How to Shorten an Essay
How to Make Essays Shorter or Longer: Best Essay Length Tips
If your essay doesn’t meet the required word count or surpasses it significantly, there are strategies to add or remove content effectively while maintaining the quality of your writing. Let’s explore some techniques to make your essays longer or shorter as necessary.
How to Shorten an Essay
Conversely, if your essay is too long, there are effective ways to reduce your word count without sacrificing the quality of your content:
- Choose the active voice over the passive voice: Sentences written in the active voice tend to be more concise and direct than those in the passive voice.
- Eliminate unnecessary transition words: While transitions can improve the flow of your essay, unnecessary ones can inflate your word count. Carefully review your transitions to ensure each one is needed.
- Cut redundant adjectives and adverbs: Overusing adjectives and adverbs can lead to wordiness. Keep only those that are necessary for conveying your message.
- Remove superfluous phrases: Certain phrases, often called “throat clearers,” add little to no value to your essay. Examples include “it’s important to note that…” or “it should be remembered that….” Most of the time, these can be eliminated without affecting your message.
- Delete the word ‘that’ where possible: The word “that” is often unnecessary and can be removed from sentences without changing the meaning.
