how to cut down on words in an essay

• Call to +1 (844) 889-9952

Essay Trimmer: Reduce the Word Count for Free

Reducing the number of words is not easy, especially in the content that you have created yourself. Use the free essay trimmer to cut down any text.

Looking for an essay trimmer?

Take the 3 steps to remove clutter from your paper:

The word limit for each academic paper is set for a reason. It helps us focus research on a particular number of issues, plan writing, and communicate ideas clearly and concisely.

But what to do if you have reached the limit and still have ideas to write down? Use our Word Count Trimmer! Read the article below to discover its main advantages and ways of using it in your favor!

🤔 What Is a Word Count Trimmer?

• ️⚙️ How to Use the Trimmer?

✂️ Words to Cut out of Essays

🔻 how to reduce word count.

• 😀 Essay Trimmer: Benefits

❓ Sentence Trimmer: FAQ

🔗 references.

Essay Trimmer is an online tool that can help you reduce the length of any text to a specified number of sentences. It picks the most important sentences, thus decreasing the word count without changing the core message of the piece.

This online word cutter can be especially beneficial for those working with a lot of written content. As a bonus, you can also use the app to summarize books, novels, and articles on any topic.

⚙️ How to Use the Paragraph Trimmer?

Using Word Count Trimmer does not require much effort! Just follow 4 steps below and get the result within a second:

• Paste the text. The first step is to paste the text you have chosen into the appropriate field of the Essay Word Cutter. Ensure that your piece of writing does not exceed 20k characters.
• Adjust the settings. You can choose the length of shortened version and whether you want to receive keywords from the text.
• Click the button. Then, give our summarizing bot a second to produce the outcome.
• Get the shortened version. You can copy the final result in just one click!

When reducing the word count, you should primarily target phrases that do not add any value to your text. Below are some types of words you can easily cut out from your essay.

Apart from removing the unnecessary words listed above, you can use several more effective ways to cut down the number of words in your essay. Read on to gain some new insights!

Use the Shortest Forms of Words & Phrases

If there is a choice between a long phrase or word and a short one — choose the latter! This recommendation is especially critical if you must keep your writing within a specific character count instead of a word count. For example, instead of “give consideration to,” you can use “consider” or “think about.”

Don’t Repeat Yourself

Unfortunately, repetition is a widespread mistake among college students or even experienced writers. You can convey the same thought a couple of times using different words, which can irritate your readers or make them bored. Therefore, express each idea in your essay clearly and briefly.

Choose Active Voice

The active voice comprises fewer words than the passive one. As a result, using active voice makes your writing more straightforward and more appealing to readers, allowing you to tell a more impactful story. Check out the example below.

Begin Sentences with the Subject

If you begin sentences with the subject , your writing will be easier to comprehend because it will be evident who or what the statement is about. Moreover, you’ll have to remove all unnecessary introductory phrases before the subject, thus reducing your word count. Just consider the most crucial element in the statement and build a sentence around it.

Here’s an example:

• ❌ It was found that after an earthquake, the largest building in the town survived.
• ✅ The largest building in the town survived an earthquake.

Focus on the Message

When your writing lacks focus and you don’t clearly understand what you want to say, it is easy to write too much. You will jump from one idea to another, and your paper will become messy. To avoid it, focus on your thesis statement and logically arrange your main arguments to support it. A carefully structured outline can help you with that.

😃 Essay Trimmer: Benefits

Don’t miss a chance to try our Essay Trimmer! It has so much to offer to its users:

❓ Why Is Word Count Important?

Having a specific word count puts you in control. It makes writing more manageable because it lets you plan how much research you should do and how to structure your paper. Word limit also allows you to allocate the appropriate amount of time to writing and focus on the core message you want to highlight in your text.

❓ How Many Words Should an Essay Be?

The essay’s length depends on your assignment type, professor’s instructions, and education level. Here are sample word counts for common assignments:

• High school essay – 300-1000 words;
• College applications – 200-700 words;
• Graduate school applications – 500-1000 words;
• Graduate-level papers – 2000-6000 words.

❓ How to Cut Down Words in an Essay?

Use the tips below to cut down words in your essay or paper and strengthen your writing:

• Use active voice instead of passive.
• Utilize the plural when possible.
• Remove redundant transition words.
• Turn some nouns into verbs.
• Use possessive nouns.

❓ How to Check Word Count on Google Docs?

Take these 4 steps to check the word count in Google Docs:

• Open the Google Doc and paste your text.
• Click “Tools” in the header menu.
• Choose “Word Count” from the drop-down menu.
• Check the word count in a pop-up window.

Updated: May 17th, 2024

• 10 Tips for Cutting Your Word Count | The University of Adelaide
• Eliminating Words | Purdue Online Writing Lab
• Writing Concisely | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Strategies for Reducing Word Count | University of Georgia
• Cutting Out Lard | University of Massachusetts Amherst

You can Choose category

Essay Word Cutter - Reduce a Text in an Instant

Input your essay to reduce word count

Reduced version length:

Here is your summary:

Our free word cutter for essays uses AI technology to shorten texts in these easy steps:

• Paste the text you want to shorten. It should be a maximum of 18,000 characters in one go.
• Indicate the length of the text you want to receive as a result of summarization.
• Click “Shorten the text” and get the results.
• 🖋 The Tool’s Benefits

✂️ How to Cut Words in an Essay?

• 🖇 References

🖋 Essay Word Cutter Benefits

Text summarizing is a crucial process in academic writing. It demonstrates your capacity to organize and deliver the key facts, story points, ideas, etc. A person can easily understand a decent summary without reading the original material. Thus, students love our essay shortener for the following reasons:

If you need to summarize your hard-won draft essay to fit the word count requirement and are pressured to fulfill a fast-approaching deadline, you can make a few adjustments to your content. Follow these guidelines to reduce your word count in a shorter time:

• Remove conjunctions
• Eliminate adverbs and adjectives
• Omit unnecessary articles
• Decrease wordy phrases
• Use an active voice
• Choose shorter words

Remove Conjunctions

Conjunctions are words or phrases that connect two independent sentences, words, or phrases that can often be rewritten into separate statements.

The most common conjunctions are and , but , or , because , and however , among others.

These conjunctions increase the word and character counts in an essay.

Eliminate Adverbs and Adjectives

Adverbs are words that modify verbs, adjectives, prepositions, or other adverbs in sentences. Adjectives describe and qualify nouns and pronouns. Using adjectives and adverbs in an essay reduces the quality of your writing, while omitting superfluous adjectives and adverbs makes the text more concise .

Omit Unnecessary Articles – The/That

Avoid overusing the words “ the ” and “ that ” in your essay since they increase the wordiness of your content.

Decrease Wordy Phrases

Identify the needless words and lengthy phrases that clutter your essay and eliminate them or replace them with more functional words and phrases. Avoiding complex terms and long sentences makes it easy for anyone to understand the topic easily .

Use an Active Voice

Articles written in an active voice use fewer words than those in a passive voice. An active voice makes the essay clearer and more compelling , thus delivering a convincing argument.

Choose Shorter Words and Avoid Unnecessary Transitions

To reduce the character count of your essay, replace long words with their shorter synonyms.

For instance:

The word “utilize” can be replaced by use.

Additionally, the use of transition words is essential to maintaining a proper flow in your writing, thus making the article engaging to the reader. However, transitions make a text wordier . That’s why it’s vital to strike the right balance between coherence and reasonable word count.

Thank you for reading this guide!

Check the other study tools we’ve prepared: paper rewriter , poem meaning generator , and project topic maker .

📍 Essay Word Cutter – FAQ

📍 how to cut words from an essay.

The most efficient and effective way is to use our free online essay cutter to do the heavy lifting. However, if you have time and prefer to summarize your own, you can apply the tips shared in this article to reduce the word count in your essay.

📍 How to reduce word count in an essay?

You can use the tips highlighted above to trim your essay’s word count. If you’re strained with time, you can utilize our free summary generator to shorten your essay and achieve impeccable results quickly, within the click of a button.

📍 How to check word count on Word?

Check the status bar when you need to know how many words, pages, characters, paragraphs, or lines are in a Word document. For a partial word count, select the words you want to count. The status bar shows the word count for that selection and the entire document.

Updated: Apr 9th, 2024

🔗 References

• How to effectively summarize the work of others - SFU Library
• Summarizing - Academic Integrity at MIT
• How to reduce word count without reducing content
• How to Increase or Decrease Your Paper's Word Count
• 10 Tips for Cutting Your Word Count

• Link to facebook
• Link to linkedin
• Link to twitter
• Link to youtube
• Writing Tips

Top Tips for Decreasing Your Word Count

4-minute read

• 3rd July 2022

Cutting your academic writing down to meet a specific word limit can be tricky – sometimes more so than writing the essay itself! But don’t panic, you don’t have to start from scratch. There are some quick fixes that can help you get your word count down.

Below are our top tips for students who need to decrease their word count.

Look Out for Wordiness

It can be tempting, particularly in academia, to be wordy in your writing. Whether it’s intentional or not, most of us are guilty of this at some point.

To reduce your word count, look out for wordy sentences. If you can say the same thing in fewer words, make the change. Here’s an example:

Wordy: By far the most important aspect of this study to take into account is the way in which the participants responded to the final course of hair loss treatment.

Not wordy: The most important takeaway is how the participants responded to the final course of hair loss treatment.

Not only does reducing wordiness help decrease the word count, but it also makes your work easier to read and understand.

Eliminate Redundancy

One common source of wordiness is redundancy. This means using two words when one will do. Take the following sentence, for example:

Participants were then subjected to an unexpected surprise task.

Here, the phrase “unexpected surprise” involves a redundancy: i.e., Since a surprise is by definition unexpected, adding “unexpected” here doesn’t tell us anything. And this means we can cut “unexpected” without losing anything from the sentence.

Other common redundant phrases include “past history,” “consensus of opinion,” and “end result.” Keep an eye out for phrases like these so you can remove any redundant terms.

Watch Out for Nominalizations

Another common source of wordiness is nominalization . This refers to describing an action using a noun and a verb when a verb alone would work. For instance:

We conducted an investigation into the effect of sleep deprivation on memory.

Here, “conducted an investigation” is a nominalization comprising a verb (“conducted”) and a noun (“investigation”). But there is a verb form of “investigation” we could use instead:

We investigated into the effect of sleep deprivation on memory.

This simple switch immediately removes two words from the sentence. If you need to reduce the word count in a document, look out for places to make changes like this.

Find this useful?

Subscribe to our newsletter and get writing tips from our editors straight to your inbox.

Use Fewer Modifiers

Cutting back on modifiers such as adverbs and adjectives can be a good way to reduce the word count in a document. For example:

The whole experiment was massively impacted by the weather.

Here, while “whole” and “massively” do emphasize the extent of the impact described, they’re not essential to the meaning of the sentence. We could therefore rephrase more concisely and say:

The experiment was impacted by the weather.

Another one to look out for is “very.” A lot of the time, this can be cut as shown above. But you can also often change the word being modified to remove the need for the “very” in the first place.

For instance, while you might be tempted to say “very hungry” or “very happy,” you could look for a single term that communicates the same idea in each case (e.g., “famished” or “delighted,” respectively).

The key is to consider whether the modifying term is essential to the meaning of the sentence. If not, then it can usually be removed. If so, think about whether there is a single word that would express the same idea more concisely.

Use the Active Voice

Another great tip for reducing your word count is to use the active voice where possible.

People are often encouraged to use the passive voice in academic writing because it can give your work an objective, scholarly tone. But it can also be wordier than the active voice. For instance:

The recall task was then completed by the participants.

This sentence is in the passive voice because it foregrounds the task (i.e., the object of the action) over the participants (i.e., the people performing the action). But it would be more concise to phrase this in the active voice, placing the participants first in the sentence:

The participants then completed the recall task.

Looking for places to rephrase in the active voice throughout your work can therefore help to reduce the overall word count.

Try Proofreading for Free

We offer an expert proofreading and editing service for students . Our team knows all there is to know about grammar, spelling, consistency, tone, formatting, and more.

We can take the pressures of proofreading your work off your plate so you can focus on getting those all-important top marks!

Get 500 words of your writing proofread free of charge.

Share this article:

Post A New Comment

Got content that needs a quick turnaround? Let us polish your work. Explore our editorial business services.

5-minute read

Free Email Newsletter Template (2024)

Promoting a brand means sharing valuable insights to connect more deeply with your audience, and...

6-minute read

How to Write a Nonprofit Grant Proposal

If you’re seeking funding to support your charitable endeavors as a nonprofit organization, you’ll need...

9-minute read

How to Use Infographics to Boost Your Presentation

Is your content getting noticed? Capturing and maintaining an audience’s attention is a challenge when...

8-minute read

Why Interactive PDFs Are Better for Engagement

Are you looking to enhance engagement and captivate your audience through your professional documents? Interactive...

7-minute read

Seven Key Strategies for Voice Search Optimization

Voice search optimization is rapidly shaping the digital landscape, requiring content professionals to adapt their...

Five Creative Ways to Showcase Your Digital Portfolio

Are you a creative freelancer looking to make a lasting impression on potential clients or...

Make sure your writing is the best it can be with our expert English proofreading and editing.

5 Best ways to Make an Essay Shorter

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/ 25 Number Games for Kids (Free and Easy)
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 25 Word Games for Kids (Free and Easy)
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 25 Outdoor Games for Kids
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 50 Incentives to Give to Students

Leave a Comment Cancel Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Reduce Word Count Generator

Cut your word count without reducing the content. This tool is very easy to use:

• Paste the text.
• Mind that there is a 15,000-character limit.
• Choose text reduction options.
• Click the button.
• Copy the text to the clipboard.

⭐️ Word Count Reducer: the Benefits

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

🖇️ References

✒️ 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

This list of practical recommendations will help you use the word remover to its max.

• Don't paste long texts . The word limit allows us to summarize extensive passages, but we don't recommend it. Instead of cutting the whole text, work with each part separately.
• Don't simply copy and paste the results into your essay . You will likely need to modify the reduced text to create a smooth final version.
• Divide texts into logical parts . The AI will identify the main points quicker and have fewer error risks. It will also make it easier for you to navigate and spot mistakes.
• Check the results . It will be easier for you to manually correct inaccuracies at the very first stage. The tool is fast, but the human brain is more capable of understanding writing subtleties.
• Remove plagiarism . This is not a paraphrasing tool , so you must work on plagiarism. If it is just for personal use, you can leave the text as it is. Otherwise, you will need to quote or paraphrase the text to avoid plagiarized content.
• Work on word choice . Some texts you use might not be suitable for academic writing or your instructor's requirements. Devote some time to put the vocabulary in order.

📝 Word Reducing Example

Check out this example of a text summarized by our word reducer.

Original text

In the current study, several limitations of the research are necessary to mention. While random sampling will ensure representativeness and a low level of bias, there is a risk of limited outcomes in quantitative analysis. Since the questionnaires use structured and close-ended questions, there is a possibility of limited outcomes, which means that the results cannot always represent the actual occurrence in generalized forms.

Since respondents have limited response options that the researcher designed, the outcomes thus ultimately depend on the perspective taken by a scholar when creating the questions. Another significant limitation of the study is the limited availability of secondary data that can be applied to the research context. While the subject matter is widespread, there has been little research on implementing a sports education instructional program at educational facilities. Finally, data may not be robust enough to make conclusions regarding study findings.

Full text: Jeddah University: Sports Health Education Instructional Program - 4403 Words | Free Paper Example

Reduced version:

Since the questionnaires use structured and close-ended questions, there is a possibility of limited outcomes, which means that the results cannot always represent the actual occurrence in generalized forms. Another significant limitation of the study is the limited availability of secondary data that can be applied to the research context. While the subject matter is widespread, there has been little research on implementing a sports education instructional program at educational facilities.

Updated: Aug 24th, 2023

• 10 Tips for Cutting Your Word Count | The University of Adelaide
• Top Words to Avoid in Academic Writing | Useful Advices & Tricks
• Summarizing: How to effectively summarize the work of others | SFU Library
• The Writing Center | When to Summarize, Paraphrase, and...

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.

Recent Posts

How to Write an Essay about Why You Want to Become a Nurse

If you're eager to write an essay about why you want to become a nurse, then you've arrived at the right tutorial! An essay about why you want to enter the nursing profession can help to...

How to Write an Essay about Why You Deserve a Job

If you're preparing for a job application or interview, knowing how to express why you deserve a role is essential. This tutorial will guide you in crafting an effective essay to convey this...

• LEARN WITH CHLOE
• ABOUT CHLOE

7 Word Count Tips for Clear, Powerful Academic Writing

Maximum word limits are a pain in the butt. It’s kinda soul destroying to have to cut all the beautiful words you’ve just spent hours writing.

But they are there for a reason.

Word limits force you to write concisely so you can answer the question well without wasting words. I often felt like there was no way I could cut enough from my word count but, using my techniques below, I always managed to and the end result was a clearer, more powerful piece of writing.

In this blog post you’ll discover:

• Why you should cut the fluff from your writing
• Why you should try to reduce your word count
• 7 simple techniques to improve your writing today

~ FREE TRAINING ~

How to Actually START Your Essay

Workbook + video training to take you from procrastination and overwhelm to understanding your question and mapping out your ideas with momentum. Easier, faster essay writing (and higher grades) await.

Your goal isn’t to write a literary masterpiece. You won’t get higher marks for knocking your tutor’s socks off with your elegant prose.

Instead – you need to get your ideas down on paper in the least amount of words possible. While your writing may seem less pleasant to read, your tutor will appreciate de-bloated writing…and you should gain higher marks.

Benefits of reducing your word count and improving the clarity of your writing:

• Your ability to control your language will give the reader the impression you are intelligent and educated
• Clear writing will help the reader understand your ideas and argument
• Cutting the fluff will allow you to include more valuable points so you can score the highest mark possible

If you manage to cut 100 words from an essay by using these tips, that’s 100 extra words to answer the question. Those 100 spare words could be used to craft seven or eight kick ass sentences that could gain you the marks needed to push you to the next grade.

7 Simple Ways to Reduce Your Word Count

1. get rid of redundant modifiers.

The use of redundant modifiers has crept into our everyday language so they’re hard to spot. Marketing messages often include redundant modifiers to attempt to add effect, such as, ‘ very unique ’. If something is ‘ unique ’ it is one of a kind. Adding ‘ very ’ does nothing to the meaning, adds an extra word and just sounds silly if you think about it. The same applies to the examples, ‘ added bonus ’ or ‘ absolutely certain ’.

Look through your writing to see if you’ve included any redundant modifiers. After awhile you’ll get in the habit of not using them.

Here's some examples you can edit to reduce your word count

Absolutely certain > certain

Added bonus > bonus

Basic essentials > essentials

Complete monopoly of the market > monopoly of the market

Crystal clear > clear

End result > result

Exact same > exact/same

Final outcome > outcome

Immediate vicinity > vicinity

Major breakthrough > breakthrough

Make plans in advance > make plans

New initiative > initiative

Natural instinct > instinct

Over exaggerate > exaggerate

Past experience > experience

Past memories > memories

Personal opinion > opinion

Postpone until later > postpone

Revert back > revert

Top priority > priority

True fact > fact

Very unique > unique

Weather conditions > weather

Written down > written

2. De-bloat your inflated phrases

Similarly, there are probably instances where you’re using two, three or four words where one would do. These can take a few edits to pick up but once removed your word count and clarity are improved pretty quickly.

Are indications of > indicates

At all times > always

At the present time > at present/currently/now

Collaborate/join together > collaborate/join

Completely ruined > devastated

Concerning the matter of > about

Despite the fact that > although

Due to the fact that > because

During the course of > during

For the purpose of > for

Has a tendency to > tends

Has knowledge of > knows

Has the ability to > can

In a situation in which > when

In order to > to/so that

In the event that > if

It is necessary that > must/should

On the other hand > conversely

On two separate occasions > twice

The majority of > most

There is a chance that > may/might/could

Until such time as > until

What the organisation aims to do is > the organisation aims to

Whether or not > whether

Will provide a summary > will summarise

With regards to > about

3. Redundant categories

Some people have a tendency to state an attribute or characteristic and then, perhaps in an effort to be more accurate, state its category too. For example, ‘ blue in colour ’ should just be ‘ blue ’. ‘ Small in size ’ should just be ‘ small ’. Remove these in your writing and sound smarter.

Attractive in appearance > attractive

Blue in colour > blue

Heavy in weight > heavy

Honest in character > honest

In a confused state > confused

Of a strange type > strange

Of cheap quality > cheap

Period in time > period

Small in size > small

Unusual in nature > unusual

4. Remove ‘that’

Some words take up precious word count but add nothing. The most common is ‘ that ’ which is fairly harmless but, over the course of an entire essay, could increase the word count. You won’t always be able to remove ‘ that ’ and maintain clarity, but search your document and see if removing them alters the meaning of the sentence.

Ensure that you make relevant use of both articles

This is the book that she wrote

The report that was approved by the board

I want to buy that car

5. Delete adverbs

Adverbs can weaken academic writing by detracting from what is being said. Using adverbs frequently will bloat your writing and can disrupt a reader’s flow. Don’t add a descriptive word to a verb, instead just use a descriptive verb. For example, ‘ dropped rapidly ’ can become ‘ plummeted ’.

Search your text for the word ‘ very ’ or adverbs ending in ‘ ly’ and see if they can be replaced while maintaining clarity.

Eat noisily > gulp

Drop rapidly > plummet

Look angrily > scowl

Run quickly > sprint

Say quietly > whisper

Very big > enormous

Very tired > exhausted

6. Eliminate redundant pairings

The English language is so rich we often have too many words to choose from . Rather than choosing one and sticking to it we tend to pile them on top of each other. A simple idea can quickly become a bloated sentence filled with pointless words.

Look out for some of the examples below and shorten them to reduce the word count but maintain clarity

(Also do this where you’ve created your own list of descriptive or explanatory words.)

First and foremost

Hope and trust

Each and every

So on and do forth

Over and done with

One and only

Few and far between

Peace and quiet

Hope and desire

Tidy and presentable

7. Remove ‘helping words’

This technique can take a little practice to implement but it can reduce your word count quickly. Sentences including words in the form of ‘ be ’ or ‘ have ’ can often be edited and rearranged to reduce word count and add clarity. Check your writing for these sentences.

First, one has to analyse the situation > first, analyse the situation

The report was prepared by Psychology students > Psychology students prepared the report

This report has been prepared to analyse… > this report analyses/aims to analyse…

His duties were classified in the report > the report classified his duties.

You may also like...

How to study like a first class student.

If you’re curious about how to study like a First Class student and whether aiming for top grades is the right approach for you, this episode is your guide. I explore the benefits of adopting a First Class mindset and study habits, explaining why every student can benefit from aiming high, regardless of their current

This One Perspective Shift Will Make Your Studying Easier

In this week’s episode, I reveal a powerful perspective shift that can make your studying easier and transform your academic journey. Whether you’re juggling work, family, or both, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the pressure of achieving good grades. You might even find yourself confused by inconsistent results—feeling confident about an essay only to

From Blank Page to Finished Essay: How to Harness Productive Struggle

In this episode, I dive into how to harness productive struggle throughout the essay writing process. Writing essays can be overwhelming, with countless opportunities to feel panicky and unsure. This episode is packed with practical strategies to turn your struggle into a powerful tool for writing better essays. I’ll help you recognise and overcome unproductive

What do you want to learn? 

Either select the study skill you want to dive into, or choose whether you're in the mood to check out a blog post or podcast episode.

• Confident learning
• Critical thinking
• Distance learning
• Essay writing
• Exam preparation
• Higher grades
• Mature student
• Note taking
• Organisation
• Procrastination
• Productivity
• Study challenge
• Study habits
• Studying while working

FREE EMAIL SERIES

How to Build Unshakeable Studying Confidence in Just 5 Days

Learn 5 powerful strategies to build an unshakeable foundation of studying confidence.

Say goodbye to self-doubt and traumatic school memories getting in the way of you acing your learning as an adult.

And instead say hello to studying with more motivation, positivity and ease so that you can graduate with the grades you want.

~ ENROL IN THIS FREE TRAINING ~

It's time to say goodbye to procrastination and overwhelm and hello to easier, faster essay writing.

I will never sell your information to third parties and will protect it in accordance with my privacy policy . You may withdraw this consent at any time by unsubscribing.

• Call to +1 844 889-9952

Word Count Reducer

Have you exceeded your assignment word limit and now wonder how to cut your essay length? Try our word count decreaser! It will shorten your paper while preserving its meaning.

Create a summary of any academic text with this summarizing software! It will generate a synopsis for you in 3 simple steps:

How often do you exceed the word count by more than 10%? How often do you lack the required amount of words? In many cases, writing a text of the exact size is difficult. However, teachers assess your ability to squeeze all required content into a particular volume, especially in admission essays.

Use our handy free online tool – a word decreaser – if you’re clueless about what to cut out from your writing.

• ✂️ How to Use the Word Decreaser?

✅ Word Cutter: the Benefits

• 🕰️ When to Use the Tool?
• ✍️ How to Cut Words?
• 🤩 Why Choose This Tool?
• 🔗 References

✂️ Word Count Decreaser Guidelines

When you realize that your text requires reduction, you may follow two paths – edit it on your own or take advantage of modern technology. Our smart word count decreaser will do the job for you! The entire process is automated and lets you submit an essay with an exact word count without losing the important content.

Here’s how you can use the decrease word count tool:

• Paste your text into the first window;
• Select the number of sentences you want the summary to have;
• Choose to see the keywords of the text;
• Press “Decrease” and review the result.

The best about our tool is that you won’t spend hours editing your writing masterpiece. You can quickly decrease word count online and experiment with several word combinations to find the best match.

🕰️ Word Cutter – When to Use It?

Let’s discuss the propriety of using the decrease word count generator and explain the cases when you’ll find it useful.

Exceeding the Word Count (Essay, Research Paper, Thesis)

Each academic assignment has a specific word count based on the contents and depth of the research.

• A standard essay usually ranges from 500 to 2000 words;
• A research paper is rarely smaller than 2,500-3,000 words;
• Theses and dissertations have more extended word counts, from 10,000 to 25,000.

So, if you’ve hopelessly run out of the required word count and still need to cover some vital sections, turn to our word count reducer. The tool will cut words from the essay or dissertation to let you meet the word limit. You can stipulate the number of sentences it should contain and highlight the keywords to preserve the core content.

Making a Book Review

A book review is a detailed yet concise analysis of the book’s contents, main plot twists, and characters. Students of humanities departments, especially Literature, often need to make book reviews and reports based on the studied material. But do you have time to read all the books and then write reviews? If not, our word count reducer can help you receive a short, manageable summary in a few seconds. Read it, get the book’s content, and write a review in one go without spending several days on full-size book reading.

Writing an Abstract

You may often need to complete an abstract for an essay, dissertation, or other academic manuscripts , which should not exceed 200-250 words. Producing such a concise summary is often challenging, as your work is large and contains many valuable facts you might want to cover. Our word reducer will do the job for you. Just instruct it on what to focus on, and the tool will generate a brief, informative abstract, keeping the data you need.

Paraphrasing

Students often have to read, process, and synthesize dozens of scholarly works when writing academic papers, like essays or coursework. The challenge here is to refer to sources in a non-plagiarized way , so you should dedicate enough time and effort to paraphrasing. Though our keyword reducer will not make the summarized content unique (paraphraser will), it will identify the key facts and points for further paraphrasing .

In this section, you’ll find the key advantages of this word reducer.

✍️ How to Reduce Word Count?

Many students ask, “how can I reduce my word count?” This task requires careful editing and content review so the process may take hours. We’ve compiled some handy tips to guide you in this process and hone your word-count-reduction skills.

🤩 Why Choose This Reduce-Word-Count Generator?

As you can see, reducing the word count can be a tedious task. Our free online tool can do the job for you by speeding up the process of word cutting.

• You can shorten the text without losing its quality and key information.
• You stay in complete control of the word reduction process.
• You can compare the original text’s word/character/sentence count with in the output section.
• You can see keywords for a quick review of the core content.
• You are able to copy the result with one click.

What’s more, the tool comes with a detailed, user-friendly interface that will make your experience a breeze. It’s free to use, and you can enjoy it without limitations for any academic challenge.

Updated: May 17th, 2024

📎 References

• How to Reduce Your Essay Word Count – Word Counter Blog
• 10 Tips for Cutting Your Word Count – the University of Adelaide
• Paraphrasing – Purdue OWL® – Purdue University
• Writing an Abstract for Your Research Paper; The Writing Center; UW–Madison
• Research Paper Structure

Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

Eliminating Words

1. eliminate words that explain the obvious or provide excessive detail.

Always consider readers while drafting and revising writing. If passages explain or describe details that would already be obvious to readers, delete or reword them. Readers are also very adept at filling in the non-essential aspects of a narrative, as in the fourth example.

2. Eliminate unnecessary determiners and modifiers

Writers sometimes clog up their prose with one or more extra words or phrases that seem to determine narrowly or to modify the meaning of a noun but don't actually add to the meaning of the sentence. Although such words and phrases can be meaningful in the appropriate context, they are often used as "filler" and can easily be eliminated.

Here's a list of some words and phrases that can often be pruned away to make sentences clearer:

• for all intents and purposes

3. Omit repetitive wording

Watch for phrases or longer passages that repeat words with similar meanings. Words that don't build on the content of sentences or paragraphs are rarely necessary.

4. Omit redundant pairs

Many pairs of words imply each other. Finish implies complete, so the phrase completely finish is redundant in most cases.

So are many other pairs of words:

• past memories
• various differences
• each individual _______
• basic fundamentals
• important essentials
• future plans
• terrible tragedy
• final outcome
• past history
• unexpected surprise
• sudden crisis

A related expression that's not redundant as much as it is illogical is "very unique." Since unique means "one of a kind," adding modifiers of degree such as "very," "so," "especially," "somewhat," "extremely," and so on is illogical. One-of-a-kind-ness has no gradations; something is either unique or it is not.

5. Omit redundant categories

Specific words imply their general categories, so we usually don't have to state both. We know that a period is a segment of time, that pink is a color, that shiny is an appearance.

In each of the following phrases, the general category term can be dropped, leaving just the specific descriptive word:

• large in size
• often times
• of a bright color
• heavy in weight
• period in time
• round in shape
• at an early time
• economics field
• of cheap quality
• honest in character
• of an uncertain condition
• in a confused state
• unusual in nature
• extreme in degree
• of a strange type

Exciting News!

I’ve joined the team at magellan college counseling and now provide an even greater depth and breadth of college guidance. .

• 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 .

Do you have questions about college admissions? Let's talk!

• College Application

Recent Posts

Rising Senior Summer Tasks to Start the Year on Top

What You Need to Know About College Recommendation Letters

Summer College Prep Checklist for Rising Sophomores and Juniors

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!

• EXPLORE Random Article
• Happiness Hub

How to Avoid Going Over an Essay Word Limit

Last Updated: July 11, 2022 Approved

This article was co-authored by Diane Stubbs . Diane Stubbs is a Secondary English Teacher with over 22 years of experience teaching all high school grade levels and AP courses. She specializes in secondary education, classroom management, and educational technology. Diane earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Delaware and a Master of Education from Wesley College. There are 9 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. wikiHow marks an article as reader-approved once it receives enough positive feedback. In this case, 100% of readers who voted found the article helpful, earning it our reader-approved status. This article has been viewed 259,999 times.

Many people have trouble writing an essay to a specified length. It can be hard to keep the length of an essay in mind when you are writing quickly and focusing on putting your ideas into words. However, with some organization and attention to editing, you should be able to keep any essay under its assigned word limit. This guide will help you keep the quality of your essay strong while still respecting the word limit you were given.

Writing to a Specific Length

• For example, if your teacher gives you the prompt of "What is the most important invention of the 19th century?" your thesis statement could be "The most important invention of the 19th century was the steam engine."
• Having a clear thesis statement helps you to focus your writing. This allows you to minimize rambling and off-topic sections that could lengthen your essay unnecessarily.

• The number of points you will need to support will depend on how long your essay is supposed to be. Plan on only having two or three paragraphs per page. If you are writing a 2 to 3 page paper, you will likely only need a handful of points. If you are writing a 10 to 12 page paper, you will need a lot more points in your outline. [3] X Research source
• Consider adding bullet-pointed thoughts under each of your main supporting points. This can help you start to build the structure of each of your paragraphs as you outline.

• For example, remove anecdotes that increase word count. Don't follow up side points from an anecdote just because they're interesting. All of the content of the essay should be there because it directly supports your thesis statement.
• If you do accidentally go off on a tangent or an aside, cut them later. If you begin cutting content while you are writing the rough draft, you'll have less to work with in the end.

• In Microsoft Word, select the "Tools" submenu from the Toolbar and then select "Word Count." [4] X Research source
• In other programs, you may need to look in different places. You can typically use your "Help" menu to find the word count feature.
• Alternatively, an online word counting tool will automatically display the number of words and characters.
• Handwritten pages typically average about 100 to 200 words per page. The number of words on your pages depends on how big your writing is. [5] X Research source

• Try reading the essay out loud to make sure that its words flow.
• Have a peer or friend check your work and help remove the unnecessary additions. A neutral set of eyes can often prove helpful in spotting repetition.

• However, most teachers and professors frown on attempts to hide additional information in footnotes. Footnotes are meant to reference and occasionally bolster points, not to provide additional information that you couldn't cram in anywhere else.

Reducing Your Word Count

• If you trim the excess after you have written your essay, you're more likely to have a clear and concise essay in the end.
• Write first and edit later. If you constantly worry about word limits, you will often end up discarding ideas that add to your paper.

• Verbs such as "ask for" or "put up with" can often be replaced with single verbs like "request" or "tolerate."
• Replace "at the same time" with "simultaneously" and "by the same token" with "similarly."
• The adverb "immediately" can be used in lieu of phrases such as "right now" and "as soon as."
• Replace full clauses such as "It is clear that" and "It should be obvious that" with single adverbs such as "clearly," "obviously," or "evidently."
• A sentence with "the reason why... is that..." can be rewritten with just the conjunction "because." For example: "The reason why ice floats is that..." becomes simply: "Ice floats because..."

• In fact, taking extraneous words out makes your sentences stronger. For example, the statement "I am actually a great writer" sounds stronger when it is phrased simply as "I am a great writer."

• Sentences such as "Where is she going to ?" and "Where is the house at ?" have unnecessary prepositions. They do not have to be overt if they aren't followed by the object in these constructions.

• Decide when you will make each of your points and only mention them there. If you find yourself mentioning a point repeatedly and it doesn't do anything to support that specific paragraph, then delete it.

• An example of too much hedging is: "There is a chance that the man might possibly come today." This sentence sounds better as: "There is a chance that the man will come today."
• "I think that" is often an unnecessary form of hedging. Instead of writing, "I think that," give the reason why you think so. For example, just state that "Variable A will likely increase variable B because...."

• You can also work on combining the first and second sentences of your paragraphs. Sometimes you can combine them and reduce your word count, while still retaining the underlying meaning of both of them.

• Cut excess ideas but don't delete them completely if you think they have merit. Place them in a new document for another essay or for free writing inspiration.

Expert Q&A

• Many teachers place a word limit as a general guideline, not as an exact rule. If this is the case, then going over a little bit won't be a major problem. What teachers don't want are gigantic papers that have not been edited or well thought out. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• While passive voice has a place, particularly in the methods sections of scientific papers, you should generally avoid it. Even if it allows you to save a word here or there on the length of your paper, the passive voice tends to make your writing less clear and direct, and your tone more stilted and formal. Use sparingly if your aim is to write with clarity and concision. Thanks Helpful 1 Not Helpful 0

You Might Also Like

• ↑ http://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/thesis-statements/
• ↑ https://essaysnark.com/2011/10/tips-on-cutting-it-down-to-size-overlimit-essays/
• ↑ https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/606/02/
• ↑ https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Show-the-word-count-and-more-3c9e6a11-a04d-43b4-977c-563a0e0d5da3
• ↑ https://www.reference.com/education/many-handwritten-pages-equal-one-typed
• ↑ http://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/ld/resources/writing/diagnostic/writingtoolong/writingtoolong-23b
• ↑ https://targetstudy.com/one-word-substitution/
• ↑ http://grammarist.com/redundancies/
• ↑ https://www.oxford-royale.co.uk/articles/essay-editing-tips.html

About this article

Reader Success Stories

Feb 19, 2019

Did this article help you?

Liliana Martinez

Dec 7, 2016

Nov 8, 2017

• About wikiHow
• Terms of Use
• Privacy Policy
• Do Not Sell or Share My Info
• Not Selling Info

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)

Was this article helpful?

Inpression Editing

Copy & Content That Makes Your Brand Soar

16 Tips on How to Reduce Word Counts and Write Concisely

Have you ever finished drafting a one-pager, report, or social media profile only to find out that you’re hundreds of words or characters over your limit? Or maybe you’re not working with a word limit, but you get the sense that the long sentences in your blog post or website copy are going to make your visitors drop like flies. Instead of breaking out into a happy dance to celebrate the fact that you finally managed to sit still long enough to pull together a full draft, you’re left to figure out how you’re going to trim your sentences and meet your word or character limit. To help you out, we’ve created a list of our top 16 on how to reduce word counts and write concisely.

Note that these tips work best when you’ve already cut out the full sentences and paragraphs that you just don’t need. They’ll help you write clear and crisp sentences, sentences that show that you know what you’re talking about and don’t need to beat around the bush to say it. Use these tips to keep your writing short and simple and knock that word count or character count down.

Tip #1: Remove redundant words

Redundant words are words that repeat information that’s conveyed by other words in a sentence. These words are like an appendix – they take up space, but they don’t really do anything useful. In fact, if anything, they just cause problems. (And you don’t need more of those, do you?)

Redundant words don’t add any unique information to a sentence. As a result, you can remove them without losing any information.

Here’s how you can use this tip to reduce word counts and write concisely:

“She prepared a (brief) summary for the project team.” (9 words; 42 characters) “She prepared a summary for the project team.” (8 words; 37 characters)

“The store is open to the (general) public. ” (8 words; 33 characters) “The store is open to the public.” (7 words; 26 characters)

“When Obama (first) became president, he moved into the White House.” (11 words; 57 characters) “When Obama became president, he moved into the White House.” (10 words; 50 characters)

Tip #2: Remove unnecessary words

Unnecessary words are a lot like redundant words. They get added to sentences but often don’t need to be there. (Are you starting to see a theme?)

Unlike redundant words, unnecessary words don’t necessarily repeat information that’s expressed by another word in the same sentence. Instead, unnecessary words are often the words that make up wordy phrases. In most cases, you can replace these wordy phrases with shorter phrases to get rid of the unnecessary words. Remember, less is more. Here’s how you can use this tip to reduce word counts and write concisely:

“People who violate the terms of use may experience a number of consequences.” (13 words; 64 characters) “People who violate the terms of use may experience several consequences.” (11 words; 62 characters)

“We need the approved mockups in order to start developing the website.” (12 words; 59 characters) “We need the approved mockups to start developing the website.” (10 words; 52 characters)

Want some examples of common wordy phrases and their shorter equivalents? Check these out:

• A number of: several, many (3 words vs. 1 word)
• As a means of: to (4 words vs. 1 word)
• At the present time: now (4 words vs. 1 word)
• Due to the fact that: because, since (5 words vs. 1 word)
• In an effort to: to (4 words vs. 1 word)
• In close proximity to: near (4 words vs. 1 word)
• In order to: to (3 words vs. 1 word)
• In the near future: soon, shortly (4 words vs. 1 word)
• It is requested that you: please (5 words vs. 1 word)
• With the exception of: except (4 words vs. 1 word)

In some cases, you can get rid of an entire set of unnecessary words without having to replace them with a shorter set of words. Take a look at this example:

“ There are no previous studies that investigated the relationship between protein X and protein Y.” (15 words; 83 characters) “No previous studies investigated the relationship between protein X and protein Y.” (12 words; 71 characters)

Here are some other words and sets of words that you can often banish from your sentences without having to replace them with anything. The numbers in parentheses show the number of words you’ll save by getting rid of these words.

• The fact that (-3 words)
• It has been reported that (-5 words)
• It was observed/found that (-4 words)
• There is/there are (-2 words)
• Very (-1 word)
• Really (-1 word)

And finally, some words become unnecessary words in a certain context. Let’s take a look at these examples:

“The most important ingredient in this recipe…” (7 words; 38 characters) “The most important ingredient…”(4 words; 26 characters)

As you can see, we can remove “in this recipe” from the sentence. Why? Because we know that ingredients are usually part of recipes. So if we’re talking about ingredients, we can assume our reader will know that we’re talking about ingredients in a recipe.

Note, though, that “in this recipe” isn’t always redundant. For example, you wouldn’t be able to remove it from this sentence:

“There are peanuts in this recipe.”

Peanut allergies are pretty serious business, so you’d want to keep “in this recipe” in the sentence so that your reader knows what the peanuts are in. After all, EpiPens aren’t exactly cheap these days, so you probably want to avoid having to use one.

Bonus tip: Use the “find” function in your word processor to search for the most common unnecessary words in your writing.

 Tip #3: Remove the word “that”

It’s common to pepper sentences with the word “that,” but this word often doesn’t add much to the meaning of a sentence. It’s yet another appendix.

Because “that” usually doesn’t convey important information in a sentence, you can often make your sentences shorter by removing it. Here’s how you can use this tip to reduce word counts and write concisely:

“The car that Michael just bought broke down.” (8 words; 37 characters) “The car Michael just bought broke down.” (7 words; 33 characters)

“Being blamed for something that you didn’t do is frustrating.” (10 words; 52 characters) “Being blamed for something you didn’t do is frustrating.” (9 words; 48 characters)

“The report that we’ve been working on is almost complete.” (10 words; 48 characters) “The report we’ve been working on is almost complete.” (9 words; 44 characters)

Tip #4: Get rid of unnecessary helping verbs

Do you have a relative or friend who always tries to be helpful but often isn’t? Ironically, helping verbs can sometimes be like this.

But what are helping verbs anyway? Helping verbs are words like “be,” “do,” and “have.” They’re called helping verbs because they help the main verb in a sentence (imagine that!).

In some cases, we need to include a helping verb in a sentence to modify the meaning of the main verb in the sentence. In many cases, though, we end up including them in sentences when they aren’t needed.

So what do you do in these situations? Take that helping verb out. Here’s how you can use this tip to reduce word counts and write concisely:

“First, you have to enter your password into the scanner.” (10 words; 47 characters) “First, enter your password into the scanner.” (7 words; 38 characters)

“Airlines are always trying to charge more.” (7 words; 36 characters) “Airlines always try to charge more.” (6 words; 30 characters)

“I do need to go to the mall.” (8 words; 21 characters) “I need to go to the mall.” (7 words; 19 characters)

Tip #5: Replace nouns with verbs

Some people have a thing for nouns. Really, they do. Many words can be expressed as either nouns (e.g., “It is our recommendation that”) or as verbs (“We recommend that”). And people who have a thing for nouns think that the noun versions of these words sound much sexier.

The problem with the noun forms of words is that they’re often longer than the verb forms. They also usually force us to add other extra words to a sentence to make it grammatically correct. Instead of being seduced by wordy nouns, put them in their place by using their verb counterparts instead. Here’s how you can use this tip to reduce word counts and write concisely:

“ The implementation of the social media strategy will boost engagement.” (10 words; 61 characters) “ Implementing the social media strategy will boost engagement.” (8 words; 54 characters)

“ The categorization of children by swimming ability rather than by age will make lessons more productive.” (16 words; 89 characters) “ Categorizing children by swimming ability rather than by age will make lessons more productive.” (14 words; 82 characters)

“ The addition of crystals to the dress will make it too heavy.” (12 words; 50 characters) “ Adding crystals to the dress will make it too heavy.” (10 words; 43 characters)

Tip # 6: Shorten long words

Sometimes you end up with a long noun that can’t be swapped for a verb. And in other cases, you end up with a long word that’s already a verb. This may worry you because you know that sentences with long words are more cumbersome to read. Just take a look at this sentence:

“The utilization of the social media automation tool will allow us to ensure the completion of the sharing of our images with our followers.”

Long? Yes. Confusing? Just a bit.

Never fear, though. There’s still something you can do when you realize that you’ve written a monster of a sentence like this: you can replace the long noun or verb with a shorter word that means the same thing.

Although this won’t help you reduce word counts, it’ll help if you’re working with a character or page limit. It’ll also help you write sleeker and more powerful sentences.(Wouldn’t that be awesome?) Here’s how you can use this tip to reduce word counts and write concisely:

“The utilization of the social media automation tool will allow us to ensure the completion of the sharing of our images with our followers.” (24 words; 116 characters)

“The use of the social media automation tool will allow us to finish sharing our images with our followers.” (19 words; 88 characters)

“ Using the social media automation tool will allow us to finish sharing our images with our followers.” (17 words; 85 characters)

Want some more examples of long words that you can swap for shorter ones? Here you go:

• Notification: notice (12 characters vs. 6 characters)
• Portion: part (7 characters vs. 4 characters)
• Remainder: rest (9 characters vs. 4 characters)
• Upon: on (4 characters vs. 2 characters)
• Usage: use (5 characters vs. 3 characters)

Tip #7: Replace multiple weak words with a powerful word

In some cases, we create emphasis in sentences by stringing together verbs (words that describe actions), adjectives (words that describe nouns or pronouns), and adverbs (words that describe adjectives, verbs, and other adverbs). This makes sentences longer than they need to be because we end up using more words to convey the same information.

By replacing a set of weak words with a single strong word, you can shorten your sentences and make them more punchy. You’re not weak, so why make yourself sound weak through your writing? Here’s how you can use this tip to reduce word counts and write concisely:

“She looked incredibly nervous while she was presenting.” (8 words; 48 characters) “She looked terrified while she was presenting.” (7 words; 40 characters)

“He was very tired after staying up all night to finish his essay.” (13 words; 53 characters) “He was exhausted after staying up all night to finish his essay.” (12 words; 53 characters)

“She looked absolutely stunning in her mother’s wedding dress.” (9 words; 52 characters) “She rocked her mother’s wedding dress.” (6 words; 33 characters)

Tip #8: Replace prepositional phrases with adverbs

Another way that we make our sentences weak is by using prepositional phases (i.e., phrases built around words like “with,” “of,” and “in”) to describe an action. To streamline sentences and reduce word counts, we can often replace the prepositional phrase with a single word. Why make your readers do more work than they need to do to read your one-pager or blog post? Here’s how you can use this tip to reduce word counts and write concisely:

“The cyclist pedalled with fury.” (5 words; 27 characters) “The cyclist pedalled furiously.” (4 words; 28 characters)

“The athlete raced through the obstacle course with agility.” (9 words; 51 characters) “The athlete raced through the obstacle course agilely. (8 words; 47 characters)

Tip #9: Make words plural

Yup. You read the heading for this tip correctly. You can reduce word counts and write concisely just by making singular words plural.

Singular words often need an article (e.g., “the” or “a”) in front of them whereas plural words often don’t. As a result, you can shrink your sentences by making singular words plural when possible. Here’s how you can use this tip to reduce word counts and write concisely:

“A good doctor is intelligent, knowledgeable, and experienced.” (8 words; 54 characters) “Good doctors are intelligent, knowledgeable, and experienced.” (7 words; 55 characters)

“A pear contains more fibre than an apple does.” (9 words; 38 characters) “Pears contain more fibre than apples do.” (7 words; 34 characters)

“A child learns most effectively when taught by a compassionate teacher.” (11 words; 61 characters) “Children learn most effectively when taught by compassionate teachers.” (9 words; 62 characters)

Tip #10: Replace prepositional phrases with possessives

Those pesky prepositional phrases are back at it again. In this case, they’re making us use more words than we really need to indicate that something belongs to someone (i.e., to indicate possession). These sentences tend to look like this:

“The cover of the ebook needs more work.”

This sentence takes the form “the X of Y,” where X = “the cover” and Y = “the ebook.”

This may not seem that wordy, and it’s true that this particular sentence isn’t. But there’s still a way to make this sentence shorter and tighter: take “the X of the Y” and turn it into “Y’s X.” If we do this to the example sentence above, it would look like this:

“The ebook’s cover needs more work.” Here’s how you can use this tip to reduce word counts and write concisely:

“The complexity of the street map confused me.” (8 words; 38 characters) “The street map’s complexity confused me.” (6 words; 35 characters)

“The title page of the report looks great!” (8 words; 34 characters) “The report’s title page looks great!” (6 words; 31 characters)

“The invoice for the customer isn’t ready yet.” (8 words; 38 characters) “The customer’s invoice isn’t ready yet.” (6 words; 34 characters)

Tip 11: Rewrite sentences to eliminate prepositions

We’ve talked about how phrases built around prepositions make sentences wordy. But prepositions can make sentences longer than they need to be even when they appear on their own. Those troublemakers!

In many cases, you can get rid of a preposition by rewriting the sentence. Here’s how you can use this tip to reduce word counts and write concisely:

“We will test customers’ preferences for winter coats.” (8 words; 46 characters) “We will test customers’ winter coat preferences.” (7 words; 42 characters)

“The weather in Vancouver is typically better than the weather in Edmonton.” (12 words; 63 characters) “Vancouver weather is typically better than Edmonton weather.” (8 words; 53 characters)

“The manager of the restaurant apologized for the undercooked meat.” (10 words; 57 characters) “The restaurant manager apologized for the undercooked meat.” (8 words; 52 characters)

In some cases, you can use the “-ing” form of a verb to remove a preposition. You’ll just need to play around with the word order in the sentence. Here’s how this could look:

“We will use the results of Phase 1 to develop a tool in Phase 2.” (15 words; 50 characters) “Using the results of Phase 1, we will develop a tool in Phase 2.” (14 words; 51 characters)

Tip #12: Eliminate conjunctions

Sometimes we take sets of words that could form their own sentence and instead join them together in one sentence using a coordinating conjunction (a word like “and,” “so,” or “but”). Here’s an example:

“Tom wrote the copy for the ebook, and Malika designed the graphics.”

The conjunction doesn’t take up that much space in a sentence. But if you’re pressed for space, replacing the conjunction and the comma before it with a period or a semicolon can help you reduce word counts. Here’s how you can use this tip to reduce word counts and write concisely:

“Tom wrote the copy for the ebook, and Malika designed the graphics.”(12 words; 56 characters)

“Tom wrote the copy for the ebook; Malika designed the graphics.”(11 words; 53 characters)

“Tom wrote the copy for the ebook. Malika designed the graphics.” (11 words; 53 characters)

Tip #13: Write in active voice instead of in passive voice

Writing in passive voice (e.g., “The soccer ball was kicked by Mia”) instead of active voice (e.g., “Mia kicked the soccer ball”) is a lot like using nouns in place of verbs – people think sentences sound more impressive when they’re written this way.

The problem with passive voice, though, is that it makes sentences longer and less powerful. Do you want your website copy, one-pager, or report to have a strong impact on your readers? If you do, reduce word counts and write more concisely by rewriting passive voice sentences in active voice. Here’s how you can use this tip to reduce word counts and write concisely:

“The survey was conducted by the project team in January 2015.” (passive; 11 words; 51 characters) “The project team conducted the survey in January 2015.” (active; 9 words; 46 characters)

“The lawsuit was filed by Mighty Media.” (passive; 7 words; 32 characters) “Mighty Media filed the lawsuit.” (active; 5 words; 27 characters)

“The dance company’s performance was choreographed by Karen Kain.” (passive; 9 words; 56 characters) “Karen Kain choreographed the dance company’s performance.” (active; 7 words; 51 characters)

Hint: Need help identifying passive sentences in your writing? If you can place “by zombies” after the main verb in a sentence, your sentence is probably in passive voice. Here’s an example:

“The lawsuit was filed (by zombies) by Mighty Media.”

 Tip #14: Combine sentences

Sometimes you can make paragraphs shorter by combining related sentences. Just make sure that your combined sentences don’t become too long or difficult to follow. Otherwise you’ll be back at square one when it comes to trimming your sentences. Here’s how you can use this tip to reduce word counts and write concisely:

“Six participants tested the product. They ranged in age from 19 to 56 years.” (14 words) “Six participants aged 19–56 years tested the product.” (8 words)

“Sophia is a senior accountant at Mighty Media. She is responsible for overseeing the work of four junior accountants at the company.” (22 words) “Sophia, a senior accountant at Mighty Media, oversees the work of four junior accountants.” (14 words)

“Anton is a hotel pastry chef. He works at a luxury hotel in Florida.” (14 words) “Anton is a pastry chef at a luxury Florida hotel.” (10 words)

Tip #15: Describe data in one place only

This tip is helpful if you’re presenting tables or graphs along with text. Tables and graphs are a lot like PowerPoint slides – they’re meant to complement but not repeat everything you present in another format, whether that format is text in a paragraph or information that you’re presenting out loud. Some people make the mistake of providing the same information in a table or graph and in the text of a blog post, report, or one-pager.

Here’s what this looks like:

“A large proportion of customers reported seeing the web (90%), social media (80%), and in-store (60%) ads (see Figure 1).” (20 words; 102 characters)

Figure 1. Percentage of customers who saw store ads

You wouldn’t make your readers read the same paragraph twice, so why would you make them read a paragraph and either a table or graph that contain the same information? That’s why many style guides recommend describing information in one place only – in a paragraph or in a table or figure.

See how this looks:

“Figure 1 displays the number of customers who saw the online, social media, and in-store ads.” (16 words; 78 characters)

 Figure 1. Percentage of customers who saw store ads

Tip #16: use abbreviations consistently.

Abbreviations are like candy – some people can’t get enough of them when they write. In our ebook “ How to Write Clearly ,” we talk about why you should limit your use of abbreviations.

If you’re going to use them, and there are appropriate times to use them, don’t make the mistake that most people make. That is, don’t use an abbreviation inconsistently throughout a document or piece of copy. Here’s what this inconsistency looks like:

“The Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care (MOHLTC) oversees the health care system in Ontario, Canada. One of the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care’s key goals is to build a sustainable and patient-centered public health system.” (37 words; 196 characters)

You probably introduced the abbreviation to avoid writing out a long name over and over again. So when you don’t use the abbreviation consistently, it defeats the purpose of using it. This inconsistency also increases your word and character counts.

To make your abbreviations worth the cost of using them (see our ebook for more on this), use them consistently throughout a document or piece of copy. Here’s how you can use this tip to reduce word counts and write concisely:

“The Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care (MOHLTC) oversees the health care system in Ontario, Canada. One of MOHLTC’s key goals is to build a sustainable and patient-centered public health system.” (31 words; 167 characters)

You may be looking at these tips and noticing that they don’t reduce word counts or character counts by a huge amount. So why bother using them?

It’s true that if you use just one of these tips in one sentence of your report or blog post, you won’t see much of a difference. However, if you use even just a few of these strategies across an entire document or piece of writing, the savings will add up. We promise. You’ll be surprised by just how much shorter and tighter you can make your sentences by giving these tips a try. ————————————————————————————————————————————— Looking for more tips on how to reduce word counts and write concisely? Check out our post on the 3 wordy phrases you should ban from your writing . ————————————————————————————————————————————— Need to make a good impression with your website copy, blog posts, or reports? We can help. Get an instant quote here .

• ← You’re better than you think: How to start a presentation better than the #1 TED talk speaker does
• What does “irregardless” mean? →

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

How to Reduce Your Essay Word Count

When it comes to writing essays, there are two frequent issues that arise; the word count is either too low or too high for the stated range of the essay. For those who perpetually end up with too few words, you need to figure out ways to increase your essay word count . For those who frequently find themselves with too many words on the page, there are some simple steps to take when editing to help reduce the number of words while at the same time making it a stronger piece of writing. Below are some suggestions to do this.

Rank Your Arguments

If you find you’re well above your word count maximum, the first step is to rank the points you use to substantiate your argument. By ranking the importance of the arguments you make in the essay, you can eliminate ones which aren’t as important as others, keeping the essay strong while removing large portions of writing. If you don’t want to eliminate any of the points, you can still reduce word count by mentioning all the arguments, but not writing as much detail about those not as strong as the more important points.

Focus on the Main Point

Once you determine what the important arguments are for your essay, read through it looking for any paragraphs or sentences which fail to address your main argument(s) or topic. It’s easy to accidentally go off on tangents when writing, and eliminating these tangents can help reduce word count. The more focused you can remain on your topic and arguments, the more concise your writing will be.

Use the Best Verb

This may sound obvious, but a lot of writers don’t do this well. When writing, always use the perfect verb rather than one that’s close, but not perfect. When you use the best verb possible, it will reduce the amount of writing you do in most cases. This is due to the fact that when you use a verb that’s not quite correct, you usually need to add more words to clarify your meaning. Here’s an example:

“They beat the opposing team by a lot of points.”

While “beat” is accurate in this case, it’s not the perfect verb because they not only beat the team, they beat the team by a lot. Using the better verb “trounce” in this instant will reduce the word count while still giving the same meaning as the longer sentence.

“They trounced the opposing team.”

Remove Adverbs

Look through your essay and see if you find any adverbs, especially adverbs which have “ly” endings. In many instances, these adverbs end up being filler words which end up being placed in the writing because it’s the way we talk, but the words don’t add anything beneficial to the actual essay. Go through the essay and ask if each one is needed and remove those that aren’t. Some words you may want to look out for are (click on image to expand to see better)

Remove Adjectives

Much in the same way as adverbs make their way into writing, multiple adjectives are used when one (or none at all) would suffice. Read the essay to see if all of the adjectives used are needed, and remove those which don’t add to the meaning of the sentence being written. Some common adjectives to look for are:

able, bad, big, different, early, first, few, good, great, high, important, large, last, little, long, new, next, old, other, own, public, right, same, small, young

(Photo courtesy of Matt Hampel )

I hate maximum word counts because I can never stay under them. Why do teachers do this to me? Why can’t I just write as much as I want?

If you saw what the majority of students turn in for homework, you would understand perfectly why there is either a maximum or minimum (sometimes both)for writing assignments.

This is such a challenge sometimes. I hate editing because I love all my words. It helps to know how to reduce the word count even though I don’t want to do it. I think teachers should let us write as much as we want. Isn’t that helping us to be better students than limiting the amount we can write?

Limiting the amount you can write is actually something that can help you write better. It forces you to clean up your writing and only make the most necessary points which will make it more concise and accurate. Editing is more important than the actual writing to write well for most people. Your teacher is doing you a great service by limiting the amount you can write.

This isn’t a problem. The problem is reaching a minimum word count. Anyone who complains about writing too much doesn’t know what a real writing problem is.

You’re correct! Because obviously there is only one type of writing style!

A classic case of someone thinking that the world revolves around them and not understanding that just because it’s not a problem they have, others can’t have it. A very narrow world view. You might want to actually try and see things from the perspective of others every once in awhile.

I write too much. I’ wordy. I always have to reduce word count. It’s as much of n issue for me is not having enough words is for you. I hate it when people dismiss problems of others jus because it happens not to be a problem for them.

This may not be an issue for you, but it is for many people like me. It’s pretty self-centered of you to think that only your specific problems matter.

Clearly your still in primary school. Just to inform you while I was in grades 6-12 I was always over the minimum/maximum word limits. Today in college I’m easily 1500+ over my maximum limit without headers, intros, and sources. I’m not saying your issue isn’t real I’m just explaining there’s always a flip side to a problem/issue.

I’m wordy. Far too wordy. I do my best writing when I have to edit myself and these ideas are good places for me to begin. I wish I could stay under my professor’s word count limits, but it never happens I guess it’s better than writer’s block, but it’s still an issue.

Learning to write concisely will improve your writing so much. It’s not easy, but it can make a huge impact on the points you’re trying to convey. it’s worth practicing it.

Yes, I agree!

I’m wordy. My best writing is edited, and these will help. I wish I could adhere to word limits. Better than writer’s block!

Editing is such an under appreciated part of writing. I love the quote that says that great writing is composed on the editing block. Reducing your word count shouldn’t be viewed as a chore but as an opportunity to improve your writing. Being able to get your point across concisely is a great skill to have.

I agree. Most students don’t realize the importance of good editing and how it can greatly improve their writing. I believe students should spend at least as much time editing their essays as they do writing them.

I always do this! I tend to write double the word count and spend the same amount of time editing it, it not more time! It’s so difficult and I have it but I enjoy the idea of it making me write better and improve my academic writing. The most difficult bit is that I feel it’s all relevant and then having to condense it as a academic writer whilst still making the assignment flow. Argh! Uni problems!

Me Too!! I’m a bit crazy with writing! ;p

This is soooooo true and they don’t really teach you this in school. They tell you to write, but not to edit. I would have loved it if I was given a document that I had to keep the same meaning and important points, but shorten it by 200 words. It’s a skill I didn’t learn well in school but you need in the real world.

This is a new problem for me. I used to always be under word count, but recently I’ve started to always go over word count. I thought that being under was bad, but being over seems to be even more difficult. I’m not good at editing so it takes me so long to get under word count.

Editing is a lot like writing. The more you practice, the better you will get at it. Don’t get frustrated and continue to work on your editing skills. You’ll be surprised at how much better your writing gets the more you practice them. Good luck!

Seriously, who ever needs to reduce their essay word count? Everyone I know is always trying to make their word count. Do these people just write random things to get that high of a word count? That makes no sense…

ha ha. I assume you’re still in middle or high school with a comment like this. One day you’ll learn that writing can be fun and interesting, and when that happens, you won’t have enough space to write everything you want.

The thing is I am in middle school and always go 1000 words over the limit in my assignments. A good strategy that I use is to create a new document and copy and paste each paragraph. each time I copy a paragraph I try to delete some unnecessary words. This strategy works really well and it helps me a lot when doing assignments

For me i always go over because as I’m writing and sourcing things, I find other useful sections that provide good arguments and compassion’s. Currently I’m on a 3000 word essays and Iv done 4700 without an intro. My references are 700 so I’m technically 1000 over. I’m really struggling to condense it.

There’s an easy way to reduce your word count that works great for me every time. JUST DON”T WRITE SO MUCH!

I don’t know if you were being serious or not, but for some people that’s easier said than done. I tend to be wordy in my first drafts, and so when I go back through I cut a lot of words while editing. If I only wrote the exact number of words required the first time through, my grades would be a lot worse than they are. When I edit, I make my essays a lot better. I think most people do. If you’re only writing first drafts of any assignment, you’re not putting your best work forward. While your advice seems like it’s simple, it actually is bad advice for those who want to get good grades.

I think it’s difficult for people who have a hard time reaching a word count minimum to understand how difficult it is for those of us who have a hard time staying under word count. Although they are completely opposite problems, they are just as difficult for both sides. It’s kind of like two sides of the same coin.

It is, but those needing more words can source and add information, arguments and comparisons. But for those that have already done this it is difficult to cut and priorities your work based on what’s relevant or proves a better argument.

What if you have a lot to say on the topic? Should I just dumb down my writing because the teacher says that I have a maximum word count that I’m not supposed to exceed? Sometimes it’s important to write a lot when there’s a lot to be said.

Some of us like to write with detail and that can also make your word count extremely high. By toning down your piece and being a bit more general, it might also help decrease your word count.

I worry when I do this that I’m losing marks as I’m not explaining myself from cutting the work I did

I recently have found that I no longer have trouble reaching assigned word counts, but now I am constantly going over them. I’m not sure how this happened. Even worse, I think being over word count is even harder than being under it. Who would have thought?

I think this is a common problem as people become better writers. As you become more confident in your writing, you tend to write more. The previous writing problems turn into editing problems. the good news is that as you get better at writing, your wordiness will tend to go down again. Just like it to practice to increase your word count, it will take practice to reduce your word count as well.

I happened to be a wordy writer. I never seem to be able to stay under the assigned word count on my essays. I found that one of the best ways to reduce the amount that I write is to take the time to outline before I even start writing. If I outline and I see that the outline is too long, I know my writing is going to be long. That gives me the opportunity to focus on the most important points of the essay which helps to keep the word count down. I don’t know if this will work for everybody, but it works well for me and I thought I would share it in case it helps somebody else.

Use contractions when possible, use active voice and leave out the unnecessary adjectives. Be careful of going on tangents and stay on topic. Idioms and cliches are you enemy.

I’m 478 words over my essay maximum and I have no idea how I’m going to get it under the limit. All the words are important and if I cut anything, it ruins it. Why do I always have so much to say?

Were you able to get your essay under the limit? Learning to be concise in your writing is difficult, but it will make your writing a lot better in the long run.

Well Stephanie, you don’t have to take out anything! If you just write, maybe your teacher will give you easier stuff!

No, not quite.

Hey Stephanie, i totally feel you 🙁 I’m really wordy and i feel that adds to the uniqueness of my essays but sometimes it does get out of hand. Removing those words kind of ruins the flow of my essays and i don’t really know how to go about it :/

The best thing you can do for your writing is to learn to edit well.

That’s easy to say, but how do you learn to edit well? I want to reduce the number of words in my essays, but they all seem important. I don’t want to edit out words that are important to the essay. If all seem important, then how do you choose which ones to eliminate?

Practice. Editing is like writing…the more you do it, the better you become. You don’t even have to write to practice editing. take something someone else has written and see if you can make it read more cleanly. It can be fun and addicting.

You don’t even have to write to practice editing

Take the ‘even’ out for example.

Hi everyone! I need some help. I want to write a Book, but I can’t think of anything to write about! So can anyone Please Hep Me!!!

Write about the journey that lead you to writing a book. All the notable series of events

That is a really boring story. (At least mine is)

One day My friends Zoey, wrote a book, and it was really good, so I started to write one as well…

See, boring.

But thanks!

My time has come! I’ve got a lot of ideas, but I want to read the book, not write it. How about a person who has a normal, twenty-first century life falls into a different time, and everyone keeps insisting they belong there as a person the protagonist has never heard of. The protagonist knows that they don’t, but as time goes on, you, as the author, slowly reveal that everyone from that time is right and the protagonist was imagining their other life. Just an idea!

Write about something that you like or love tho do. I wrote a book about animals.

Of, and, but, by are evil words for me. Always get me.

im 1000 words (and counting) over the word limit, its due tomorrow and i wanna die

A few other tips:

1) Use the search bar to find the times you have said ‘that’ because most of the time you don’t actually need it for the sentence to make sense.

2) Also, you can try and reduce a phrase into one word. A a cause of this… = consequently…

3) If you are writing someone’s name (eg. an author or a president), then you can just use their surname.

4) This tip works particularly if you are writing a history essay, I always just say ‘America’ instead of ‘the USA’/’the US’. Also ‘The USSR’ instead of ‘The Soviet Union’ (also just say Britain, not the UK or Great Britain).

5) Sometimes you just have to look through and consider re-wording sentences: John Gaddis’s argument states that “Kennan was the architect of the Cold War” Gaddis disputes “Kennan was the architect of the Cold War”

“consequently” obviosuly does not mean “as a cause of this”

Great Britain is not the same as the UK.

I mustn’t write more than 150 words in my essay and it’s making me crazy :C

That’s not an essay, that’s a paragraph! I’m having trouble getting below 750.

Jesus Christ, what?

I did not say anything.

I’m submitting my English essay into the departments contest and the limit is 800 I originally had 1,332. These tips from both articles and comments are helping bunches let’s hope I can get it under the limit!

I’m 1500 words over on my dissertation.. i’ve used all these methods and i’m still way over the word limit.. H E L P

Have you tried to to move around sentences and maybe try to then get rid of some that don’t matter anymore?

I have this problem – I am currently over by 1046 words. But, through this process I have finally found a solution. Plan my paragraphs in advance making sure I estimate how much I should write for each paragraph; by using this as a mental guide as I write, I will know when to stop before I get the end and it’s all a bit too late.

I am 150 words over my 1000 word essay. I got into a essay writing mood and was going for 2 hr before i looked at my word count. All of my words are important but I have to get rid of some.

Popular Posts

• The Top 10 Most Difficult-to-Spot Writing Mistakes
• 4 Simple Tips for Great Writing
• Avoiding Wordiness: 330 Examples & What to Use Instead
• The Oxford Comma: The Splice of Life
• Who vs. Whom
• Affect vs. Effect
• How to Take Notes: The 10-Step Guide to Note-Taking (Infographic)
• CMOS vs. AP – Recent Changes & Comparison (Updated 1. Nov. 2021)
• The Daily Word Counts of 19 Famous Writers
• The Ideal Length of Everything You Write Online ( Infographic)

Recent Comments

• Justin Robinson on Words Everyone Seems to Hate
• admin on Privacy Policy
• kougra on Word Counter Reading Level Feature
• Sigma on Word Counter Reading Level Feature
• Mel S. on How Many Pages Is 2000 Words?

Session expired

Please log in again. The login page will open in a new tab. After logging in you can close it and return to this page.

Automatic Word Count Reducer

Summarize any writing piece with this word count reducer in 3 steps:

• Add the passage you want to cut.
• Choose the desired number of sentences to keep in the passage.
• Click "Reduce" and enjoy the result.

Number of sentences in results:

Original ratio

100 % in your summary

Charachters

Why may you need to use an automatic online word count shortener?

The need to preserve a specific word count is called the essay's " scope " – an extent of analysis a student should not exceed in a particular assignment. In these cases, a paraphrasing generator that can remove redundant words and help you keep within the assigned word count.

• 🔢 What Is Essay Word Count?

✍️ Word Count for Various Essays

• ✂️ Tips to Shorten an Essay

🔗 References

🔢 what is essay word count & why does it matter.

As you will quickly notice at school, college, or university, every assignment contains specific instructions that cover the word count your home task should include.

Why are they important?

This is done primarily to minimize your effort and help you plan the working schedule. For instance, you will understand that you need to reserve 2 days for a 3,000 -word essay and can manage a 500 -word essay in 2 or 3 hours.

Besides, the word count sets the scope for your research; you will surely need to check fewer literary sources for a 500-word essay and visit a library a couple of times to write a large-scale 5,000-word study.

In other words, the word count of your essay task sets the limits for your study effort and gives you hints about the depth of research you need to conduct to meet the professor's requirements.

A practical guide may also help you determine the time and scope of various academic assignments . Here is a comparative table with word counts for assignments at different study levels.

✂️ Tips to Reduce Word Count in an Essay

If you're not ready to use a word count reducer and want to do everything manually, here are a couple of workable techniques for word count optimization.

• Avoid redundant beginnings . It's good practice to start a sentence with a subject. This way, you will avoid extensive "running starts," such as "as a matter of fact," "summing the presented evidence," etc. Your sentences will be simpler to read and free from redundant phrasing.
• Use active voice . Passive-voice phrases always add a couple of redundant words to a sentence. If you don't really need to disguise the doer of the action, you should use active voice only. You'll see how neat and clean your text will sound.
• Remove adjectives and adverbs . Adjectives and adverbs are frequently used in literary language, as they add vivid details and shades of meaning to notional words. However, they often create clutter in academic writing and are fully avoidable in most cases. So, you should consider removing most of them to make the text more readable and shorter.
• Don't exceed 25 words in a sentence . Academic writers are often tempted to sound more scholarly with long, overloaded sentences, including many compounds. In reality, such writing efforts rarely pay off, as they confuse the readers and disguise the core message the writer wanted to deliver. Thus, it's better to divide long sentences into several parts. Using this trick, you can avoid redundant transitions and simplify the content flow.
• One idea at a time . A logical progression of an academic text is a vital criterion of readability. Thus, you should explain relationships between variables or focus on one supporting argument at a time, avoiding a discussion of several factors in one go. This technique will improve your text's comprehension score and free readers from overly complex argumentation, causing a cognitive overload.

In all other cases – a lack of time, no desire to go through the entire text again – welcome to our word reduction tool that will make your editing job a breeze. Try our title maker and paraphraser to write and polish your essay quickly.

❓ Word Count Reducer FAQ

❓ how to count words in an essay.

It's pretty easy to control your word count in an essay. You should activate this function in your Word file, and a small tab at the bottom of your page will update you about the document's current word count as you type the essay's content. You can also click on "Statistics" in the Word menu to learn additional statistics about your text, such as the number of characters with and without spaces and the number of lines, sentences, and paragraphs you currently have.

❓ What is the word count for a college essay?

Word count is a specific number of words (or a range of words) that your professor assigns for writing. For instance, your university tutor may require students to write from 1,000 to 1,500 words in one essay. Thus, you can't compose fewer than 1,000 words (the paper should be at least 1,001 words), and you shouldn't write more than 1,500 words. A standard threshold for exceeding the assigned word count is 10% (so it's okay to submit a 1,650-word essay).

❓ How to reduce word count in an essay?

There are many techniques for word count reduction, such as cutting the articles, conjunctions, transition phrases, and running starts from the text. You may also consider changing passive-voice phrases to active voice or replacing some complex, sophisticated phrases with simpler words.

❓ What does a summarizer do?

A free text compressor available on our website can reduce the word count of your essay by removing redundant words that don't hold any vital meaning and can be removed without losing the text's quality. You can reduce the word count and combine several sentences into one automatically to achieve high-quality text reduction.

• How to reduce word count without reducing content
• How to Increase or Decrease Your Paper’s Word Count
• Summarizing - Academic Integrity at MIT
• Summarizing - University of Toronto Writing Advice
• Writer's Manual: Academic Summary - LibGuides UU

• East Asia Student

Random Stuff Related to East Asia

Some tricks to reduce word count in academic writing.

More often than not, you end up needing to reduce word count in your academic writing. This can be a painful task, because you don’t want to lose the substance of your writing, but you’ve got no choice if you want to hand the piece in as required.

(By the way, you’re reading a site about East Asian Studies – if you’re interested in that then you could try an online Chinese course or an online Japanese course .)

There are one or two things you can do to reduce word count without affecting the substance of the writing, though. One thing to remember is that reducing word count actually means reducing the number of spaces (i.e. word delimiters) in the text. It’s not about making it faster to read, necessarily.

Also, make the following quick checks that might let you cut out a lot of word count without making any changes:

• Does the bibliography count?
• Do footnotes count?
• Does the abstract count?

Quite often those can take at least a thousand words off on their own.

Reduce word count by simplifying your style

The goal here is to reduce your writing down to its bear bones, leaving little else behind. This may make your writing less pleasant to read, but realistically you can’t be marked down for that. This isn’t a literature contest - it’s about getting your ideas down on paper in the least amount of words possible.

Also remember that the person reviewing your work and giving you credit is most likely going to scan through it at high speed. They may not even notice your prose style particularly, instead looking for the important content to follow the thread of your argument. In that case, you’re actually making the experience more pleasant for them by cutting out the extras in your writing.

Delete adverbs

Adverbs are usually very deletable in academic writing. At the very least, adverb-verb pairs can be converted into a better chosen verb on its own. For example, “dropped rapidly” could be replaced with “plummeted”.

Tip: using ctrl + f to search through your document for “ly” is a quick way to find a lot of adverbs.

Delete adjectives

Whilst adjectives make your writing livelier and more interesting to read, you can nearly always sacrifice them to reduce word count in academic writing. You probably won’t lose credit for duller writing, but you will for exceeding the word count.

Instead of using adjectives, try to keep your prose clear and straightforward, and get straight to the point. Avoid detailed descriptions unless they are absolutely necessary for following your argument and you are sure that the reader needs the detail.

Delete connectives

This is another tip that will reduce the flow of the text but is effective in reducing word count. Rather than having longer sentences linked with “and” or “but”, just delete those connectives and have two separate sentences. This will reduce the word count.

Again, remember that your reader will most likely be scanning your text at high speed, not reading it in close detail. Keeping everything clear and simple will make this process easier for them.

Delete prepositions

This tactic is a little harder to explain. The idea is to convert chunks of text that use a lot of prepositions (thus adding spaces and increasing your word count) into rephrased, shorter versions without prepositions.

For example, you could replace “tea from China” with “Chinese tea”. It’s only one word, but this adds up if done consistently over a long document.

“Of” is frequently a good candidate for deletion. You can often avoid using “of” just by changing the word order. For example, “writer of fiction” could just as well be “fiction writer”.

Delete auxiliary verbs

As with adjectives and adverbs above, auxiliary verbs might make your sentences more aesthetic if read in close detail, but that shouldn’t be your goal with academic writing. As always, keep it concise and to the point.

The auxiliary verbs you might want to remove in academic writing are ones like “could”, “may”, “might” and so on. These can be useful to express tentativeness, which is often a good thing in academic writing, but sometimes it’s just not necessary. Say what you mean directly and drop the extra verbs wherever you can.

Replace phrases with words

There are certain phrases in English that have become fixed and are used repeatedly in the same form. You can often replace these with single words to reduce your word count.

Again, there isn’t a set rule for identifying these, but go through your text looking for phrases of several words that seem to be expressing one concept. Whenever you spot one, use a thesaurus to identify one word which conveys the same idea.

Eliminate redundancy

You’re likely to have achieved this in steps above, but there may still be some redundancy in your writing that’s increasing the word count unnecessarily. Definitely delete sequences of descriptive or explanatory words and replace them with one word that summarises the list, even if you lose some of the nuance.

Beyond that, eliminating redundancy is about finding parts of your writing that inadvertently say the same thing twice. You can test sentences by deleting various words and seeing if the meaning actually stays pretty much the same. In those cases, always stick with the deletion.

Reduce word count by rearranging your content

Beyond the word and phrase level tricks above, you can achieve some big reductions in word count by making some structural edits to your work.

Reduce the introduction and conclusion

The introduction and conclusion are hugely important parts of a piece of academic writing. Remember, though, that their main function is really to summarise. Give a very concise explanation of your work in the introduction, and reaffirm and back-up your reasoning for it all in the conclusion.

Beyond that, you’re probably wasting word count. There’s no need to go into a lot of detail in these sections - that’s what the main body is for. These sections are all about summarising and condensing. Also remember that you should not include new information in the conclusion - keep it all in the main body.

Cut out repetitive chapter-linking sections

Another habit that a lot of people have in academic writing is to ‘tie off’ each section with a mini-summary and then ‘refresh’ the reader again in the beginning of the next one. This is redundant and wastes a lot of word count.

Try to keep section closings extremely concise and short. The reader has just read the content in that section and shouldn’t need anything beyond a short summary of key points to keep things clear.

You can probably delete the ‘refresher’ at the beginning of sections entirely. Just get right into what that section is about. Leave it up to the reader to follow your argument, and make sure that the main content enables them to do so.

Got any more tips for reducing word count in academic writing? Please share them in the comments below!

Other resources for reducing your word count

• Editing DOWN for Word Count -  Accentuate Author Services
• Word Count Limit Got You Down? Try These 6 Editing Tricks - The Expat Freelancer
• How to Reduce Prolific Prepositions - Write Tight Site
• academic writing
• dissertation

• Lone Star Politics
• Politifact Texas
• Austin History

Kamala Harris repeats dubious claim that Donald Trump would cut Social Security

Kamala harris.

Statement: "Donald Trump intends to cut Social Security."

In the 2024 presidential campaign, Democrats have repeatedly targeted former President Donald Trump as a threat to Social Security.

Vice President Kamala Harris, just over a week into her status as the presumptive Democratic nominee, repeated the line during a July 30 rally in Atlanta. 

"Donald Trump intends to cut Social Security and Medicare," Harris said.

For this fact-check, we will focus on Trump’s plans for Social Security. We’ll cover Harris’ claim about Medicare in another fact-check.

During his yearslong tenure in the public eye, Trump has provided his critics with  a  rich   vein   of   statements  expressing openness to cutting Social Security. But the Harris campaign ignores most of what Trump has said during the 2024 campaign — namely, that he  will not cut  Social Security and Medicare.

We previously rated a similar claim by President Joe Biden — whom Harris succeeded as the presumptive nominee —  Mostly False . The evidence the Harris campaign provided to PolitiFact for this article was essentially the same as Biden’s campaign gave us for our earlier fact-check. It’s no more persuasive now.

What is Social Security’s fiscal challenge?

The  key threat  to the  long-term viability  of Social Security, the universal income support program for older Americans, is a shortage of workers feeding their tax dollars into the system, plus a growing number of retirement-age Americans qualifying to receive benefits.

As the baby boom generation has increasingly shifted into retirement, fewer workers are paying into the system. 

Unless changes are made, such as increasing the retirement age or paring benefit levels, the trust fund that supports Social Security is  poised to run out in the 2030s . If nothing is done, significant cuts would take effect.

However, cutting Social Security has long been the " third   rail   of   politics " — touch it and you die politically — so even making smaller cuts to avoid bigger ones down the road has been controversial.

That’s why both Biden and Trump pledged in their 2024 campaigns not to cut the program.

Trump’s history of statements on Social Security

Before the 2024 campaign, Trump flirted with support for Social Security cuts. 

At least two references occurred during the 2020 presidential campaign: a  Fox News   town hall  that was clipped and shared June 12 by the Biden campaign and an  interview with CNBC . 

And before he became president, Trump periodically opined that Social Security needed to be cut or privatized, including in a 2012 interview with  CNBC , a  2004   appearance on MSNBC and a 2000  book , "The America We Deserve," in which he called Social Security "a huge Ponzi scheme" and said he’d consider privatization.

"The solution to the Great Social Security Crisis couldn’t be more obvious: Allow every American to dedicate some portion of their payroll taxes to a personal Social Security account that they could own and invest in stocks and bonds," he  wrote . "We can also raise the age for receipt of full Social Security benefits to 70."

Trump’s record in office

The Harris campaign also noted that as president, Trump  submitted budget proposals  that included cuts to Social Security. These were  never implemented because of opposition in Congress.

However, Harris (and Biden before her) glossed over what these cuts involved. The proposed cuts were  focused on  two  parts  of the program — Social Security Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income — not the more widely used old-age and survivor benefits. 

SSDI benefits people with physical and mental conditions that are severe enough to permanently keep them from working. SSI payments are limited to low-income Americans — older adults, or adults or children who are disabled or blind. 

While these cuts would have affected close to  10 million  Americans, the pool of those who receive old-age and survivor benefits is almost  seven times as large . The Harris campaign's decision to frame Trump’s record as cuts to Social Security might leave people assuming that Trump sought to cut old-age and survivor benefits, though he didn’t.

What Trump has said recently

Biden and Harris both cited a March 11 remark by Trump on  CNBC  that, with regard to entitlement programs such as Social Security, "there is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting."

But this is the exception to the rule for Trump during this campaign cycle, and he immediately  walked back  his CNBC comments. 

In an interview with the conservative outlet  Breitbart News , Trump said he would "never do anything that will jeopardize or hurt" Social Security. He added, "We’ll have to do it elsewhere. But we’re not going to do anything to hurt them."

The rest of Trump’s 2024 campaign rhetoric is more aligned with his comment to Breitbart — that he does not intend to cut Social Security — than the CNBC statement about being open to cuts. 

More than a year before the CNBC appearance, Trump posted a  video  to his campaign website in which he says not "a single penny" should be cut from Social Security. "DO NOT CUT the benefits our seniors worked for and paid for their entire lives," Trump said. "Save Social Security. Don’t destroy it."

Trump has  repeatedly said  he would not cut Social Security at campaign rallies in  Michigan  and  Georgia  and in multiple posts on  his   Truth   Social   platform .

Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign’s national press secretary, told PolitiFact in June that he "will continue to strongly protect Social Security and Medicare in his second term."

PolitiFact's ruling

Harris said, "Donald Trump intends to cut Social Security."

Before the 2024 campaign, Trump said about a half dozen times that he’s open to major Social Security overhauls, including cuts and privatization. Most recently, in a March CNBC interview, Trump said of entitlement programs such as Social Security, "There’s a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting." 

However, Trump quickly walked that statement back, and the CNBC comment stands at odds with essentially everything else Trump has said during the current presidential campaign. His campaign website says that not "a single penny" should be cut from Social Security, and he’s repeated similar lines in campaign rallies.

The statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give it a different impression, so we rate it Mostly False.

Our sources

• Kamala Harris,  remarks  at a rally in Atlanta, July 30, 2024
• PolitiFact, " Joe Biden cherry-picks Donald Trump statement on cutting Social Security ," June 21, 2024
• Biden-Harris campaign,  TikTok , April 4, 2024
• Biden-Harris campaign,  Threads post , April 4, 2024
• White House, " Remarks by President Biden on how his investments are rebuilding our communities and creating good-paying jobs, Milwaukee, Wisconsin ," March 14, 2024
• CNBC, " Former President Donald Trump on entitlements: There’s tremendous numbers of things you can do ," March 11, 2024
• Breitbart, " Exclusive — Donald Trump: ‘I will never do anything that will jeopardize or hurt Social Security or Medicare ,’" March 14, 2024
• Donald Trump,  remarks in an interview with the Daily Signal , 2015
• Trump campaign website, " We must protect Medicare and Social Security ," Jan. 20, 2023
• Donald Trump, posts to Truth Social,  June 6, 2024 ,  April 13, 2024 ,  March 22, 2024 ,  March 21, 2024 ,  March 14, 2024  and  January 10, 2024  
• CNN, " Transcript of Republican debate in Miami, full text ," March 15, 2016
• Fox News, " Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum Host a Town Hall with Donald Trump ," March 5, 2020
• CNBC, " Full interview: President Trump discusses trade, impeachment, Boeing and Elon Musk with CNBC in Davos ," Jan. 22, 2020
• CNN. " Donald Trump once backed 2012 privatization plans for Medicare, despite attacks on key 2024 rival for the same position ," Sept. 26, 2023
• NBC News, " 'Hardball with Chris Matthews' for Dec. 13 ," Dec. 14, 2004
• CNN, " Trump previously backed policies on Social Security for which he’s now attacking DeSantis, calling the program a ‘Ponzi scheme, ’" April 27, 2023
• Social Security Administration, " Social Security Beneficiary Statistics ," accessed June 14, 2024
• NBC News, " Donald Trump has been all over the map on Social Security and Medicare ," March 19, 2024
• CNN, " Trump suggests he’s open to cuts to Medicare and Social Security after attacking primary rivals over the issue ," March 11, 2024
• Politico, " Trump tries to clean up his Social Security comments ," March 14, 2024
• Washington Post, " GOP hopefuls’ past positions on Social Security loom over 2024 primary ," Feb. 9, 2023
• Vox.com, " Trump said he wouldn’t cut Medicaid, Social Security, and Medicare. His 2020 budget cuts all 3 ," March 12, 2019
• FactCheck.org, " Trump’s Comments About ‘Cutting’ Entitlements in Context ," March 15, 2024
• CNN, " Fact check: Harris falsely claims Project 2025 blueprint calls for cutting Social Security ," July 24, 2024
• PolitiFact, " Donald Trump’s false claim that immigration hurts Social Security ," March 20, 2024
• PolitiFact, " When will Social Security sunset? Barring congressional changes, money will deplete by 2034 ," Feb. 22, 2023
• PolitiFact, " Sanders’ misleading Social Security attack on Biden ," March 12, 2020
• PolitiFact, " Trump suggested raising Social Security retirement age in 2000, but hasn’t backed it since ," May 12, 2023
• Statement from Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign’s national press secretary, June 14, 2024

From 'hushed hybrid' to 'quiet vacationing,' here are the biggest workplace trends right now

• It seems like every day there's a new workplace trend employees are using to set boundaries at work or climb the ranks.
• Enter "hushed hybrid," "quiet vacationing," and poking fun at the "corporate accent."
• Check out these and other viral work trends — and what experts have to say about them.

Employees are pushing back against the grueling demands of modern work through a host of workplace trends .

We've seen "rage applying." And who could forget "lazy girl jobs" or having " Bare Minimum Mondays ?" Now, we're onto phenomena like "hushed hybrid" work schedules and " quiet vacationing ."

Here's a look at workplace trends that have gone viral in recent months:

Many job candidates can relate to being ghosted in the job search, but "ghost jobs" are another matter entirely.

Ghost jobs are roles that employers claim to be actively hiring for but which may not exist at all.

Employers may post ghost job listings to give the impression they're growing or to try to assure overworked staff that they'll get another pair of hands soon to alleviate their workloads.

Listings that have been up for a while may be ghost jobs.

"If the job has been posted for 30 days or more, that's something that you could put in the back of your mind and say, 'Well, this posting's been open for a while and they haven't hired anybody yet. Maybe they're not in a hurry to hire,'" FlexJobs' lead career expert, Toni Frana, previously told BI. "The sooner you can apply to a job in relation to when it was posted, the better."

But some employers listing ghost jobs may be collecting resumes for when they actually are hiring further down the road.

"A lot of them are getting contacted and interviewed at some point, so it's not necessarily a black box," Stacie Haller, Resume Builder's chief career advisor, previously told BI.

If you've ever taken a trip without your boss knowing, you're familiar with "quiet vacationing."

Workers may take so-called "quiet vacations" or "hush trips" if they want to get away without using their vacation days, or if they were denied the time off.

In an April survey of 1,170 employed American adults conducted by The Harris Poll , nearly four in 10 millennial respondents said they've taken time off from work without informing their employer, and 24% of Gen Zers and Gen Xers reported the same.

Quiet firing is how employers try to push workers out the door without the financial and brand consequences associated with explicitly doing layoffs.

An employer's goal with quiet firing is to get employees to quit on their own so the company can avoid the bad press and severance costs associated with firings or layoffs.

Quiet firing can take many forms. It could mean everything from implementing an RTO mandate to cutting back perks or benefits or getting stingy with raises or promotions.

Employers may do "silent layoffs," as they're also known, because "their budgets are stagnant or there are performance issues and rather than addressing them, they're kind of quietly pushing the employee out the door," Vicki Salemi, career expert for Monster, previously told BI.

One way workers are trying to get around return-to-office mandates is by working a "hushed hybrid" schedule.

"Hushed hybrid" refers to a shadow policy where managers allow employees to continue working from home even though the organization wants them back in the office.

In practice, it could mean "enforcing a return to office selectively among employees, allowing flexibility on certain days, mandating on days only when someone's presence is absolutely necessary, or even misreporting attendance in some cases," HR advisor Shelley Majors previously told BI.

Employees whose managers aren't as flexible may see morale suffer or feel resentment at the uneven enforcement of RTO policies.

Young workers are making fun of the "corporate accent."

You probably know someone that uses a "corporate accent" — that nasally, passive aggressive, professional tone of voice used to convey confidence. They likely enunciate every, single, word, too.  

The term itself was coined by TikToker Lisa Beasley who often plays a character called "Corporate Erin" in her videos on the platform. 

Another TikToker, inspired by Beasley, explained it as a worker's "nine-to-five voice," saying "by changing the speed, rhythm, and inflection points of my speech I can convey a level of confidence where otherwise none exists." 

Younger workers have taken to criticizing the "corporate accent" as they struggle with the rules of office conversations — from knowing when to use corporate jargon to masking your true opinions to learning how to make small talk. Almost half of Gen Zers and millennials reported feeling left out at work because they struggled to keep up with workplace jargon, and adjusted the way they spoke to fit in, a LinkedIn and Duolingo survey found in 2023. 

TikToker Srinidhi Rajesh went viral for promoting a networking approach she calls "corporate flirting."

In a TikTok video that has racked up millions of views, Rajesh describes corporate flirting as "a foolproof way to act and speak with charisma in almost every single situation, especially corporate ones."

If you want to get to know someone better at work, for example, Rajesh said to start by asking them a basic question like where they went to college. Once they answer, Rajesh said respond in way that acknowledges that you heard them and adds "some outside context," but also pokes fun at them in a nice way. 

If they said they went to Northwestern University, for example, Rajesh said to respond with "Oh so you're really smart but you like freezing to death for half the year?'" This gives them an opportunity to joke back and continue the conversation. 

And don't be surprised if you find a Gen Z worker using this hack on you as a growing number get tips from TikTok. Seventy percent of Gen Z said they turned to TikTok for advice on their careers, according to a report by Edubirdie, an essay-service platform for students, that asked 2,000 Gen Zers between the ages of 18 to 26 in the US about the influence of TikTok in their lives. 

Rage applying is the mass application to jobs — fueled by feelings of unhappiness at work. And it seems it has the potential to pay off.

After being passed over for a promotion, Jordan Smith — a 28-year-old working in the music industry in LA — "rage-applied" for five jobs and landed a better-paying role within a week . 

However, rage applying might not be the best approach for everyone.

Career coach Kelsey Wat advises against conducting a job search from an emotional place of "fear, resentment, or burnout." 

"I think it's helpful for job seekers to get more clarity and be more centered and grounded in what they want ... so they can develop a job search strategy that is aligned with their values," she said. 

As companies cut back on hiring amid recession fears, "quiet hiring" — tapping internal talent instead of increasing head count — emerged as a new buzzy workplace term.

"This is a trend that's helpful for employees also," said Toni Frana, lead career expert at FlexJobs. "We know that employees like professional development opportunities ... like the opportunity to upskill and increase their bandwidth and further their knowledge in terms of skills they acquire in a role." 

Wat said it's important for prospective employees to gauge an employer's willingness to provide internal growth opportunities during the job interview process.

"It's really important to ask how success is measured in a role, and when you're interviewing, asking questions about what previous people in the role are doing now so that you have a sense of whether there is mobility in the company," she said. 

Resenteeism describes the act of staying in an unsatisfying job due to a perceived lack of options, even as resentment grows.

Gallup's 2023 State of the Global Workplace report found that roughly 1 in 5 workers were "loud quitting" at their jobs , which just means they were "actively disengaged" at work, as opposed to quiet quitters, who were simply "not engaged."

"They're detached from the organization but also emotionally against the organization, and they'll be vocal about it," said Jim Harter, the lead author of the report and the chief scientist for Gallup's workplace management and well-being practices. "The loud-quitting employees are going to be much, much more likely to take another job pretty quickly if it becomes available, and they won't need as much money to do that."

Frana said in some cases, employees should try to raise workplace issues with their managers before dissatisfaction festers. 

"I certainly think what a lot of things boil down to is communication and having conversations with your manager about potential opportunities or shifts in the type of work that you might be doing," she said. "You can oftentimes get to the heart of a matter, and you might be able to make some direct changes." 

Think of Bare Minimum Monday as a way to ease into work at the start of the week.

TikToker Marisa Jo popularized the term, which describes a way to resist the Sunday scaries and the pressure many people feel to hit the ground running full-speed when they return to work again on Monday.

"The second I got rid of the pressure and allowed myself to have whatever kind of day unfolded, I was able to do stuff," she said in a TikTok .

In a video documenting one of her Bare Minimum Mondays, Jo goes through activities like journaling, her skincare routine, and making progress on a creative project before beginning work, which she notes "doesn't start until noon" on Bare Minimum Mondays, though she notes she's able to finish all of her work in the shorter allotted time anyway.

Chaotic working, aka "malicious compliance," involves employees using their position at work to help customers or clients at the employer's expense.

Though it often entails breaking some rules, workers may do it without fear of repercussion because they're simply fed up with their job, their employer, or the general state of work.

Anti-work sentiments helped the trend grow over the past several months. 

A TikTok from user The Speech Prof says examples of chaotic working include giving customers employee discounts or upsizing their food order for free.

Kelsey Wat, the career coach, warns that workers engaging in the practice should be aware that they may be jeopardizing their jobs: "I would be concerned that's not going to end well."

"Career cushioning" is exactly what it sounds like. It refers to workers dusting off their resumes and shoring up their skills to protect themselves in case they're laid off.

This trend, which involves workers starting to look for other roles while still in their current ones in case they lose their jobs, is interchangeably called "career cushioning," or "recession-proofing." The term started to take off late in 2022 and has continued as many companies announced job cuts. 

"Given the fact that we've had high inflation, we're potentially moving into more of a recession, I think that if you have concerns about layoffs, or you're in an industry that is affected by layoffs, I think it's really, really healthy and a good idea to make sure that you are networking, make sure that you are prepared for anything that can happen," Wat said. "I think it's a good strategy for everybody." 

Popularized by TikToker Gabrielle Judge, "lazy girl jobs" typically refer to low-stress jobs that still pay well.

Judge, a self-proclaimed "anti-work girlboss," told BI of the trend: "I really want people to understand our time is so valuable and should be focused on efforts that are most aligned with their individual priorities, not a company."

While some girls with so-called lazy jobs say it's helped them establish better work-life balance and keep stress in check at work, experts warn it can put your job in jeopardy .

"The problem with having the lazy girl job is that they're the first ones to get laid off when tough times come," Marc Cenedella, a careers expert and founder of the job search site Ladders, said.

Cenedella added there's a risk bosses will see if you post about your lazy girl job online and take disciplinary action accordingly, and said you may also stunt your career growth and future prospects by taking it easy.

Being in your "snail girl era" is the natural companion to "lazy girl jobs," and an inherent rejection of the girlboss lifestyle.

The TikTok-popular term was coined in September 2023 article for Fashion Journal titled "'Snail girl era': Why I'm slowing down and choosing to be happy rather than busy."

The article describes the snail girl ethos as follows: "A snail girl takes her time and creates to create. The speed at which everything is put out into the world is just getting faster, but she doesn't care. She's running her own race, and maybe that race isn't going anywhere but home and back to bed."

Suzy Welch, a professor at New York University's Stern School of Business, previously told BI that embracing the snail girl lifestyle of prioritizing happiness and self-care instead of overworking could have financial repercussions.

"The jury is out," Welch said. "We can be pretty sure that it will not be a career accelerator for those who choose it, but I think most of them know that. That will, of course, have financial consequences, and we may see in five years that a whole group of self-chosen 'snails' decide to become 'roadracers' when they find their trade-offs need to be calibrated."

"Loud laborers" aren't new, but the term appears to have hit the scene in recent months. And we've probably all known at least one person who fits this mold.

They're the ones who spend more time talking about their work than actually doing it — the ones who readily flaunt their achievements to their bosses or on LinkedIn but are slow to get to work.

These workers can have a negative effect on morale.

"Some people are motivated by external rewards and recognition rather than the inherent satisfaction of the work itself," Nicole Price, a leadership coach and workplace expert, told CNBC . "This can lead to a focus on visibility and self-promotion in order to attract these rewards." 

"The constant self-promotion may create an atmosphere of competition rather than collaboration," Price told CNBC. 

While Hot Labor Summer isn't new, last year's was one to remember.

Thousands of screenwriters from the Writers Guild of America and actors from the SAG-AFTRA were on a historic strike. The last time the two were on strike together was in 1960 .

More than 11,000 Los Angeles city workers went on a 1-day strike last summer. LA also saw thousands of hotel workers go on strike.

And the UPS and the Teamsters union, which represents roughly 340,000 UPS package handlers and drivers, reached a tentative agreement , averting a strike that could have had far-reaching repercussions.

• Main content

• Skip to main content
• Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

5 takeaways by a longtime NABJ member from Trump’s appearance before Black journalists

Eric Deggans

Former President Donald Trump walks offstage after speaking at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Chicago on Wednesday. Charles Rex Arbogast/AP hide caption

CHICAGO — At first, it felt like watching a slow-motion car crash.

I wasn’t actually in the room when Donald Trump brought his toxic rhetoric to the National Association of Black Journalists national convention Wednesday. But I was nearly there, sitting in a taxicab headed from the airport to the conference at the Hilton Chicago downtown, watching a livestream video as the former president insulted a roomful of Black journalists after ABC’s Rachel Scott opened with a tough question.

Scott asked about several instances where Trump said racist things, from falsely insisting Barack Obama wasn’t born in America to calling Black journalists losers and racist. Trump’s response was a torrent of barely connected ideas, including a complaint that NABJ brought him to Chicago under “false pretenses” because they didn’t work out details to get Vice President Kamala Harris to make a similar, in-person appearance at the convention.

“I have been the best president for the Black population since Abraham Lincoln,” Trump said, drawing scoffs from the crowd. “That is my answer.”

In a flash, it felt like all the predictions critics made of inviting Trump to address Black journalists came true. He was offering his usual torrent of accusations, assertions and insults — some outrageous, most inflated — creating word salad that moderators struggled to fact-check in the moment, raising fears that he owned the organization at its own conference.

As a 34-year member of NABJ, I had my own qualms. Not about inviting Trump — the group has invited the major party candidates for president to its national conferences for many years, to platform questions on issues involving people of color. But, among other things, I objected to seeing an anchor from the right-leaning cable channel Fox News among the three people questioning Trump. (Though I have volunteered for decades as chair of the NABJ’s Media Monitoring Committee, I had nothing to do with organizing Trump’s appearance.)

Trump's planned address to Black journalists convention sparks backlash

And I worried about the optics of a Black journalists group offering a prime panel spot to a politician who had attacked Black journalists, while the Black and Asian woman also running for president would not appear.

But, after some reflection and talking with other members at the conference, I think the actual impact of Trump’s appearance is more nuanced. Here’s my five takeaways from what happened.

Trump’s appearance pushed NABJ to face tension between its status as a journalism organization and an advocate for fair treatment of Black journalists and, by extension, Black people.

This is an idea I heard from a friend and fellow journalist/NABJ member, and it rings true. As journalists, we jump at the chance to ask direct questions of a former president who has often stoked racial fears, from birtherism attacks against Obama and Harris to false claims about undocumented immigrants.

But our website also notes that NABJ “advocates on behalf of Black journalists and media professionals,” honoring those who provide “balanced coverage of the Black community and society at large.” I’ve always felt that if the media industry can give Black journalists a fair shot, we can help provide more accurate, less prejudiced coverage of everything — particularly issues involving marginalized groups.

That’s why some NABJ members chafed at platforming Trump, with his long history of racist statements, at a conference aimed at reducing the prejudice Black journalists face every day. But I think part of reaching NABJ’s goals involves Black journalists learning how to confront racist ideas; trying to get Trump to explain himself in front of a group of Black media professionals seems pretty in line with that mission.

NABJ President Ken Lemon asserted during the conference’s opening ceremonies later that day that the group is, at its core, a journalism organization. On this day, at least, it’s obvious the journalism side took precedence.

Former President Donald Trump shakes hands with ABC's Rachel Scott, one of the journalists who moderated the event at NABJ in Chicago on Wednesday. Charles Rex Arbogast/AP hide caption

If the goal was to get Trump to reveal his terrible takes on race to the world — mission accomplished.

Lots of media outlets focused on his awful comments on how Harris “suddenly” became Black in his eyes. Trump tried the classic maneuver of turning an opponent’s advantage against them, acting as if the embrace of Harris as a history-making Black and Asian woman in politics was the result of some cynical marketing spin.

“I did not know she was Black until a couple of years ago when she happened to turn Black,” he said. “And now she wants to be known as Black. Is she Indian, or is she Black?”

True enough, the questioners struggled to pin Trump down on exactly why he talks about race the way he does. Or how he can believe such ideas aren’t racist.

Trump attacks Kamala Harris’ racial identity at Black journalism convention

Still, what Trump did say mostly made him look old-fashioned and prejudiced. Will it appeal to his base? Perhaps, but the moment didn’t feel like a strong, confident leader puncturing racial hypocrisy.

It seemed more like the wandering statements of someone who just doesn’t understand America’s modern melting pot of ethnicities.

Sometimes, with Trump, there is value in having an interviewer on hand who he trusts.

Much as I disliked seeing an anchor from a news organization that has won the NABJ’s Thumbs Down Award twice on the panel, Fox News’ Harris Faulkner did get Trump to open up a bit with less-pointed but telling questions.

In particular, when Trump said he thought the vice presidential candidates had “virtually no impact” on election results, he seemed to put into perspective his relationship with JD Vance while belittling the guy he is supposed to spend months alongside in a tight campaign.

There are other journalists from less partisan news outlets who likely could have achieved the same moment. But there is value in having one journalist in the mix who doesn’t immediately raise Trump’s defenses and might provoke more telling responses.

Former President Donald Trump appears on a panel at NABJ on Wednesday in Chicago. From left, ABC's Rachel Scott, Semafor's Kadia Goba and FOX News' Harris Faulkner moderated the event. Charles Rex Arbogast/AP hide caption

Trump is a chaos agent who divides people and divides NABJ

In the end, I was less concerned about how NABJ looked to the world in the wake of Trump’s visit than how it deals with itself.

As news of the panel spread, many journalists spoke out passionately against having him at the conference, reasoning that any appearance would likely benefit him more than the group, platforming his terrible rhetoric about racial issues. Well-known figures like Roland Martin and April Ryan — who Trump criticized when he was president — spoke out; Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah quit her post as convention co-chair amid the controversy.

There are also tough questions about why the group couldn’t work out an arrangement to have Harris appear at the convention virtually, given that she was flying to Houston for the funeral of friend and sorority sister Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee.

Considering the intense emotions at hand over the coming election and widespread skepticism about coverage decisions by journalists, there’s lots of criticism and bruising assumptions about what happened here.

This is the kind of division that can hobble NABJ in the future as people cancel memberships, decline to volunteer, hold back donations and continue to criticize the group’s direction. I expect the group’s membership meeting, scheduled for Saturday morning, will draw lots of pointed feedback from those who still question the wisdom of welcoming the former president here.

As someone who can attribute almost every major job I’ve gotten to connections made at an NABJ convention, this heightened squabbling is what I fear most — a distraction at a time when job losses and cutbacks in media have made times even more challenging for journalists of color.

In a way, NABJ played Trump’s game — and may have had some success

Another friend noted that Trump — who commands loyalty from GOP voters — has always valued dominating the news cycle, regardless of whether the stories are complimentary. His NABJ appearance ensured everything from the network evening news programs to The Daily Show focused on his comments here rather than Harris’ increasingly energized campaign.

As I saw criticism build over Trump’s visit, I wondered if NABJ wasn’t like a scrappy dog who finally caught a passing car — after years of GOP candidates declining invitations, finally one of the most divisive Republicans in modern politics was accepted. And the consequences of hosting him — particularly when Harris would not appear at the convention — loomed large.

But in the end, NABJ also landed at the top of the news cycle at a time when — as announced by the group during its opening ceremony — the convention drew the largest number of attendees in its history, over 4,000.

Yes, many supporters felt, as I did initially, that the appearance was a train wreck. But NABJ also showed the world three Black female journalists questioning Trump on some of his most provocative statements on race, with telling answers.

In a world where any publicity can be good publicity, that just might be enough.

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

What Does It Mean to Slice Steak Against the Grain?

It’s arguably the most important part of enjoying steak, but it can be hard to do if you don’t know where the grain is.

By Eric Kim

Do you know what a “grain” is? Not a grain of sand, cereal or truth, but the grain of a piece of wood, fabric or meat — all references to the direction of the fibers running along an object like a table, sweater or steak .

“Slice against the grain,” you may have read in a recipe . It’s arguably the most important step in enjoying steak , yet one that isn’t always intuitive.

To cut against the grain means to run a sharp knife at an angle to the muscle fibers running through a piece of meat. The idea here is to shorten those fibers as much as possible so chewing them is a breeze. “Otherwise, you’re going to wreck your teeth,” said Steve Kapusta, a butcher at Patton’s Meat Market in Duluth, Ga.

According to Mr. Kapusta, you can cook a steak perfectly, juicy as can be, but if you don’t carve it against or across the grain to shorten those muscle fibers, then it won’t be as tender.

Eating meat that’s been sliced along the grain is, according to my friend, the cookbook author Rick Martínez who also develops recipes for New York Times Cooking, the equivalent of chewing on “a ball of yarn” from which you’ve “sucked out the juice.” Unless you’re making a braised shredded-meat dish like ropa vieja , the long strands of tougher cuts will take a while to break down.

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and  log into  your Times account, or  subscribe  for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber?  Log in .

Want all of The Times?  Subscribe .