word count of an assignment

How to Make an Essay Longer or Shorter

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What is word count?

7 ways to reduce word count, 6 ways to increase word count, word count faqs.

How many times have you worked hard on a research paper or essay , felt confident in your argument, and decided you were ready to turn it in, only to notice that you’re still behind on the word count? Or perhaps you wrote too much, and now you’re struggling to find parts to cut.

How do you increase the word count without being redundant or reduce the word count without sacrificing your key arguments?

You take a deep breath and continue reading our suggestions on the best ways to increase or reduce word count without compromising the quality of your paper.

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Word count is the number of words in a writing sample or document. Word counts exist for many reasons—print publications, for example, have them to ensure stories can fit in a defined space in a newspaper, magazine, or book.

But when it comes to research papers and essays , word counts are used to level the playing field: Each student has the same number of words to get their point across. A strong writer can do this without using unnecessary words to reach the minimum word count, while also avoiding rambling and exceeding the maximum word count.

One of the biggest reasons some students run into problems with word count requirements is that they may be too focused on it. The writer can become more focused on the number of words than on getting their point across clearly and concisely.

When trying to reduce word count it’s important to use a scalpel and not an axe—meaning you don’t want to delete large portions of your paper to ensure you’re below the maximum word count. Instead, you want to find small but significant ways to bring down your word count.

1 Look for redundancies in your argument

Look to see if you’ve repeated any information in your paper, and delete any redundant points.

If your paper has to do with climate change and you mention the rate at which the polar ice caps are melting twice, delete the second mention (unless it’s related to a separate point you’re trying to make). If you find yourself reiterating the same point in slightly different language, choose the one that is written more clearly and eliminate the other.

2 Eliminate unnecessary or ancillary information

Find any details that don’t serve your argument and delete them. For example, if you’re writing a paper about George Washington’s policy positions, you don’t need to mention his personal life unless it directly impacted his political career.

3 Get to the point

The best arguments are clear and direct, and your paper should strive to be the same.

We could’ve built up that last sentence by talking about the different styles of communication or the pros and cons of being direct, but instead, we got to the point.

Trying to build up your argument not only adds more words but may also weaken it, especially if you’re using unnecessary words.

4 Delete the and that

We often use the while speaking, but in writing, there are times when the can be removed without changing your sentence’s meaning.

That is another common word we use, which may be unnecessary in some sentences. An example is in the sentence you just read—the writer instinctively put that before we and then realized it was unnecessary.

• Original: We knew that he was active in the 1960s and the 1970s.
• Edited: We knew he was active in the 1960s and 1970s.

5 Eliminate unnecessary prepositional phrases

This is yet another example of separating how we speak from how we should write. Too many prepositional phrases can be a sign of excessive wording.

• Original: For many people, the reality of an entry into a new area of employment is cause for a host of anxieties.
• Edited: Changing careers makes many people anxious.

Getting rid of the prepositional phrases forces you to tighten up the sentence. The result is shorter, more direct, and easier to understand.

6 Use an active voice

Writing that utilizes an active voice tends to use fewer words than writing that uses a passive voice. Let’s show you what we mean:

• Active voice: Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1440.
• Passive voice: The printing press was invented by Johannes Gutenberg in 1440.

Writing with an active voice not only helps reduce your word count but can also help you communicate your argument in a more effective and clear way than using a passive voice.

7 Avoid unnecessary adverbs and adjectives

Adverbs and adjectives add extra words to your paper, and depending on their usage they may weaken or not add any value to your argument.

• Original: Thomas Jefferson’s entire presidency was undoubtedly controversial.
• Edited: Thomas Jefferson’s presidency was controversial.

The word count may make up a significant part of your paper’s grade, but your final mark will likely rest on how well you write and the clarity of your argument.

For that reason, you don’t want to use more words merely to reach your word count even though using more words is an easy way to reach the word count.

That last sentence is a perfect example of what not to do. Here are some ways to extend your word count without resorting to adding unnecessary words.

1 Investigate the paper’s topic more thoroughly

Read through your paper and see if there are ways in which you can further discuss your topic without adding redundant or unnecessary information. Two ways you can accomplish this are:

• Providing statistics: If applicable, use data from a reliable source to back up your argument. This could be a poll or a scientific study.
• Discussing your topic’s history: Whether you’re writing about politics or philosophy, it might be a good idea to write about your topic’s origins and how that subject has evolved over time.

2 Explore all angles of your paper’s thesis

Check to see if you’ve explored all angles of your thesis statement , which will not only increase your word count but will likely strengthen your argument as well. For example, if you wrote a paper on why people should exercise but only discussed physical health reasons, you could also discuss its psychological and economic impacts.

3 Include alternative points of view

Introducing alternative points of view can help increase your word count and show that you’ve thoroughly researched the topic.

For example, if you’re writing about capitalism, you could also discuss Karl Marx’s critiques of the economic system.

4 Flesh out thin body paragraphs

It’s important to note that you can flesh out thin body paragraphs without introducing redundant or unnecessary information. Instead, you’ll want to write detailed sentences to support your topic sentence , which can be accomplished by introducing facts, quotes, examples, or anecdotes backing up your point.

• Original: Fight Club deals with the theme of consumerism, such as when the main character criticizes people’s desire to buy new things.
• Edited: Fight Club deals with the theme of consumerism, such as when the main character criticizes people’s desire to buy new things. “Advertising has these people chasing cars and clothes they don’t need,” he says.

5 Find another primary or secondary source to include in your writing

Including additional primary and secondary sources is yet another tactic that can increase your word count and give your argument more legitimacy.

As a reminder, primary sources are anything that provides a firsthand account of an event (autobiographies or diaries, photos, artifacts, or videos). Secondary sources are descriptions, interpretations, or analyses of such events (textbooks, research papers, or documentaries).

6 Expand quotes

Writers will often paraphrase quotes in an effort to keep their argument concise, but there are times when you can expand on them to increase your word count and further illustrate a point.

Let’s revisit the Fight Club quote we used just a bit ago. If we wanted to expand the quote, we could’ve included the main character’s next sentence, which is, “Generations have been working in jobs they hate, just so they can buy what they don’t really need.”

When expanding quotes, it’s important that they add value to your argument. If the next part of that quote dealt with soap making instead of consumerism, it would not have been a good idea to include it.

Word count is the number of words in a writing sample. Word counts are used for many reasons, but in research papers and essays they’re used to level the playing field: Each student has the same number of words to get their point across.

How do you decrease word count?

• Delete unnecessary words, such as “that” and “the”
• Erase unneeded adverbs and adjectives
• Eliminate redundancies
• Use an active voice
• Remove unnecessary information

How do you increase word count?

• Investigate all angles of your topic
• Explore your topic in more depth
• Include alternative points of view
• Flesh out thin body paragraphs
• Find additional primary and secondary sources
• Expand quotes

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Why would you need an online word counter?

Online word counters are a perfect tool for anyone who needs to keep a count of their words and characters, but doesn’t use Microsoft Word. Imagine writing a piece and having to manually count the words! Not only will it take forever, but there’s a chance you won’t be wholly accurate.

This tool is also a good way to assess your words per minute typing rate. Simply time yourself timing for five minutes. Type into the box on the online word counter. When the time is up, divide your total word count by five, and you have your average words per minute rate.

How is our tool different from the other word counters?

All word counting is made on the go, there is no need to press any "submit" buttons to make the calculation and therefore no time is lost for this procedure. You can type the text and instantly see how many words you got so far. Also, we do not store any information that is typed or pasted in the word counting box.

Whom is this word counting tool for?

• Bloggers/Content Writers

You could be writing an article for someone else where the word count is important, but even if it’s for your own site, this tool can be fantastic for your SEO. For example, the body of text should be a minimum of 300 words, and the title should be less than 70 characters to rank effectively.

• Students/Teachers

As a student, you will often be expected to write assignments with specific word counts. Although a bit of leeway is usually given, if you are well off the count either way, you could lose marks. What a waste of you time and effort! Also, you may find it extremely useful to use professional writing help from custom writing services such as Academized that offers one of the best write my essay services you can find on the Web. This will come in hand in case you are required to write a really difficult assignment.

As a lecturer, you can use this tool to ensure your students’ assignments are the correct length.

In many work places, you will be expected to write pieces of certain lengths at times, for example, lawyers, secretaries etc.

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How to use our free online word counter.

Our free online word counter is designed to be easy to use and highly efficient. To get started, simply copy and paste your text into the text box, and the counter will show you the word count, character count, and even the number of words and characters without spaces. This counter is perfect for checking word counts in essays, articles, and assignments. If you’re typing directly into the tool, it’s still just as effective, instantly updating as you write. Whether you’re using it to count words for a paper, check word count for a platform, or ensure you meet a specific word limit, our free online word counter makes the process seamless and hassle-free.

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Using a word count app offers numerous benefits. It helps you keep track of the amount of words and characters in your text, which is essential for meeting minimum or maximum length requirements. Our online word counter is particularly useful for students, writers, and anyone who needs to count words for assignments, papers, or SEO purposes. By providing instant word and character counts, it saves you time and ensures accuracy. It also integrates grammar and spelling checks, helping you identify and correct writing mistakes. Additionally, you can use it to analyze keyword density for better SEO performance. Text analyse tools help to improve content and save much time. Online Sentence Counter , which helps you count sentences, lines and words from any text. -->

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There are many use cases for our online word counter. If you’re a student working on an essay, you can use the tool to ensure you meet the word count requirements. Writers can use it to see the word count for articles and manuscripts, helping them adhere to submission guidelines. Bloggers and content creators can count words to optimize their text for SEO by analyzing keyword density. Additionally, social media users can ensure their posts stay within character limits, such as the 280 characters limit for Twitter. This versatile app is also great for checking the reading time and summarizing long paragraphs. Check our Paragraph Counter

Integrating Grammar and Keyword Analysis with Word Count

Our word counter tool is not just for counting words. It also helps you improve your text by integrating grammar and keyword analysis. By using this tool, you can identify and correct grammar errors, check for spelling mistakes, and ensure proper punctuation. Additionally, you can analyze the keyword density in your text, making it a valuable SEO tool. Whether you’re writing an article, essay, or any type of text, our word counter helps you maintain high-quality writing. With features similar to Grammarly, it’s one of the best tools for enhancing your writing style and ensuring your text is error-free.

Why Would You Need a Word Counter Tool?

There are many reasons why you would need a word counter tool. For students, it helps ensure that essays and assignments meet the required word count. Writers and bloggers can use it to keep track of their word count and character count , making it easier to meet submission guidelines. For those in the SEO and content creation world, it helps analyze keyword density and optimize text for search engines. The tool is also useful for checking the reading level and summarizing text. Overall, our free online word counter tool is a must-have for anyone in the writing world who needs to count words and characters accurately and efficiently.

Understanding Word Count in Different Texts

Understanding word count is crucial for different types of texts. Whether you’re writing an essay, article, or social media post, knowing the word and character counts can help you meet specific requirements. For instance, an essay might require a minimum of 300 words, while a Twitter post must stay within 280 characters. Our tool provides detailed word and character counts, helping you stay within the required limits.

Enhancing Text Quality with a Word Counter

Using a word counter can significantly enhance the quality of your text. By keeping track of word count and character count, you can ensure your writing is concise and clear. The tool also helps you maintain the right keyword density, which is important for SEO. Additionally, by integrating grammar and spelling checks, our word counter tool helps you eliminate errors and improve your overall writing style.

Maximizing Efficiency with the Online Word Counter Tool

Our online word counter tool maximizes efficiency by providing instant results. You can quickly see the word count, character count, and keyword density without manually counting. This saves you time and helps you focus on your writing. Whether you’re working on an essay, article, or any type of text, our free and easy-to-use tool helps you achieve your writing goals efficiently.

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Count words easily with wordvice ai's word counter.

Our word counting tool lets you count the number of words of a paragraph, passage, or entire document with the click of a button. It's the perfect tool when you need to meet the word count requirements of a paper or essay, or to improve your SEO strategies. Our AI-powered word count checker is another useful tool to add to your AI writing toolbox.

What is a word counting tool?

An online word counter tool is an app that calculates the total number of words, characters, sentences, and paragraphs in a given text. Using the latest AI-powered technology, it provides instant insights into the length and structure of your writing, helping you adhere to word count limits and enhancing your overall composition quality.

Understanding the importance of word count is crucial for meeting the specific requirements of essays, reports, academic papers, and even social media posts. With a precise word counter like Wordvice AI, you can calculate how many words of text there are in a passage and gain an accurate and efficient means of managing your document's overall length. Wordvice AI's Word Counter stands out for its accuracy and ease of use, making it an excellent app for writers aiming to optimize their content's impact and effectiveness.

Why choose Wordvice AI's word counting tool?

Optimize content length

Adhering to word count and character count limits is critical for SEO, academic guidelines, and social media engagement. Wordvice AI's Word Counter helps ensure your content is perfectly tailored to meet these requirements, enhancing its effectiveness and reach.

Streamline the writing process

Keeping track of word count manually can be tedious and disruptive to your writing flow. The AI Word Counter (which is also a letter counter and character counter) automates this process, allowing you to focus on your creativity and composition quality, elevating your writing process.

Improve structure and density

Effective writing isn't just about meeting character and word count requirements; it's about ensuring your message is conveyed efficiently. Wordvice AI's free online word counter tool analyzes text density and structure, helping you revise paragraphs and sentences for clearer, more compelling communication.

How many words are in my document?

Our free word counter does more than just count words. It's a word calculator and character counter that gives you an accurate summary of the important building blocks in your sentences and paragraphs. See how Wordvice AI's word count app breaks down these fundamental writing elements.

How to Use Our Word Counter Online

To ensure your document is free from errors, follow these simple steps to use our spell check tool.

Enter your text into our free word counter tool.

Our word calculator will automatically start the word counting and provide the result in seconds., need more than a character count for your document.

For academic, application, and professional documents, consider receiving the expertise of an editing professional. Wordvice is here with human editing to prepare your document for publication or submission.

Wordvice's Professional Proofreading Services provide thorough style editing from experienced English-speaking editors holding advanced degrees (including masters and PhDs) relevant to your document's subject area. Receive detailed insights on both the substance and language of your writing. Our expert proofreading service is perfectly suited for scholarly articles intended for journal submissions.

Wordvice AI Word Counter FAQ

The following are some common questions about our free word calculator tool.

• How does your free word counter work? To use our Word Counter online for any text, simply enter your text or document into the designated area. Without any payments or sign-ups, you can access core functionalities for accurate character and word count.
• How much does the Word Counter cost? Wordvice AI's word, character, and letter counter is available at no cost as soon as you sign up. Simply register an account and enter your details to begin utilizing the tool for your documents immediately. If you're looking to access additional functionalities and explore the full range of our Word Counter's advanced features, you might want to upgrade to a Premium plan. Visit the Wordvice AI Pricing page for a detailed overview of our services and to compare the various tools and features we offer.
• What is the best free word counter? A word counter tool is designed to accurately tally words, characters, and other text elements, featuring easy-to-use interfaces and use of various document types. The most effective word counting tools not only provide precise counts but can also offer insights into text density, readability, and structure. Top word counters, like Wordvice AI, stand out by offering additional functionalities such as detailed reports, configurable options, and insights to help you improve your writing quality. Wordvice AI's Word Counter leverages advanced language models to provide an instant and accurate word and character count, making it a highly useful tool for writers working on academic assignments, application documents, business correspondence, creative projects, and online publications.
• How many words can your word counting tool process? Our word counting software is capable of calculating the total words and characters (as well as sentences and paragraphs) for millions of words instantly. However, while our AI counting tool is free to use with a Basic plan, a Premium plan will allow you nearly unlimited submissions and text calculations.
• Is my work safe when using the Word Counter online? All text processed by our AI tools is handled with the utmost privacy and security. Our advanced encryption methods protect your submitted writing and guarantee that all of your work and personal information is safe and kept away from would-be hackers and data-miners. If you are interested in learning more about how we handle and store your data, see our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service .
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Count Of Words .com

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Free online word count / words counter

Ever need a way to find out how many words there are in any given digital text? With this fast online tool, you can find the answer without having to open your word processor!

How to use this website to count words?

To use this tool, follow the instructions below to count the words in your selected text:

• Start by writing or copying and pasting the text you wish to count.
• Once you have done so, use the blue Count Words on this page countofwords.com . The number of words in your chosen text will be displayed to the right.
• Reset to clear all text from the text entry field.

Why do you need to count words?

In many cases, the amount of words in a text do not matter in a casual environment; this is doubly true if you are writing anything on paper. The minute you are writing in a formal context though, word count becomes an important factor. From writing legal briefings, novels, or an essay, your wordcount is an element that can influence the outcome of your work, whether that be successful publication of your first novel, or an acceptable grade for your assignment.

Write or paste your text into this online word counter:

Data Privacy

Here at countofwords.com, we do not store any of your personal data. This includes any text that is entered on the site for word counting! If you want to save your document, you should use a text editor or word processor first before copying and pasting the text into the input box.

What are the rules we use to count words?

On this site, we define words using separators such as the empty space, and symbols such as :, @, _ and others like it. This means that any text found in between these separators will qualify as a word. For example, Apples : Oranges would qualify as two words, as would Apples:Oranges. A standard email address such as [email protected] would count as four words.

Remember that this also applies to symbols such as &, so if you would like Books & Articles to count as three words, as in “Books and Articles”, then you might want to replace all the & signs with the word “and” before you paste it into the text box. We have more details on the exact rules we use here :

Benefits of using countofwords.com over other word counters

Not all word counters behave in the same way; many use different methods to define what qualifies as a word. Some applications only use an empty space as a separator, so that Writer:Works would count as one word, while Writer : Works would instead be three words, with : counting as a word all by itself! Many others have their own qualities, such as not including _ as a separator so that One_Two counts as one word, while including & as a separator, so that One & Two is two words.

More than that, most of these applications require an email sign-up, or you need to have a program installed on your device before you can use them. With this website however, you will always be able to access a word counter no matter where you are, so long as you are able to connect to the internet!

Word Counters

• English • Words - Word Count Tool. Word Counter
• How to count words in your Word Processor?
• Practical uses for word counts
• How to limit or expand your word count?
• Word count algorithms, and how you can use them
• Different results between word counters, and why they matter
• Word count trivia and history
• Français • Mots - Outil de comptage de mots. Compteur de mots
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• 汉语 • 字数计算器 首页
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• Русский • Счетчик слов. Сколько слов
• Ελληνικά • Δωρεάν διαδικτυακό μέτρημα λέξεων / μετρητής λέξεων
• عربى • الكلمات - عدد الكلمات. عداد الكلمات

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• English • Letters - Letter Counter. Character Count Tool
• Français • Compteur de lettres et caractères.
• Español • Contador de caracteres
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• Deutsch • Buchstabenzähler. Zeichenzähler.
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• Polski • Licznik liter / znaków.
• Русский • Счетчик букв. Подсчет символов
• Ελληνικά • Μέτρημα Γραμμάτων/Μετρητής Χαρακτήρων
• عربى • الحروف - عدد الحروف. عدد الحروف

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• SpellNato.com • Spell out words, names, text, booking or reference numbers using NATO alphabet

Word Counter

Welcome to our Word Counter tool! Do you need to know the exact number of words in a piece of text or document? Our tool can help. Simply copy and paste your text into the text field, and our tool will provide a word count within seconds.

Word Counter Calculator

Words count:, characters count:.

Our Word Counter is a quick and easy way to get a accurate word count, whether you're working on a school assignment, a business report, or a personal writing project. It's a valuable resource for writers, editors, and anyone who needs to know the exact number of words in a piece of text.

In addition to providing a word count, our tool also counts the number of characters, sentences, and paragraphs in your text. This can be useful for adhering to specific guidelines or requirements for word count or character count.

Why use a Word Counter?

There are many situations where you might need to know the exact number of words in a piece of text. For example:

• When you're writing a school assignment or academic paper, you may have specific word count requirements. A Word Counter can help you ensure that your paper is the right length.
• When you're writing a business report or proposal, you may need to present your ideas in a certain number of words. A Word Counter can help you stay within the prescribed word limit.
• When you're writing a cover letter or resume, you want to use the most effective and concise language possible. A Word Counter can help you trim unnecessary words and make your writing more impactful.

In addition to helping you meet specific word count requirements, a Word Counter can also be a useful tool for improving your writing skills. By tracking the number of words you use, you can get a sense of your writing style and determine whether you are using too many or too few words. This can help you become a more efficient and effective writer.

Our Word Counter is completely free to use, and there is no need to create an account or login. Simply visit our website and start using the tool right away. We hope our Word Counter is a useful resource for you!

How to Increase your Essay's Word Count

It happens. You pour your heart out to write the perfect college essay. You've included everything you could possibly think of in your work. Before you submit your magnificent piece of writing, you enter the essay into a word counter.

And there it is: You've come up short on your word count .

Whether it's a college application, a scholarship essay, or a report for class, word counts can be daunting sometimes. And when you come up short, there are solutions available to bulk up your writing.

This article will help you find ways to add to your word count without sacrificing on the quality of your work.

1. Know your Goal and How to Measure It Accurately

Is the requirement 800–1000 words? Is it 500 words maximum? Knowing the exact word goal is crucial when beginning to write, especially for something as important as a college entrance essay or a scholarship competition. Always be sure to read the detailed requirements for each assignment.

It's also important to use an accurate word counter for essays to calculate your word count. Find a reliable online tool to help you track your word count as you're working so you can have peace of mind that you're creating something that fits the requirements you've been given.

Once you've figured out what word count you're aiming for, it's common to look for some short cuts to help estimate your word count as you work. Some writers ask, " How many pages is 1,000 words? ". Although this varies with font type, font size, and spacing choices, generally speaking, double-spaced, typed fonts provide about 250 words per page.

Remember this is just a general rule. Always verify with a word counter before you submit a piece of writing such as a college essay.

2. Be Aware of What NOT To Do

When writers fall short of word counts, they sometimes add filler words that don't improve the quality of the writing at all. Adding pointless fillers will instead make the writing weaker.

Does the following sound familiar?

You add a few more random words, ask yourself, "How many words is this now?", check it in a word counter, and then repeat this process until you've reached the desired word count.

Though I've been guilty of this myself once or twice, this is NOT the way to properly bulk up your essay.

Being wordy in your writing does not make you appear more intelligent. If you start adding miscellaneous words to your essays, it becomes very, very, very, very obvious to your reader. (See what I did there?) It would be really, really redundant and repetitive and even more redundant to just add extra words that essentially mean the same thing. (See. I did it again.)

What you choose to add to your writing needs to be high quality and necessary. This next hint will help you add words that will enhance your writing instead of hurting it.

3. Reread Your Essay and Dig Deeper

There are many ways to add quality content to your essays that will increase your word count while still improving your work. Here are some ways to dig deeper into your writing:

Add More Details

Look for places where you might have been vague and clarify. Remember to always try to show—don't tell .

For example, let's say you previously wrote: "My feet were cold."

Can you show us "cold"? Perhaps add details to explain: "My toes were tingling and numb from the chilling, icy snow that was seeping into my tattered shoes."

These details add to your word count while painting a clear picture for your reader.

Offer an Example

If it's appropriate, offer an example.

In a college application essay, you might state, "I have won several awards." However, it's more powerful to provide an example of a specific award that has a deeper meaning: "Winning the most improved player award for volleyball was a proud moment for me. It celebrated how far I had come and how hard I had to work to become a better player for myself and my teammates."

Support Arguments with More Facts and Quotes

Find areas where you are trying to make a point, and back these statements up with more detail. Is there a quality fact you can add to support your case? Is there a great quote from an expert that will help? Adding more solid evidence to your argument can help make your opinion stronger and more supported.

Change Up Your Introduction and Conclusion

The beginning and end of your essay tend to be more flexible than the body. If you feel the body of your essay is already well-supported and doesn't need more information, perhaps it's time to rework the intro or the conclusion . Is there an interesting story you can tell? Is there a way to wrap things up that is more compelling and ties your thoughts together in a more coherent way?

4. Ask a Peer for Help

Sometimes we can't see the gaps in our own writing, so asking a friend to help out can be useful.

Have your friend read through your piece and ask him for feedback. What isn't clear? What needs more explanation? What other questions does he have for you?

These questions can help guide you to places where you can expand and provide more details.

Getting an accurate word count is important for writing college essays and qualifying for scholarship opportunities. But you shouldn't just add any words to help you meet the required length; instead, make sure you're adding quality words to balance essay length with essay quality.

Using the tips mentioned above, you will be on your way to adding the bulk you need to reach your word count and improving your writing by crafting more details and clarifications that will ultimately produce a better piece of writing.

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Your personal statement is arguably the most important part of your college application. Follow these guidelines for an exceptional admissions essay.

3 Easy-to-Use Tools to Count Your Words

by Joe Bunting | 38 comments

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So you need to get a word count for the latest chapter of your novel or an essay assignment for school ? Don't worry, here are three easy-to-use tools to count your words.

Need to get a word count on your latest writing project? Here are three tools that can help.

Why Count Words?

If you're an experienced writer, this might already be obvious to you. However, if you're new to writing, you need to know that keeping track of your word count is a central habit of a writer.

You count words for two main reasons.

1. Because Publishers Count Words

In school, writing assignments are usually measured by page length (e.g. please turn in a three-page essay on Jane Austen's use of satire in Emma by Friday ).

However, measuring by page-length is inaccurate and, in many cases, unhelpful. Font, spacing, and formatting changes can alter the number of pages, and if you're writing a newspaper, magazine, or book, the pages will be in a variety of different sizes anyway. Measuring by word count, on the other hand, is consistent.

Furthermore, publishers often pay on a per-word basis, and so it makes sense for professional writers to keep track of how many words they write.

But what if you're not a professional writer? Why should you count words then?

2. Counting Words Can Motivate You

Many famous writers have kept daily word count goals. Ernest Hemingway is reported to have written 500 words per day. Stephen King writes 2,000 words per day, even on holidays. Victorian novelist Anthony Trollope wrote 3,000 words per day.

Setting a daily word count goal can inspire you.

One of the best known word count goals is  NaNoWriMo (or National Novel Writing Month). Every November, thousands of writers challenge themselves to write 50,000 words in a month (that's 1,667 words per day, by the way).

Another resource for writers is my friend Jeff Goins' 500 Words a Day Challenge , which is a 31-day writing challenge that over a thousand writers have participated in.

3 Tools to Count Words

How do you keep an accurate word count?

1. Count Words With Microsoft Word

The most-widely used word processor makes it easy to count your words.

On Windows , there are two ways to see the word count. On the Review tab, just next to Spelling and Grammar Check, and on the home ribbon beside the page number.

On Mac , you can find the word count under Tools -> Word Count.

2. Take Word Counts to the Next Level With Scrivener

While Microsoft Word is a decent word processor for writing essays and articles, if you're writing a novel or book, you need a more powerful tool.

Scrivener  is a perfect tool for finding your word count because it not only keeps your word count visible, it allows you to track your daily word count and the word count for your entire project. You can learn more about Scrivener on our review here .

In Scrivener, you can set the project targets to your daily word count and track your progress. Also, notice the word count visible at the bottom of the application.

3. A Fast, Online Word Counter

If you don't have access to either of these tools, you can find, free online word counters. One of the best, in my opinion, is  WordCounter.net .

Word Counter is a free, online word count tool.

Challenge Yourself to Write 1,000 Words Today

These tools can change your life.

How would your life be different if you challenged yourself to write 1,000 words a day? ( Share that challenge on Twitter )

Even if you took the weekends off, in just a month, you would have 22,000 words. In six months, you would have written 132,000 words, easily enough for a long novel. After the first year, you could have written  two  books.

It starts by taking just a few seconds to track your words.

Do you have a daily word count goal? What is it?

Write 1,000 words today. Keep track using one of the tools above.

When you're finished, share your best 250 words in the comments section below . And if you share, please be sure to give feedback on a few practices by other writers.

Joe Bunting

Joe Bunting is an author and the leader of The Write Practice community. He is also the author of the new book Crowdsourcing Paris , a real life adventure story set in France. It was a #1 New Release on Amazon. Follow him on Instagram (@jhbunting).

Want best-seller coaching? Book Joe here.

38 Comments

I participated In NaNoWriMo myself. My novel concluded before I reached the word count but it was still a great experience. I’ll have to post my practice later when I have time. (WOOT FIRST COMMENT)

Nice, Miriam. That’s a huge accomplishment. Also, way to get in first! 🙂

The following is EXACTLY 250 words:

I never lied before I worked here. It started with little comments, like telling a caller the boss, Robert, wasn’t in, when he was on a personal call. Next I found myself assuring a caller that our Director of Marketing had sent out the requested materials the previous Friday, when in fact Hannah had returned from lunch drunk, passed out in the lobby, and we called her husband and told him to take her home.

People tell you, “The watched pot never boils”, meaning some things happen so imperceptibly, that if you dedicate yourself to watching for the smallest advance, you’ll never see it. The lesson, I suppose, is that it won’t do any good to watch a process too closely, as there is nothing to see.

I wonder if maybe people are getting this lesson backwards. If something can happen slowly and nearly undetectably to the naked eye, then shouldn’t we watch it very, very vigilantly, to catch it before it boils over? That’s how the lying exploded. Over time Robert and Hannah escalated their expectations of us, that we say any damn thing they wanted us to say, to get them out of their chronic bungling.

That is how, today, I found myself insisting to that nice man, Tom Contreras, that Robert could not meet with him. I gave him my best “trust me, would I lie to you” smile, and convinced him he had made a grievous error, and his appointment had been for the prior day.

This is so true. After a while and after being asked to do it over and over, we are able to block even the slightest twinge of guilt. I like your line: …trust me, would I lie to you. Nice piece.

Thank you 😉

Wow this is so good, Avril. I loved the way you combine story with psychological observation so deftly. And I really like the way you bring us into the lives of these characters so completely in just a few paragraphs. Great job!

Thank you for the compliment and encouragement Joe.

Wow this is really good Avril. I love the way it sounds when I read it. Great job!

Thank you Miriam. The feedback from you and Joe today is especially helpful as I hone in on my “voice.”

It is only 811 words. Hope that’s enough. Thanks for yet another great prompt.

2012 Pacific Avenue in downtown Santa Cruz, California, is a tri-era promenade: pre-earthquake, early post-quake, and now. Something to note as you look up and down the stretches of the Pacific Garden Mall. Parts of each era remain and shoulder up, intermingled and interwoven, in a strange dichotomy of style and sensibilities, palpable to six senses – senses that must include “feel.” Before the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, old family businesses struggled against a fluctuating economy and decay – Leask’s, Ford’s, the stately Cooper House, the Hihn Building – only to disappear into quake rubble and oblivion. From the earthquake ruins, the silent overgrown lots have slowly and painfully risen, Phoenix-like, to house modern replicas and buildings, saved from demolition, clothed in new paint, giving concrete testament to the power of Mother Nature’s onslaught.

It looks somewhat new, somewhat tidy, with new business owners, full of dreams, bringing new energy, unaware of the strange angles. It’s all here, the very Gen X storefronts of The Gap, Border’s, Starbuck’s, Cinema 9 and the upper-storied upper-classed condos to old fringe establishments – Logo’s, The Avenue Bar, Book Shop Santa Cruz – and the eminent Santa Cruz elder statesmen – Del Williams, The Del Mar Theater, The Palomar Hotel, Annieglass. The sun has slipped below the rooflines of the Cooper House across the street, giving the street a bluish cast, and the wind swirls, scuttling the dry leaves of late summer and wafting in the briny smell of the sea.

From my vantage perched high on a coffee shop stool, I pull on my sweater and watch and reflect. While much has changed in the last twenty-four years, much remains the same in this funny, strangely odd little place on Planet Earth. The city fathers have looked to upscale the look of this funky street, yet the fringe folks looking for attention or a handout – homeless street people, mentally ill who have slipped through the cracks, angry young people, savvy panhandlers – remain entrenched, some living in alleyways, doorways, and the lush underbrush of this tourist mecca by night and by day claiming a butt-sized patch of sidewalk. With hats and instrument cases open wide, ragged street musicians, some phenomenally talented troupes of drummers from some other cultures and guitar players belting protest songs, stake out street corners and make this city inhale and exhale. I remember the tiny ancient fiddler who played off-key, who died last year, and I wonder about the strange man in the pink tutu and tights, with matching umbrella, who, in scuffed ballet shoes, shuffled up and down the sidewalk in slow motion, his gaze unwavering, daring you to look away first.

Fast forward to today. September 2014. Border’s is no longer. Forever 21, in eight-foot letters, is now emblazoned on the storefront. Del Williams Jewelry is but a memory. They were always able to locate the elusive replacement for broken treasures. Other business, too, are no longer a presence on the Garden Mall promenade. The economy has taken its toll here and everywhere. Starbuck’s and Peet’s, along with some local coffee beaneries, have customers bulging from their sticky doors, while the protesters of conditions and wages sport signs outside. The pan-handlers still hassle the diners who shovel in ethnic foods served in sidewalk cafes. The street musicians remain, despite the white-washed façade put on the buildings rimming the street, and they produce some of the best music you’ll hear. Life vibrates through the tree-named streets that surround the Garden Mall – Cedar, Walnut, Laurel – despite the few empty lots of weeds as tall as a man dotted here and there. Life vibrates and hums. The young people gather and spill into surf shops that tout the best wetsuits, the most chic attire. Cinema 9 has eleven screens, and on opening nights lines run around the corner and past the ATM machines for Bay Federal Credit Union. Yes, life’s heart still beats here.

A few feet from my perch sits a young woman, maybe 19 or so, a street person, asking passersby for spare change. Her voice is harsh, and she barks a “fuck you” to a man who spat some words at her. Hunched against the late afternoon chill and the taunt tossed from his retreating lips, she leans against the building and sucks in a sigh, herself complicit in his response. She knows it.

When she arrived here, she was undoubtedly full of dreams, as all those absent business owners must have been, too. Once optimism must have burned in her eager heart, as she made plans for a future here. Perhaps it still does, but it has burrowed itself deep inside, for time on the streets changes people, even the young ones. She’s alone, and, as night begins to fall in a strange town, I wonder if she feels the bony edges of fear.

I stuff my notebook in my bag, curl my hands around the steaming paper, and wander into the crowd.

Gosh Diane, this piece so effectively evokes that funky seaside town (I know, I’ve been there). This is nicely nuanced, you’ve drawn the personality of the neighborhood, how it looks and how it feels at street level. I’m familiar with the denizens already. I mean this ad a compliment, that it reminds me of one of my faves, Cannery Row by Steinbeck. Oh and the guy in the tutu, he’s from Fairfax.

Thank you, Avril, for reading my too many words and your kind words. Sorry. I didn’t read the instructions thoroughly. I am so happy that you know this little burg and recognize some of the landmarks. Fairfax? Really? We would always look for him when we fofund ourselves at the Garden Mall. Too funny. Again, thank you for reading.

Thank you, Avril, for taking the time to read my way-too-many-word piece and for your kind words. Next time I will read the instructions more carefully. I’m happy you recognized some of the landmarks of this little burg. It’s an interesting place, a place that engages all the senses. Fairfax? Really? My husband and I used to look for him every time we found ourselves on the Garden Mall. Again, thank you.

This place is not so much about the rules Diane, but about the encouragement to write. Writing more is always a good thing if you are on a roll! We’re glad you shared.

Very well done! Your description of the town, the people, the changes, everything create a living, moving video in my mind. I feel as if i’ve just been there myself. Adelaide

Thank you, Adelaide. I’m happy you were able to visit here for a little while. It’s a special place.

You’re a very good writer, Diane. The description here is perfect. I bet you had a lot of fun writing this!

I did have fun writing it, Joe, but it brought back a lot of unfun memories. Thank you for your encouraging words and for this wonderful site.

Wow amazing Diane. I could feel and see everything you described. Based off of this I feel that you’re going to be a great writer. Keep up the great work!

Thank you so much for your kind words, Miriam, and for taking the time to read the piece.

You made me feel as if I’d like to go there and experience it for myself. Vivid descriptions and emotions draw you in.

PI glazed my fingers over the peeling yellow with time flower wallpaper. My footsteps echoed though the enpty halls as the dust lifted from the ground. Silence filled the air one I would find at an funeral,quiet from neglect as if it was hiding a burning hatred for what I had did.

Rain slid down the clouded window pane and the pit pat in the roof sent a eiree chill down your spine. Memories followed my though the house as I breathed in the rich earthy smell of mothballs. Those memories wandered next to me hoping for me to look at them just to catch a fleeting look, toopen up the vault which I had buried them in.

This once was my childhood home where I spent long days and cold nights curled up asleep on my bed with dreams leading me into a false sense of security.

I took one last look around and shut the chipping word door. I sprinkled the last of the gasonle and struck a match, soon the house set fire, the flames licking the night sky as the stars twinkled in the inky blackness as the fire crackled from the heat.

I sat back a blank expression on my face.

“That’s finally done.” I said. I started walking with the embers glowing brightly behind me casting shadows.

Now I know that is part of a good story. Nice twist to start off visiting the childhood home, then burn it down.

This needs some cleaning up for spelling and grammar (for a practice this is fine though), but I loved the way you evoked sensual details as the character paces through the house. There’s a lot going on here, and like Avril said, this seems like a small piece of a promising story. Well done!

Nice job Chloee. I’m intrigued as to where this will go next. Keep up the good work!

It holds my interest as to why she sets fire to her childhood home? What bad memories are hidden there? Like Joe pointed out. it needs careful editing for mistakes. Adelaide

Alright. So a few practices ago I posted about Angela.(the post “You Need to Ask this Question Every Time You Sit Down To Write” specifically) This is a continuation of that post. Here is my 250 words.

Groggy, disoriented, confused, I slowly awoke to my surroundings. The first thing that I became aware of was the pounding pain pushing through my skull. Questions like: Where am I? What happened? Why can’t I move? Rose in my mind.

I opened my eyes to closer examine my surroundings. The ceiling was bare cement and seemed to animate cold to the very marrow of my bones. I tried to move my head to look at the walls but found it fixed in place. Panic slowly began to rise within me like a poison. Slowly I began to remember what happened until it came back in a rush. My apartment, escape, Andrew, the emerald. Where is the emerald! Came my panicked thought.

Frantically I looked around the room with my eyes but came upon nothing. Calm down Angela think this through. No need to lose control. I thought about that night. Where had the emerald been then? In my desk… until I put it on. My eyes drifted to my chest in hopes of seeing it there. It was gone.

My alarm began to rise again as did my scolding thoughts. Angela you idiot! You should’ve left the emerald in its holding spot but no you had to be noble and put it on. Just then the door opened.

“Ah you’re awake.” Came Andrew’s voice. He walked to a chair somewhere behind me and, by the sound of it, took out a pen and paper. “Now to business. Where is the emerald?”

I didn’t know what I was going to write about when I began, but I was in our local diner so I began about a waitress. I don’t know if I did a 1,000 words because I write on a yellow pad and haven’t transcribed it all yet. This is as much as I’ve typed so far, about 350 words.

Edna knew her customers. She had been waitressing at the Loganville diner for 20 years, and she had served many of the customers for the same 20 years. They had grown old together. Some had died during those years; some had been born.

When Bob died Edna had taken stock of her situation: two children married, one grandchild and another expected, living miles away, an old house paid for, a small pension from Bob’s union, a moderate savings account, the interest of which she and Bob never touched.

“Let it grow,” Bob had said. When I’m gone you will need the interest to supplement my pension.”

Edna could have used the interest now, but Bob’s voice came back to her in those few weeks right after he died. “Let it grow.” So, she did and got a job at the diner.

“I never waitressed before,” she had told Fonda, the owner, “but I’m strong and a hard worker.

“Well…”

Edna almost heard the wheels spinning in his head as Fonda Metatakis thought it over. “Can you operate a cash register? They’re all computerized now.”

“I can use a computer, and I’m a quick learner.”

“Well… O.K. Part time to start, one to five in the afternoons at first, then maybe later full time.”

Edna suspected he gave her the job because Bob had died. Everyone in town knew it. Bob was always talking to people whether he knew them or not. and, if he didn’t, he soon did. Fonda probably thought she needed the money. She did, but it wasn’t until after she had asked for the job did she really know why. She would use this money for living expenses, as little as possible, and add the rest to her savings as a legacy for her grandchildren.

It was something she used to fantasize about when she was a child–a legacy left by some unknown relative or stranger because she had done a good deed. For a time she had gone out of her way to help strangers even if they really didn’t need it.

“Thank you Dear, but I can carry this package. It was kind of you to offer.”

It hadn’t been easy, but now and then her help had been accepted. she made sure to tell them her name and to get theirs. For years she had checked the obituaries regularly. Adelaide

I’m starting to think of all the other little stories she has been a part of over the years and what happens next. I enjoyed reading it Adelaide

Thank you, Ann. Adelaide

I like Edna. I wish I knew what was going to happen with her legacy she’d built up. A very interesting teaser, Adelaide.

As I read this I could picture the diner the regulars went to in my home town… Everyone knew everyone and came to tell stories and have coffee and breakfast. It would be interesting to see what some of the stories Edna had heard over the many years she had worked there.

When I get in the zone, I write 1,000 words in two hours. Most of the time, i’m procrastinating, so it’s usually 250 a day.

I use the tool http://wordcounttools.com and it works like a charm. Would you please help readers to revise the article and put it in?

If somebody is looking for reliable and new service for counting, I would suggest countwordsfree.com as the one to be look at. Stop words exclusion and original text pre-processing as well as possibility to load and save the text from/into file makes this portal universal and quite useful for writers and seo specialists.

image finding Pasteur here, away from my wall…………………………………

Pills and pigs – here’s my excerpt. 27 minutes to free-write 1067 words.

“Okay, there is this new pill out,” he said, “barely fresh from clinical trials. It’s a calming pick-me-upper. It works I’m told very well for people like you, although I don’t know anyone personally yet. You will be the first. And there are a few side effects. Want to be a guinea pig?

Well, sure, why not. What did I have to lose for a month’s free supply? The possibility of becoming an actual pig? Yep, that’s what the bottle says. But, hey, who are they fooling, how does a human become an animal? Besides, the results, they were glowing to say the least.

One day later. So I took the first pill – pink and round – upon rising as prescribed. By noon I seemed to have more energy than usual. I took a 3 mile walk on my lunch break. Feeling good! I had a bit more of an appetite that night, but I figured I must have walked off a gazillion calories at noon, so I could afford an extra serving of buttered cornbread with my five-meat chili.

One week later. Wow, I’m cruising in high gear There’s no end to my energy. I rise, take a pink pill – have a little burp. Did I tell you they make me burp? They do, but no problem, I cover my mouth. Today however, the burp tasted good. Like the fried chicken I had last night. I tried to burp again, but couldn’t. But I definitely had fried chicken on my mind when I went to work.

I’m ready. Let’s do this!!!

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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.

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Assignment length requirements are usually given in terms of numbers of words.

Unless the lecturer tells you that these limits are strict, it is normally acceptable to be 10% above or below this word limit (so, for example, a 2000 word assignment should be between 1800 and 2200 words). If the assignment uses the words “up to” (as in “up to 2500 words”) that usually means that you cannot go above the limit.

Use the tool below to calculate the acceptable range for an assignment (based on +/- 10%).

Unless the lecturer tells you otherwise, the word limit does not include ‘administrative’ sections of the assignment: the cover or title page, table of contents, table of figures, reference list, list of works cited, bibliography, or any appendices.

The word limit that you are given reflects the level of detail required . This means that if your assignment is too long, you're either taking too many words to explain your point or giving too many / too detailed examples. If your assignment is too short, either there is more to the answer than you have written or the assignment has not gone into enough detail about the answer.

• Don't try to remove single words from your assignment. It is unlikely to reduce the assignment's length significantly, but it may confuse your argument . Instead, aim to remove or condense whole sections of your assignment.
• You should not include something just because it is a fact, or just because it is included in your course materials. Include something only if it is relevant to your argument.
• Be direct. State your point rather than writing many paragraphs to ‘lead up’ to it.
• Go back to the question . Which sections relate to the point and which are secondary?
• Go back to the plan . Which paragraphs fit in the overall structure? Which paragraphs overlap and can be combined?
• Remove sections where you
• Over-explain your point
• Over-specify your point
• Repeat yourself
• Write off-topic or ramble
• Remove multiple examples where one or two are sufficient.
• Remove hedging language that adds little to the argument (e.g., it would seem that, it is possible that).

If you are often over the word count you should look at your writing style. See writing concisely for more.

Explain your argument fully

• Make sure every argument in your head and in your plan is on the page.
• Would a general (i.e., non-specialist) reader understand your point? Have someone else read over your assignment and ask you questions about it. What do they think is missing?
• Are there gaps in your argument?
• Does each point logically follow the last one, or do you jump over important points?

Look for the ‘hidden’ answer

• What theories do you think the marker expects?
• How does this relate to the materials from lectures and study guides? Use the course information in your answer to the assignment question.
• Are there complications or contradictions in the argument or in your research? Explain them and explore them.

Flesh it out

• Define any special terminology you've used that a general reader would not be familiar with.
• Illustrate with more examples and/or quotations.
• Contextualise and explain the quotations you use. How do they relate to your argument?

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Free Online Word Counter Tool

Introducing the ultimate word counter tool.

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Word, character, and page count tool.

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What Is A Word Counter Tool?

Whether you’re a student, a professional writer, or anyone else, our free online word count checker is designed to elevate your writing experience by providing precise word counter online services.

Dive into the heart of your writing with our tool, where counting words becomes a seamless part of your creative process. Our sophisticated platform doesn’t just stop at providing you with the number of words and characters; it goes beyond offering insights into paragraph structuring, ensuring your writing is as impactful as possible.

In the world of digital content, where the number of words and characters can make or break your work, our Word Counter Tool stands as a beacon of reliability and precision. Whether fine-tuning your manuscript, optimizing your blog posts for SEO, or ensuring your academic work is up to mark, our word count checker is the perfect companion.

Discover the full potential of your writing with our free Word Counter Tool — where every word counts, every character matters, and the power of your writing is unleashed!

How Do You Use Our Online Word Count Tool?

Easy to Use, Fast, and Accurate

Our Online Word Count Tool stands out for its simplicity and effectiveness. Whether crafting an academic paper, a blog, social media posts, or a professional report, our tool ensures your content meets the required word count with absolute accuracy. Just paste your text directly into the text area, and within seconds, you will receive a detailed breakdown of your word count, character count, and page count . It’s fast, accurate, and incredibly user-friendly.

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Why do you need an online word counter tool.

Maximize Your Efficiency

With an online word counter, you can instantly measure the length of your texts, saving you valuable time and effort. This tool streamlines your writing process, allowing you to focus on the quality of your content rather than counting words manually.

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The beauty of an online word counter tool lies in its accessibility. Whether working from home, in a café, or on the go, this tool is available at your fingertips, requiring no software installation. It’s ready whenever you are, compatible across devices and platforms.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Is the word counter tool accurate in counting words and characters, what is the functioning process of the word counter tool.

• Jan 16, 2020

5 tips to stick to your word count in any written assignment

Updated: Mar 1

If you've been asked to stick to a word count on an assignment, there's usually a good reason for it.

In academic assignments, sticking to a word count shows that you not only know your stuff, but that you also know how to clearly and succinctly explain it to others. Too many words is likely waffle and may imply a lack of confidence in knowing which information or research is key and which isn't. Too few suggests that you haven't put enough time or effort in, or that your research isn't thorough enough. Either way, it could lose you marks.

In print, as well as keeping you on the point, a word count is often to do with the amount of space the publication has available for each article. If an editor asks for 2,000 words on the demise of the honey bee and you give them 2,700, or even 2,200, that's a lot of your work that they're going to need to scrap (they might even just scrap the whole article). Aside from creating work for the editor, you are also doing yourself an injustice. By putting an editor in a position where they need to cut your work, they are going to cut the bits that they don't think are important or interesting enough... it doesn't matter if you think that line was your best work, or your most important finding - it's gone, baby!

Similarly, in marketing materials, a word count is probably given to fill a set workspace. Pages in products such as brochures and pamphlets are printed in multiples of four (4, 8, 12, 16, and so on) so if you send the designer five pages of text, they're either going to have to cut a whole page of your work, or find three more pages.

Here are some ways to help you stick to your word count and make your work more palatable.

Start as you mean to go on. You have a word count that you need to stick to, the best way to do that is to plan ahead, rather than writing until you have a tome and then trying to cut it back into an essay.

Before you start, think about the key things you want to cover and any sections that you need to include such as an introduction, methodology, etc. Prioritise these sections, and give each one a word count according to how important it is.

"Bottom up - I write a sentence for each paragraph (or section) and decide the relative weight of each, then work upwards. Obviously, editing is still required, but you have developed a sense as to how much depth or detail you're going to be able to reach."

~Beverley Gibbs, Director of Learning and Teaching (Strategy) at The University of Sheffield

2) Simplify

Don't use five words where you could use one. Similarly, avoid using jargon that can often be overly verbose and put many readers off. By using plain English, you will not only avoid exceeding your word count, but you will also open your text up to a wider audience which is what most publishers (and writers) will want.

"Lose the jargon, cut to get to your core messages and keep what your audience needs at the heart of what you are saying."

~ Peta Sweet, Communications and Coaching for Change

3) Understand your brief

Understanding what's being asked of you is key to staying within your word count as it means you can easily get to the point and stay on it. Using a highlighter to go through the brief before you start can help pick out the key questions or points to keep you focused.

4) Stay on topic

It's really easy to get sidetracked when you're talking. How many times have you found yourself telling a long story, getting half way through and realising that you've got so far off topic you can't remember what your point was? The same thing happens in writing, but if you can avoid it (or spot it in your edit) then it will help to keep you within your word count.

This is not the same as proofreading (you'll still need to do that). Once you've finished writing, give your work some time to breathe before going back to try and cut things out.

You should usually aim to cut your word count by 10% during your edit. Look out for repetition, superfluous words, unnecessary adjectives and anything that isn't relevant or supportive of your point. Cut anything that strays away from your core messages. You can sometimes cut out whole paragraphs in this way.

Also keep an eye out for intensifiers like 'really' and 'very' as these are probably not needed. You can do a simple search for these words and cut them out to easily reduce your word count.

"Be brutal! Write what you want to say but then go back later and look at what you're saying that doesn't add value, words that aren't needed or shorter ways of saying the same thing."

~ Krysia Wooffinden, Assistant Director of Skills, Employment and Education at Sheffield City Region

"Write and then come back later to edit. Cut the adverbs and adjectives, and keep to the point."

~ Lorraine Dixon, Writer and Publisher at Open Narrative

What are your tips for keeping within your word count? Leave a comment below.

Stick to your word count

• Writing tips
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Automatic Word Count Reducer

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

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

Number of sentences in results:

Original ratio

100 % in your summary

Charachters

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

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

• 🔢 What Is Essay Word Count?

✍️ Word Count for Various Essays

• ✂️ Tips to Shorten an Essay

🔗 References

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

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

Why are they important?

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

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

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

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

✂️ 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

How-To Geek

How to insert a word count into your word document.

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Word tracks certain summary information about documents, such as the number of words in a document. If you want to display the number of words contained in your document in the document itself that you can quickly update, this is easily accomplished.

To insert a word count in your document, place the cursor at the point in the document where you want to insert the word count and click the “Insert” tab.

In the “Text” section of the “Insert” tab, click the “Quick Parts” button. If your Word window is not wide enough to display “Quick Parts” next to the appropriate button, click the button with the icon to which the mouse cursor is pointing in the following image.

Select “Field” from the drop-down menu.

On the “Field” dialog box, select “Document Information” from the “Categories” drop-down box.

Click on “NumWords” in the “Field names” list on the left.

The “Format” and “Numeric format” lists allow you to specify the format for the field being inserted. However, for the number of words, you don’t need to apply any formatting so don’t select anything from those lists. Click “OK” to insert the field into the document.

The number of words in your document is inserted at the cursor. Once you add or delete words in your document, you can update the word count by right-clicking on the word count number, and selecting “Update Field” from the popup menu.

NOTE: When the cursor is in word count number, the number is highlighted in gray because the number is a field.

If you have other fields in your document you want to update, you can update all of them at once by pressing "Ctrl + A" to select the whole document (minus any headers, footers, footnotes, or endnotes) and then pressing "F9". To update fields in headers, footers, footnotes, and endnotes, you must open those parts of the document and update the fields in them separately.

You can also insert other document properties into your Word document, including built-in and custom properties .

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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

Why is Word Count Important (How to Manage Assignment Paper Length)

Word count is a crucial factor in writing projects which affects how much time you are going to need to complete it in time. It is a grading criterion which is entirely within the student’s control and failure to stay within the usual allowance range of 10% can result in penalties to the final grade. To put it another way, word count guidelines are there to help students with their assignments, so it important to always pay attention to this!

Understanding the main purpose for assigning a specific limit on the number of words in an assignment should help you write a better paper that stays on track and help you avoid unnecessary filler content. Given the importance of this factor, we will be covering this in more depth first, before moving on to tips on how to manage the word count and make the paper longer or shorter, as per your requirement.

Table of Contents

What is the purpose of word counts for an assignment?

1.       word count guidelines clarify the level of detail which is being expected.

Word counts are one of the most important clues that teachers give to students to inform them what is expected of them in the assignment. We have covered in our guide on assignment structure that combining the word count with the grading criteria can easily give you a rough outline and draft for your paper, which will then make the actual writing work much easier. You can also use our assignment time calculator to estimate roughly how long you will need.

If you end up writing a fair bit more or less than the stated guideline, it should be an indication for you that you have either:

• not collected your thoughts properly
• not phrased your points in the right way
• not put everything together into a concise and coherent paper

.. or a combination of these factors.

If you ever face a situation in which you are really struggling to meet the word count, then it is time for some introspection and reflection on what you have written compared to what you have learnt in your coursework. This is because word count guideline and limits are anything but random – you can be sure that they’ve been chosen after careful consideration so try not to make unfounded assumptions that ‘there must be a mistake with the word given’!

To summarize, the main issue that teachers have with shorter papers isn’t actually that they didn’t meet the word count – it’s the fact that a paper with a lower word count is likely to be lower in quality with weaker points which have not been fully substantiated to the extent required.

2.       Word count limits emphasize the need to be precise and concise

Limits on the number of words allowed in a paper also pushes students towards being precise in the points that they choose to include in their assignment and present it in a concise manner. Without word counts, students will have a hard time by determining themselves how much content needs to go into each section or subsection.

So, without word counts, some students may potentially struggle to write a good paper and up with content which is too thin (as they do not know what is being expected of them). Other students may wander all over the place and end up writing too much unnecessarily. Hence, they are important guidelines that help stress the importance of quantity over quality – writing a lot doesn’t necessarily mean that we’ve written good content!

3.       Word count requirements fairness in grading of all students

Another point worth considering is that word counts help make the grading scale uniform and standardized for all students – it levels the playing field by ensuring that all students make the points which they need to within the same number of words. Going one step further, word count guidelines can also be standardized across different courses, modules, universities and even countries, making the odds even for all students everywhere (well, at least in theory).

What is the purpose of word count allowance?

When a teacher specifies the word count for an assignment, they are not going to scrutinize whether you have stopped a few words short or went a few words over. What they’re trying to convey to you is that to answer the assignment requirement properly, you will roughly need the number of words that they have specified to cover all necessary points concisely.

Hence, you will almost always have a word count allowance for your assignments since the actual number specified is only intended to be a ballpark figure to guide you on the level of detail required. The standard allowance is usually 10% plus or minus so if your assignment length has been specified as 2,000 words, it would fine to turn in a paper that ranges from 1,800 words to 2,200 words. If the word count allowance was specified as 5% instead, then would mean that your paper needs to between 1,900 words to 2,100 words in length.

On the other hand, if there is no specific note about such an allowance range in the assignment requirements file, try to check the module outline file since it may be given there instead. Should that not give you any result, then check the university guidelines and see if you can find it mentioned there. If you don’t have any luck with that either, then you should probably just ask your teacher directly. In any case, try not to make an assumption on the word count allowance.

How to boost word count and make an essay paper longer

For some students, word counts are things to be dreaded and they may often find themselves falling short of the minimum word count which has been specified. It doesn’t have to be all that hard! You can follow these tips to make your essay paper longer easily in an organic way that doesn’t make your teacher suspect that you’ve resorted to some cheap tricks to achieve this.

1.       Add critical analysis to paraphrased points

A crucial part of academic assignment writing is to draw on points mentioned in other credible sources like peer-reviewed journal articles or trustworthy news outlets. When doing this, paraphrasing is an extremely important skills that you need to develop to avoid plagiarism. Even if you are providing the source from where you have taken an idea, we generally advise not to quote directly unless unavoidable. We have dedicated guide for how to effectively paraphrase ideas from other sources in your words and this guide includes some helpful tips on how to get better at this skill.

When paraphrasing content from other sources, you should always add a critical analysis of the point which you are referencing. Apart from increasing the word count of you paper, this helps you tick another checkbox. Teachers expect to see you engage with the material taken from a credible source and this approach would be proof of that.

To show you an example of how you could do this, you can see the table below. We follow a few steps to end up with more than twice the number of words that we started out with.

• We start with a source text from Porter’s well-known paper on competitive forces . We have chosen a section of the paper which has 54 words in total.
• Building on this, we can paraphrase this part in our own words , while giving the reference for the source text as per APA format and we end up writing 39 words for this.
• Lastly, we could just add a couple of lines after our paraphrased sentence to explain what we understood from th e source material. This would help the teacher realize that we are not just regurgitating information from other places. It signals to them that we have actually understood the points and concepts being discussed. This adds another 73 words to our total count.

So, by paraphrasing a source text of 54 words, we ended up doubling that (39+73 = 112 words ) with relatively little effort. For more information on this, check out our dedicated guide on how to critically analyze and engage with existing literature.

2.       Add relevant examples to support your points

You can also make use of examples to add more credibility to the points that you are trying to make. This also comes with the benefit of informing your teacher that you were able to grasp the idea or concept better as you were able to match it to a suitable example. So, taking the same scenario as above regarding competitive forces, we can then add another sentence at the end like this:

In this way, we’ve added another 94 words on top of the 112 from earlier, so we have now added around 206 words to the paper. To put this in context, if this were part of a 2,000-word paper, we have effectively written around 10% of the required word count fairly easily. To identify how and where you can add examples organically, you may need to skim over your essay a couple of times and try to get a feel for which parts could use an example or two.

3.       Include a secondary supporting reference for your point

If you feel it is appropriate, you can also include an additional point from a different source which supports the previous statement and adds further weight to the message which you are trying to convey. Having too many references is better than having too few references. However, you should try to find a middle ground and make sure to follow up referenced points with critical analysis so that your entire paper isn’t just a mix of views of others with no originality to the points you are making.

4.       Include facts, figures, or other statistical data

This would be done in a similar way to the previous suggestion in which you can provide some facts and figures from reliable sources to support the information you have just presented. You could potentially also do it the other way around by starting with a stat or figure and explaining it in your own words.

5.       Try to balance your points with alternate viewpoints (and address them)

This is the opposite of the above suggestion. You can also try to increase the words in your assignment in an organic way by presenting some opposing arguments and then trying to take a stance on which seems more appropriate or suitable to the topic of your essay. For nearly every single point that you make, there are likely to be differing viewpoints from others – you have to pick your battles though as inserting conflicting viewpoints for every single statement would make your paper dry and monotonous.

If you do use this option, then you have to make sure that you address the opposing viewpoints with suitable counterarguments and why one view is superior to the other.

6.       Always add labels for figures and tables

Labels for figures and tables are typically included in the word count of assignments unless otherwise specified. There’s no good reason NOT to use labels for each and every figure and table which you include in paper. Apart from being a standard requirement in many academic formats/styles, it is a fairly easy way to increase the word count of your paper, so it’s a win-win to always do this.

7.       Make proper use of transition (connecting) words

You can also make use of transition and connecting words like the following to increase your word count while also creating a coherent flow between your points.

• Words that help build on ideas: ‘Additionally’, ‘Moreover’, ‘Furthermore’, ‘In fact’
• Words that imply sequence or chronology: ‘Thereafter’, ‘Subsequently’
• Words indicating inference: ‘Therefore’, ‘Hence’, ‘Thus’, ‘As a result’ ‘Consequently’
• Words indicating similarity: ‘Similarly’, ‘Likewise’
• Words indicating contrast in ideas: ‘Although’, ‘Even though’, ‘However’, ‘Nevertheless’, ‘In contrast’, ‘On one hand’ (which is paired with ‘while on the other hand’), ‘From another perspective’, ‘Regardless’,
• Words for giving examples: ‘For instance’, ‘For example’, ‘As an example’
• Words for summarizing ideas: ‘In other words’, ‘In conclusion’, ‘Ultimately’
• Words that can help when paraphrasing: ‘According to’, ‘As mentioned/stated/claimed by’, ‘In their paper’

8.       Check the assignment requirements one more time

If you have done all the suggestions above and still find that you are short of the word count and are lacking ideas on how to expand further, then you should take a look at the assignment requirements again. Perhaps there could be some keywords in there for ideas, concepts or information that are expected, which you may have potentially forgotten or overlooked in the heat of writing the assignment.

9.       Avoid tricks like adjusting font and margins

Most students have a natural tendency to ‘under-write’ thinking they have a covered a topic or point adequately in a smaller number of words than are needed. However, if you find yourself trying to increase the word count of your paper using unnecessary phrases then you should realize with your intuition that you have not articulated your thoughts adequately. This means that the quality of your essay isn’t likely to be all that good and so you’re going to end up with a lower grade.

Another reason why you should avoid desperate tricks like using some large typeface fonts or adjusting the margins is because they’re fairly obvious to spot to a trained eye. You might not notice it, given your relative inexperience, but you can bet that your teachers would have seen almost all the plays in the book and spot weird formats in an instant.

As an example, a common trick that some students do is to add in some unnecessary words between some paragraphs and set the font color to white. The algorithm of some plagiarism detection software have been beefed up in recent times to detect this trick and automatically places a markup on such things that are out of the ordinary for teachers to review manually. In other instances, teachers who can spot that the content seems to be lacking compared to the word count specified can download the Word version of your submitted file, change the formatting details to standard style (which includes the font color) and detect this trick easily enough.

10.   Avoid unnecessary filler and fluff

You should be careful not to add in fluff material which would make it very difficult for teachers to get the gist of the points that you are trying to make. Remember, most of your teachers have probably been ‘in the game’ for a long time now and are sure to have come across a wide variety of students and the tactics that they use to pad their paper and reach the word count. As a result, it is usually very easy for them to tell that you have just filled your paper low quality content to meet the required word count.

How to shorten an essay paper?

There are going to be other times when you will want to cut down the length of your paper as you may have already exceeded the word count, which is typically the case for those writing long thesis or dissertations. If you are in a position where you have gone significantly over the word count and beyond the allowance range, then it means that you probably haven’t narrowed down or focused on just the most important and relevant points.

You can reduce your word count by avoiding things like repeating long form of words which are often represented by commonly used abbreviations and acronyms. This includes topics like like Human Resources Management (HRM) or concepts like Resource Based View (RBV). The first time that you use these kinds of words in your paper, you should mention the full form and include the abbreviation or acronym in brackets. Thereafter, you can continue using the shortened form for the rest of your paper.

How many words to write if word count is not specified?

If the necessary word count has not been mentioned for an assignment, then you should try to consider some other cues in the assignment requirements files. We have a guide on the standard word count weights (percentages) – this can help plan how many words to allocate to each section and then add them all up.

What is included in the assignment word count?

1.       in-text references.

In-text references are included in the word count, which is typically why some referencing formats specify the use of the phrase ‘et al.’ (which is derived from the Latin word for ‘and others’) when the source you are citing has multiple authors. In some formats like APA, you should use this phrase if there are more than 2 authors, while in another format like Harvard, you only need to use this when citing works with more than 3 authors.

2.       Labels for tables and figures

What is not included in the assignment word count, 1.       abstract / executive summary, 2.       table of contents, 3.       footnotes, 4.       references / bibliography, 5.       appendix, suggested word counts.

Around 200-300 words should be sufficient for Abstract / Executive Summary.

2.       Introduction and conclusions

Typically, you do not want to exceed 10% of the overall word count for introduction and conclusions. If the paper that you are writing is a thesis or a dissertation of 10,000 words or more, then you can even go as low as 5% of the overall word count but use your own judgement for the optimal length of these section. Most importantly, try to check the weights assigned to these sections in the scoring rubric and make sure to match that.

3.       Personal Statement

Other misconceptions about word count.

The counter for words in an MS Word document as well as most plagiarism detection software like Turnitin to which you submit your assignment does not include the spacing between words in the overall word count. These are counted under the separate counter for ‘Characters (with spaces)’.

The impact of different referencing styles on word count

This was much more important in the past, when assignment papers were almost always submitted as hard copies and, in these cases, the referencing format and style had a big impact on whether you had met the word count of your essay or not.

This is because each of the standard styles had their specific guidelines for page margins, the spacing between text, the specific font to be used and its size and other similar factors. If you had followed these correctly, teachers would be able to roughly gauge the total number of words that you have written just by looking at the number of pages.

Now, you’re probably thinking that counting the exact number of words on a hard copy assignment, especially if it is long, is impractical as it would take a long time. We can set you straight on that – teachers have an easy trick to get a rough estimation of the number of words in your paper.

• They would start by picking a few random lines in your page and counting the number of words in each of them to get an average estimation of the words per line
• They would then count the number of lines on a single page
• Finally, they can just multiply that by the total number of pages excluding the standard parts which are not included such as table of contents, references section etc.

So, do not try to be a wise ass – your teachers have been doing this for so long that it is almost second nature for them to tell if a student has met the word count, and whether they have used any obvious tricks to make it seem like their paper is long than it is.

The key differences in different formatting styles are summarized below to help you get a better understanding of this point.

Hu B,. Hu, M., Yang. Y. (2016). Open or closed? Technology sharing, supplier investment, and competition.  Manufacturing Service Operations Management .

Porter, M. E. (1979). How Competitive Forces Shape Strategy. Harvard Business Review [Online]. Available from: https://hbr.org/1979/03/how-competitive-forces-shape-strategy [Accessed 14 November 2021]

Reuters (2019). De Beers curbs diamond supply as earnings drop. Reuters [Online]. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-anglo-results-debeers/de-beers-curbs-diamond-supply-as-earnings-drop-idUSKCN1UK1WB [Accessed 13 November 2021]

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10 Tricks to Reduce Your Word Count in Academic Writing

One of the most agonizing parts of academic writing is cutting down your hard-won draft to meet a page, word, or character limit. This process can be even more stressful when you’re under pressure to meet a deadline just hours away.

Writing simply is the key to clear and concise content. But good writing is a craft that cannot be mastered within a short window before a deadline.

When you have little time to spare, small changes to your text can add up to the space you need. Here are a few simple tricks you can use to quickly tighten your text and meet the limit .

1.    Delete "The"

You can often omit the word “the” from your text without losing any meaning.

Original: The clarity of your writing depends on both the content and the style. (13 words, 70 characters)

Revised: The clarity of your writing depends on both content and style. (11 words, 62 characters) 

2. Erase “That”

Similarly, the word “that” is often overused in writing and can be deleted with ease.

Original: We found that cells that express the mutated protein migrate across the barrier faster than wild-type cells. (17 words, 108 characters)

Revised: We found cells expressing the mutated protein migrated across the barrier faster than wild-type cells. (15 words, 102 characters) 

3. Remove Adverbs and Adjectives

Adverbs modify verbs, and adjectives modify nouns. But good words don’t need modifying.

Most adverbs and adjectives weaken strong verbs and nouns, which weaken the power of your writing. Omit unnecessary adverbs and adjectives to make your writing stronger and more concise.

Original: The entire treatment lasted for four days, and the drug greatly improved the health of patients. (16 words, 96 characters)

Revised: The treatment lasted for four days, and the drug improved the health of patients. (14 words, 81 characters)

4. Use Shorter Words

Resist the temptation to use long words where short ones will do . Instead of investigate , facilitate , or utilize , simply use study , help , or use .

Original: We investigated whether utilizing the drug would facilitate improvements in health. (11 words, 83 characters)

Revised: We studied whether using the drug would help improve health. (10 words, 60 characters)

5. Trim Wordy Phrases

Clear out the clutter in your writing. Look for needless words you can delete and lengthy phrases you can shorten .

Original: During the course of the study , the majority of cells died in response to treatment with the drug. (18 words, 98 characters)

Revised: During the study , most cells died after treatment with the drug. (11 words, 64 characters)

6. Choose Active Voice

Active voice uses less words than passive voice . And active voice makes your writing clearer and more compelling, helping you tell a powerful story .

Passive: The samples were collected by the researcher. (7 words, 45 characters)

Active: The researcher collected the samples. (5 words, 37 characters)   

7. Revise Needless Transitions

Transitions can help maintain the flow of your writing —and make your reader’s job easy . But some transitions ( e.g. , indeed , then , furthermore ) can be deleted with ease.

Original: Indeed , we discovered that the mutated protein affected heart function. (10 words, 71 characters) 

Revised: We discovered that the mutated protein affected heart function. (9 words, 63 characters)

8. Eliminate Conjunctions

Conjunctions ( e.g., and , or , but , however ) connect two independent statements that can often be rewritten as two separate sentences.

Original: Patients treated with drug X had no symptoms after 3 days, and patients treated with drug Y had no symptoms after 7 days. (23 words, 121 characters)

Revised: Patients treated with drug X had no symptoms after 3 days. Patients treated with drug Y had no symptoms after 7 days. (22 words, 117 characters)

9. Rewrite Running Starts

Sometimes writers like to get a head start on a sentence by using phrases such as “there are,” “it is,” and “the fact that.” These phrases can be rewritten to shorten your text and make your writing more direct and concise.

Original: It has been reported that the cells migrate faster when treated with the drug. (14 words, 78 characters)

Revised: The cells migrate faster when treated with the drug. (9 words, 52 characters)

10. Target Paragraphs with Widows and Orphans

When dealing with page limits, a great trick to gaining an entire line is attacking paragraphs with “dangling words,” also known as widows or orphans .

A widow is a lone word or short group of words that appears at the bottom of a paragraph, column, or page. An orphan is a similar unwanted word or short group of words that appears at the top of a page.

Look for paragraphs with just a few words at the end and focus on how you can shorten them to gain an extra line of space.

Bottom Line: Cut the Clutter

One of the greatest challenges in writing is cutting words. But there is a simple rule you can follow: make sure the words you use add meaning. If you can remove words without losing the importance of the statement, delete them.

Want to learn more ways to reduce your word count? Check out 10 More Ways to Reduce Your Word Count in Academic Writing.

Want cheat sheets to help you reduce your word count? Get access to our free writing toolkit!

Crystal is an editor, educator, coach, and speaker who helps scientists and clinicians communicate with clear, concise, and compelling writing. You can follow her on LinkedIn .

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What counts as a word when dealing with a word limit?

I am trying to determine if it will be feasible to revise a manuscript for a journal that has a 6500 word limit. Currently, the manuscript is between 7500 and 8000 words long, depending on how I count words. However, it is not clear which of the following words will count toward my word count (in decreasing order of word count):

• Figure and table legends
• Math equations
• Section headings

Which of these uses count toward a word limit? Are there general rules for which words count toward a word limit?

Bonus: how strict are editors with word limits?

• technical-writing
• scientific-publishing

First of all, you should check and see if they have any guidelines posted that will help you to be certain that you stay within their listed range. If they don't have anything listed, then you could send them an inquiry to try to find out.

• Generally, the word count would not include the title page, if you have one.
• Words used in tables or graphs, including the legends, would not normnally be included.
• If you use abstracts as part of the body of your material, then they would be included.
• Citations, on the other hand, would not.
• If the math equations constitute any portion of your overall content, then they would be included.
• Section headings should be included.
• When you mention numbers, I assume you mean numbers that are used as part of your formulas or equations, in which case they would be included.

If you make use of an appendix or a table of contents, then neither of those would be included in your word count. I would recommend creating a second copy of your document and removing the items that would NOT be included and see what your word processor comes up with for the word count. That would probably put you pretty close to where you need to be.

As far as editors,it just depends. Some may be flexible, especially if the content warrants it. Others, however, set limits as a hard and fast rule and are not willing to concede and additional space at all.

• thank you for the advice. I wanted to ask here first before bothering the editor with a naive question. The numbers I was curious about are in the text. –  David LeBauer Commented Sep 6, 2011 at 18:00
• In that case, your numbers would inded count. –  Steven Drennon Commented Sep 6, 2011 at 18:08

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I’m A Surgeon. I’m Also Child-Free — And 6 Words From A Colleague About My Life Left Me Stunned.

Guest Writer

I was sitting with a group of my colleagues in a physicians’ meeting, hammering out policy changes and standards for patient care. The conversation wound down as we neared the end of the workday, and chatter shifted from business to our weekend plans. Others in the group shared their family plans for kid’s activities and dance recitals. I shared that I was going to Las Vegas.

“It’s because she doesn’t have kids,” one of the doctors said. Those six words fell out of his mouth with little effort and hung in the middle of the room in the hospital where I had worked for nine years.

Laughter broke the silence, and the conversation moved back to the business at hand. People packed up to leave, but I kept turning over his words, which felt big and heavy.

My reproductive choices had been casually brought up and then discarded in the middle of our otherwise collegial conversation. In an instant, my joy had been made small. My child-free life was the butt of a joke.

As a woman in my 40s, I was no stranger to unsolicited comments about my choice not to have kids. Since these judgments were familiar to me, I usually shrugged them off, but this moment hit differently. Over the next few days, I pondered the tone of my colleague’s words and what they implied. Did he mean that because I didn’t have children, I didn’t have any responsibilities at all, so of course I could run off to party in Vegas?

I’ve frequently encountered the notion that a woman without kids is somehow absolved of all life’s burdens and efforts. A lack of children, apparently, is the only reason I can have fun. Sure, there are perks to not having kids, but the assumption that my autonomy comes without the normal weight of human experience is flawed. As an academic surgeon at a major medical hospital, I have plenty of responsibilities. I also have people I care for outside of work and many who rely on me. My free time is filled with travel, friends and so much love. My life has incredible value. So why, to the world, isn’t my life enough?

“When a woman can’t have kids she is often portrayed as sad and damaged, but if she simply won’t, she is either deluded, destined to regret it, or written off as a cold hearted, narcissistic, and career obsessed,” Ruby Warrington writes in her book, “Women without Kids.” Though I have an advanced educational degree, a house and a life partner, I have often felt the need to minimize or defend my life choices to mere acquaintances. Even more frustrating, when I am frank about the fact that I don’t want to have kids, I have been made to feel selfish or warned I will regret my choices. I have been given multiple warnings that my career will never be as fulfilling as motherhood — that my life, in general, could never be “full” without children.

With every unsolicited comment made to me over the years, the lens through which the world sees my life has been made increasingly clear: A woman’s worth is based solely on her willingness to reproduce — not on her intelligence, her work or her contributions to society. My ability to perform lifesaving surgery, my community, my family and all my other aspirations — seem to count for little when I answer “no” to having kids.

I’ve tried to explain the way I am perceived by my women friends with children, some of whom are also professionals in high-powered fields. But even in these circles of sisterhood, I have found it hard to convey the unique perception women without kids face.

“I’m really sorry that I talk about my kids so much,” one friend responded after I tried to explain the static I heard from others when stating that I would not have kids. I was so confused and painfully aware of the huge disconnect between us at that moment. While I was attempting to detail the blanket judgment by society on women without children — and how much I have struggled to overcome other people’s assumptions that I must be distraught about the life I so enjoy or the idea that my freedom is somehow conditional and temporary — the conversation with my friend had apparently only aroused guilt in her for the many times she shared sweet memories or minor complaints with me about her kids. She couldn’t understand that her life — her choice — did not make me sad. My comments weren’t about her life. They were about mine.

Once, at a meeting about improving the workplace for women, I asked a group to identify what else, outside of pregnancy and motherhood, we could work on to help advocate for all professional women in the hospital. The responses were empty and confused. What other issues could there be, they wondered.

Over time, I’ve come to believe that this singular maternal focus for progress and improved support in the workplace is isolating and narrow. In the medical field especially, while much has been written about the working mother’s perspective and the lack of support she is likely to receive — all true and worthy of our collective attention — there are so many other issues women face in the workplace that are minimized as a result of beating this single drum. What about pay differences, delayed promotion and professional advancement, and lack of adequate support and mentorship for all women in the workplace? The sole focus for the advancement of women professionals seems to be not increasing their success professionally but instead how to create boundaries with work to get them back to their “true” calling and purpose: motherhood.

Conversations about my reproductive life have come in all shapes and sizes, but the most common one has been with both men and women who have tried to convince me that I am wrong. I would be “so good” at it, they say, especially given that I work with children every day.

At 43, I’ve been told numerous times it’s not “too late” to become a mother. Someone once even tried to convince me to have children by telling me that I wouldn’t ever experience the depth of love that exists in the world without them. While I applaud the scientific advances that exist that allow women who want to have children later in life to do so, for those of us who don’t, the data that shows these later pregnancies are complex are worth more than a passing glance. Women physicians are also more likely to delay childbearing, and they experience increased infertility , miscarriage and pregnancy complications at higher rates when compared to the general public. None of these aspects of childbearing ever seem to factor into conversations with people who prefer to think I just need some “convincing,” nor does the idea that, perhaps, I have done my research and made an informed and confident decision.

The truth is I didn’t always feel sure I didn’t want kids. There was a time when I wanted to be a mother, a fact I usually keep to myself for fear that others will interpret this information as hard evidence for the secret, closeted uncertainty I must have about not having kids.

But I will tell you this: I once thought a bright light would flip on in my head and heart, and I would know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I wanted to be a mother, like the world said I would. That light did turn on a few times but was never quite as radiant as I expected. Then, in 2020, I watched as the world was ravaged by COVID-19, and I recommitted myself to my work, which had always given my life so much meaning. As I witnessed the rise of increasingly hostile policies around women’s bodies and choices, I also remembered that all these interactions I had with friends, strangers and loved ones were the result of a larger cultural belief about the path a woman’s life should take, rather than about what she wants. And when I really thought long and hard about what I wanted for my life, rather than what I was told would give it the “most” value, the light switched off for good.

Caitlin A. Smith is a surgeon and writer in the Pacific Northwest. Her personal essays on surgical training and experiences have appeared on Doximity. She is currently writing her first book, a firsthand account about life and experiences of women in medicine. Find her at @miseducationofaknife on Instagram and Substack .

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Sports. Honestly. Since 2011

Orioles claim former marlins outfielder.

• August 28, 2024

Vanessa Serrao

The Baltimore Orioles have claimed Miami Marlins outfielder Forrest Wall and designated veteran reliever Dillon Tate for assignment. In 2022, Tate was recognized as a solid reliever for the Orioles. But since landing on the IL, he hasn’t been able to pitch as much at the big-league level. On August 26th, the Marlins decided to designate Wall for assignment. Wall has also played for the Atlanta Braves. The Orioles have claimed him off waivers and added a player whose strong suit is his speed.

#Orioles get a guy with 93rd percentile sprint speed… https://t.co/gya5pQVYOy — MLB Trade Rumors (@mlbtraderumors) August 28, 2024

Former Marlins Outfielder Claimed off Waivers by Orioles

What wall brings to the table.

The Orioles, who are in second place in the AL East, one game behind the New York Yankees, have boosted their roster. They have added a lefty bat and a player ranked in the 93rd percentile regarding sprint speed. The 28-year-old is also a former first-round pick drafted by the Colorado Rockies in 2014. The Orioles knew what they were doing when they claimed him off waivers. The Winter Park, Florida-born outfielder has showcased impressive numbers in Triple-A. The speedster has stolen 16 bases, along with a .380 on-base percentage.

With the Orioles claiming him off waivers, they can utilize his speed in the postseason. The Orioles want to make use of Wall’s healthy status with Heston Kjerstad , who is still recovering from a concussion. They have done their homework with their lack of speed on their roster; Wall is a solid pickup that will provide them with the much-needed boost of speed that they require. The Orioles have optioned Wall to Triple-A Norfolk, the only outfielder not injured. With his speed, Wall could also be put in as a pinch runner in critical situations. Wall is also an excellent player to put in against right-handed pitchers, as he has showcased success against them. Wall hasn’t only played in the outfield, but he also has experience playing as an infielder at second base.

Main Photo Credits: Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports

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Words Used at the Democratic and Republican National Conventions

By Jonathan Corum

Speakers at the Democratic National Convention used more than 109,000 words over four days in Chicago this week. Their choice of words and phrases contrasts the themes and ideas of last month’s Republican National Convention .

Excluding common and routine words, the most frequently spoken words at the Democratic convention were:

A similar number of words were spoken at the Republican convention in Milwaukee last month, with speakers using more than 110,000 words over four days. The most common were:

Words From Notable Speakers

Former President Donald J. Trump’s acceptance speech was longer and used more than three times as many words as Vice President Kamala Harris’s acceptance speech .

Circles show the number of times these keynote speakers used the following words.

Photographs by Mandel Ngan/AFP (Biden); Will Oliver/EPA, via Shutterstock (Walz); J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press (Harris) and Kenny Holston/The New York Times

Divided Words

Many words were spoken frequently at both conventions, including “ America ,” “ country ,” “ people ” and “ vote .” But the frequency of other words was less balanced.

Speakers at the Democratic convention leaned into words about liberty and patriotism , mentioning “ freedom ” 227 times compared with 67 times at the Republican convention. Words like “ woman ,” “ joy ” and “ weird ” were also used more often by Democratic speakers.

Woman, women

Assassin(ation)

Republican speakers mentioned “ inflation ” seven times as often as Democrats, and both “ God ” and the price of “ groceries ” three times as often. Republicans used the word “ assassination ” or “ assassin ” 18 times, but the word was heard only once at the Democratic convention, and it was not a reference to the sniper attack on Mr. Trump in July.

Missing Words

Some words and phrases that appear in transcripts of the Democratic convention but not at all in Republican transcripts include “ abortion ,” “ Project 2025 ” and “ convicted felon .”

Project 2025

Not going back

Convicted felon

Build the wall

Radical left

Indoctrination

School choice

Illegal aliens

In contrast, some words from the Republican convention that were not heard this week in Chicago include “ indoctrination ,” “ illegal aliens ” and “ invasion .”

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Browns DT Mike Hall Jr. expected to be placed on NFL Commissioner’s Exempt List after domestic violence charge

• Updated: Aug. 26, 2024, 10:07 p.m.
• | Published: Aug. 26, 2024, 10:23 a.m.

Cleveland Browns defensive tackle Mike Hall Jr. has been participating in all football activities since being charged with misdemeanor domestic violence in Avon. Joshua Gunter, cleveland.com

• Mary Kay Cabot, cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Browns rookie defensive tackle Mike Hall Jr., charged with domestic violence on Aug. 13 , is expected to be placed on the Commissioner’s Exempt List by Tuesday under the personal conduct policy.

The NFL launched its own investigation into Hall’s case, and can place him on the list while it gathers more information and allows the legal process to play out. A league spokesman declined to say if he’s been placed on it yet, but it’s expected to happen by the Tuesday 4 p.m. deadline to cut rosters to 53 players.

A player on the list does not count against the roster, and can’t participate in any team football activities.

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NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, who has jurisdiction over the list, can authorize it when a player is formally charged with:

1. a felony offense; or,

2. “a crime of violence, meaning that he is accused of having used physical force or a weapon to injure or threaten a person or animal, of having engaged in a sexual assault by force or against a person who was incapable of giving consent, or having engaged in other conduct that poses a genuine danger to the safety or well-being of another person. The formal charges may be in the form of an indictment by a grand jury, the filing of charges by a prosecutor, or an arraignment in a criminal court.”

A player can appeal his placement on the list.

Hall, 21, has been participating in all football activities since being charged with misdemeanor domestic violence in Avon. He’s attended all practices since then, and has played in the final two preseason games, against the Vikings and Seahawks.

If he’s placed on the list, he won’t count against the 53-man roster on Tuesday, and the Browns will continue to gather their own information and let the legal process play out. The league will then determine whether or not to suspend Hall, whose next court date is Sept. 10, two days after the opener against the Cowboys.

The NFL, which takes domestic violence very seriously, does not need a conviction to suspend a player under the policy. Former Browns running back Kareem Hunt, for instance, was suspended eight games for two separate altercations, including one involving a woman, despite no criminal charges. The league had video evidence of the incident with the woman, however.

Hall is accused of putting a gun to his fiancée’s head and threatening to kill her during an argument at the couple’s home on Monday night, Avon police said.

At his arraignment in Avon Municipal Court, Hall pleaded not guilty to one count of domestic violence. He was released from jail on a $10,000 personal bond after turning himself in earlier in the morning.

The incident occurred at a home that Hall shares with his fiancee and the mother of their 11-month son, Trey. His fiancee also has a daughter from a previous relationship.

“We just sit there and we pray for him,” receiver Elijah Moore said in the wake of the incident. “Life happens outside of football. We can just focus on what’s going on in the building and pray for him for whatever’s going on outside.”

Browns safety Rodney McLeod echoed that sentiment.

“We’re a team,” he said. “We’re a family. And we’re understanding that certain things are going to arise and take place and so you have to treat it as such. We’re all human beings and so for us we’re just trying to learn more about what took place and we will handle things accordingly.”

Quarterback Deshaun Watson said then that it wouldn’t be a distraction to the team.

“We’re all locked in practicing and that situation is going to get handled with the front office and we just got to keep focusing on what the main thing is,” he said

If you or a loved one has questions and needs to talk to a professional about gambling, call the Ohio Problem Gambling Helpline at 1-800-589-9966 or the National Council on Program Gambling Helpline (NCPG) at 1-800-522-4700 or visit 1800gambler.net for more information. 21+ and present in Ohio. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-Gambler.

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