach Kids Money " to teach my son about delayed gratification.

We look at various items and label them "wants" or "needs." We apply this knowledge at the store, where I ask him if he really needs or simply wants an item. For his kindergarten graduation present, we gave him a $50 budget at Target and asked him: would he like to look around before he purchases something or save his money to find something better?

We also have him recycle plastic and glass bottles to earn passive income, which he saves in his piggy bank.

I want them to understand emotional intelligence

Besides financial literacy, I am teaching my children about emotional intelligence which was rarely talked about in my childhood.

Sometimes, we read an activity book titled "Focus Feelings," which helps kids identify different emotions such as sad, scared, angry, anxious, and introduces coping mechanisms like reading a book, listening to music, drawing something, or getting a hug.

They also learn about " The Feeling Thermometer ," which has four zones: red (very angry or sad), orange or yellow (slightly angry or sad), and green (happy). I often ask my son what zone he was in at school. How did he manage to get out of the red, orange, or yellow zone? What made him get in the green zone? One day, he blurted out that he was in the red zone, so he needed to listen to music to feel better.

Sometimes, I feel a bit envious of everything my children are learning and wonder how my parents would have parented me if they had access to the same information I do. But I'm also excited; I love teaching my kids strategies that will help them thrive.

I model self-compassion

I am also trying to model self-compassion techniques. Whenever I make a mistake, I usually say, "It's OK. It happens." Similarly, when my kids make mistakes, I remind them that everyone makes mistakes. That's how we learn.

When I sense my son is scared to do something, I tell him I get scared, too. If he is drawing something and is unhappy about the results, I say that it's OK — things don't always turn out the way we want them to.

Teaching my kids all of these techniques makes me feel guilty, as if the way I parent is a criticism of how my parents raised me. But I remind myself that parenting differently does not imply one way is inferior and the other superior. Different can simply mean enhanced.

I'm letting the guilt go by embracing the way my parents raised me and enhancing it by providing my children with what I didn't have.

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