Have you ever gone way past the word limit on an essay and then felt unsure about what to remove? I certainly have. Whether it’s because a prompt captured my interest or because I did not know how to capture my thoughts on paper in a way that I liked, writing over the word limit to me seems to be a common occurrence. As such, I have often needed to find ways to cut back my paper during the revision process. This blog post will focus on some techniques that you may find helpful when attempting to revise your essays to be within a word limit.
Highlight Repetition
The first place to start when revising down to a word limit is removing instances of repetition. That means taking out stuff that has already been said, whether it is the identical wording or the same idea. A level of repetition may indeed be beneficial to emphasize a point or connect the essay to a larger theme, but repeating oneself too much can be bad. This is especially true if it seems like you’re filibustering a topic or giving unnecessary essay padding to a reader. I recommend reading through your essay and highlighting areas that seem redundant. If a specific concept is brought up too often in the paper you may want to delete it to save room to introduce or expand new information.
Reorganize or Restructure
Similar to removing areas of redundancy, restructuring and reorganizing an essay may help cut back on the space needed to talk about a single idea. At first glance, this may seem like an odd suggestion because restructuring usually requires someone to write more to re-transition their paragraphs or ideas to their new location, but in some instances it can help. Perhaps an idea or quote you originally presented later in your paper is moved. In its new location, it can now be referenced instead of rewritten later in the document. As a result, fewer words are needed to explain it later on in the essay.
Rewrite long sentences
This may come naturally from reorganizing your essay, but rewriting long sentences can shorten your essay and may even improve its clarity. In some cases, long sentences may be confusing run-ons for readers. Breaking them up will increase the ability of the reader to comprehend what you are saying. Additionally, rewriting long sentences will help you keep your intended message while still eliminating a couple of extra words from your final essay. In the end, these few words may be all you need to stay in the bounds of your word limit.
Show Someone Else
Sometimes even after you’ve looked over your paper dozens of times and it feels like nothing else can be deleted, a friend is what you need. When hunting for unnecessary information yourself, everything may seem to be vital for having an audience understand the topic. As the writer, we may think that an extra phrase or sentence adds background knowledge or details that help to emphasize our point, but another person may not get why something there. In this case, maybe it’s time to examine the area again and decide if it helps the essay or if it should be left out. And if you can’t find a friend or family member who is willing to read your paper before the due date, feel free to schedule an appointment with a Writing Center tutor. We are always ready to help.
Good luck revising.
Contributed by: Alexi Misciagna, Writing Center intern
The Writing Corner 
Leave a comment