how to reduce words in an essay

Reduce Word Count Generator

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

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

⭐️ Word Count Reducer: the Benefits

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

🖇️ References

✒️ Reduce Word Count Generator: What Is It?

Cut-Down-Word-Count Generator is a free online tool that summarizes texts and reduces sentence and word count. It cuts out unnecessary words , phrases, and sentences but doesn't change the sense of a text. This is a helpful instrument for students, journalists, and other people who work with loads of written information.

Besides reducing your writing, you can also use the tool to summarize books, short novels, and articles on any topic. Artificial intelligence finds keywords and decides which sentences and words are the most essential.

The tool is also fully compatible with Grammarly – you can edit the text on our page if you have an extension.

✂️ How to Cut Down Words in My Essay?

Automatic tools are great when you need to work with extensive text . However, consider manual summarizing for more flexibility.

Here's how to reduce your word count manually:

• Find and highlight the key messages . If you do it thoroughly, you will preserve the initial sense of a text.
• Cut out adjectives and adverbs . Many of them are just filler words that serve only the aesthetic features of a text. That is why you won't lose the main points if you delete them.
• Look for synonyms and synonymic collocations . To avoid plagiarism in academic papers, use synonyms when referring to another author's thoughts. And you will still need to give them a reference.
• Change structures . Simplifying sentences is another way to reduce the word count. Just rewrite lengthy and overcomplicated grammar.
• One paragraph – one idea . Each section should focus only on one idea or answer one question. Keep your paragraphs at 200-300 and sentences at 15-25 words.

Words and Phrases to Avoid

You will also need to work on vocabulary . In this part, we will explain how to avoid excessive wording and bring your essay to academic standards.

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

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

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

📝 Word Reducing Example

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

Original text

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

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

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

Reduced version:

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

Updated: Aug 24th, 2023

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

How to Make an Essay Longer or Shorter

Table of contents

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.

Give your writing extra polish Grammarly helps you communicate confidently Write with Grammarly

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

5 Best ways to Make an Essay Shorter

Chris Drew (PhD)

Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

Learn about our Editorial Process

If you are like me, you will find that you often struggle to stay within the word count in your essays.

In this article, I will show you exactly how to reduce your word count in your essay.

If you go over the word count in an essay, there are some strategies to make your essay shorter that make sure you keep your marks high and, sometimes, make them even higher.

The trick to going over the word count is seeing this as a positive: you now have the chance to only present your absolute best arguments.

This is a luxury other students in your class just don’t have. Reducing your word count is actually your chance to get even further ahead!

The best essays have no dull, irrelevant or sub-par content. Every paragraph is on-point and designed to win you more and more marks. When editing your work, keep this in mind.

Below, I introduce five important strategies that will help you to reduce your word count in a way that will actually increase your mark!

• Delete your three Worst Paragraphs. …
• Listen for Weaknesses using Google Translate or Microsoft Excel Read-out-Loud.
• Re-Read the Marking Criteria.
• Shorten Paragraphs over 7 Sentences Long.
• Delete Irrelevant Words.

1. Delete your three Worst Paragraphs

I usually aim to go over my word count intentionally so I can creatively make the essay shorter in a way that increases my marks.

If I go over the word count, I can look back over my piece and find my worst performing paragraphs and remove them.

This not only helps me to ensure I present my best work to the teacher, it also forces me to admit that some of my writing is better than others. It keeps me critical of myself and always aiming for improvement.

Removing the worst paragraphs of an essay also ensures there are less boring, pointless or unanalytical sections of an essay. It means that the paragraphs I submit are the best sections – and that the teacher will be impressed throughout the piece.

To assess which paragraphs are best and worst, I do the following things:

• Find the paragraphs with the least or worst references in them. Teachers will scan over a paragraph to assess the quality of the references in them. Paragraphs with minimal referencing, too much referencing of just one source, or only references to non-academic sources, instantly get marked down by the teacher before they’re even read. These are also often the paragraphs that provide the least depth of information. That is because finding sources to reference in a paragraph often leads to adding detail that the source has provided.
• Find the paragraphs that are least convincing. When I re-read my paragraphs, sometimes I just think ‘the argument here is my weakest’. These are the ones I want to cut: they’re ones that won’t get me top marks. Teachers will lower your marks for any paragraph that doesn’t shine – so you’re best removing it.
• Rate your paragraphs out of 10. I often tell my students to delete their three worst paragraphs and they say ‘I like all of them!’ In this case, you will have to get brutal with yourself: rate every paragraph out of 10. This will help you make the hard decisions about which to lose.
• Combine two paragraphs into one. Sometimes I really like one sentence from a paragraph but don’t like the rest. If this is the case for you, have a go at extracting those good sentences from one paragraph and placing them in another one. Then, you can delete the not-so-good sentences from the original paragraph. If you do this, make sure all paragraphs still cohere around one key point.

2. Listen for Weaknesses using Google Translate or Microsoft Excel Read-out-Loud

Google Translate and Microsoft Excel both have read-out-loud options. Google Translate’s option is the easiest.

For Google Translate, simply search for ‘Google Translate’ on your internet search engine (or just click here ) to access it. Then, copy and paste the text into the translate box and press the ‘listen’ button:

For Microsoft Excel, you will need paste the whole essay into any cell and then activate the read out loud option.

This procedure is somewhat more complicated than Google Translate, but if you want to give it a go, you can get instructions from the Microsoft help website and go from there

Hearing your paper read out loud back to you can help you to identify which paragraphs or sentences are worth removing.

Here are some things to keep in mind while listening to the computer read your paper out loud to you:

• If a sentence feels like it’s too long and exhausting to listen to, you can bet your teacher will be exhausted, too;
• If a phrase seems awkward to hear, it will be awkward to read;
• If the paper seems to have lost its focus on the topic area, you’ll need to remove that section or edit it to ensure it links to the essay question.

Pause the read-out-loud each time you find a sentence long or awkward and work on shortening it.

Too often, students think long, complicated sentences with fancy-sounding words will get them marks. In reality, it’s the opposite.

Being able to describe complex concepts in a very easy, understandable way is a skill all top students learn to master.

The read-out-loud option can help you to see your paper from your marker’s perspective. Use it to your advantage and listen out for anything that sounds complicated, confusing, awkward or exhausting. Delete it or shorten it immediately.

Remember, the goal is to have your paper sounding short and clear.

3. Re-Read the Marking Criteria

When editing your work, it is best to have the marking criteria by your side at all times.

The marking criteria is the list of things the teacher is looking for when marking your essay. Sometimes it’s also called:

• Marking Criteria;
• Indicative Content;
• Marking Rubric;
• Learning Outcomes

These should be easy to find. Go to your course webpage (usually on Blackboard, Canvas, or Moodle depending on your university) and find where your teacher has provided details about your assessment. If there are marking criteria, this is where it would be.

Sometimes, teachers don’t provide marking criteria.

If the teacher has simply provided an essay topic or question, that means the chances are they don’t have a list of outcomes they are marking your piece against. In these instances, you will have to simply rely on the essay question.

When you have your marking criteria or essay question by your side, read each paragraph then look back to your marking criteria.

You need to ask yourself:

• Does this paragraph directly answer the essay question or marking criteria?
• Does this paragraph add new information that helps me answer the essay question?

If your paragraph is not linked directly to the essay question or marking criteria, you’ve just identified the paragraph you need to remove to reduce your word count.

4. Shorten Paragraphs over 7 Sentences Long

Teachers hate long paragraphs. Teachers are just like you and me. They get bored very fast.

Chances are, any paragraph over 7 sentences isn’t being fully read. The teacher might have only read the first three sentences and made their judgement about your work based on those three sentences!

That’s why the ideal paragraph should be between 4 and 7 sentences long. This length helps to ensure:

• You haven’t gone off on a tangent;
• You have provided some explanatory or example sentences, but not too many;
• You have focused only on one key idea in the paragraph.

Your paragraphs that are more than 7 sentences long will be your low-hanging fruit for reducing your word count. Read through each of these paragraphs and try to find a way to reduce it to only 6 sentences. Find those sentences that seem to drag on or add nothing useful to your discussion and delete them.

By reducing all paragraphs over 7 sentences long, you won’t only bring your word count down. You will also make your essay much clearer and easy to read.

In this way, you’re both reducing your word count and increasing your mark.

5. Delete Irrelevant Words

Going through your paper and deleting irrelevant words can often save you several hundred words and could shorten your essay enough to get you back within the required word count.

Irrelevant words are words that are overly descriptive, redundant, too emotive, or in first-person. These words tend to get the same point across in far more words than necessary.

Furthermore, you will find that in removing overly descriptive, redundant, emotive and first-person words, your work will be much improved.

This is because academic writing is supposed to be formal and direct. Writing too many words can make your marker think you have poor communication skills and do not understand academic writing requirements.

Check below for examples of how to reduce your word count by removing overly descriptive, redundant, overly emotive and first-person language.

• Overly Descriptive: The amazing thing about the industrial revolution was that it brought about enormous changes to the ways people transported themselves and communicated across the globe in such a short amount of time.
• Alternative: The industrial revolution brought about rapid changes in transportation and communication globally.
• Redundant: The sum of five hundred dollars.
• Alternative: $500
• Redundant: It was quite unique.
• Alternative: It was unique.
• Redundant: It was triangular in shape.
• Alternative: It was triangular.
• Too Emotive: The disgusting thing about communism is that it refuses to allow poor everyday people to improve their lives by creating their own businesses that might flourish and really help our their communities, too!
• Alternative: Communism prevents citizens from starting businesses that can help bring people and their communities out of poverty.
• In first Person: In summary, I believe that the Industrial Revolution was good for the whole world.
• Alternative: In summary, the Industrial Revolution was good for the world.
• In first Person: This author argues that Thomas Edison was the greatest mind of his time.
• Alternative: Thomas Edison was the greatest mind of his time.

Making your essay shorter can sometimes be an absolute nightmare.

By following the above five steps, you can find easy ways to reduce your word count while also improving your work.

If you are an advanced or ambitious student, you might find that you always go over the word count. This isn’t necessarily a problem.

Try to look at going over the word count as a positive thing. Going over the word count means you have the freedom to only present your best work. You have the chance to delete anything that isn’t absolutely focused on gaining you marks.

In the end, your final submission will be cleaner, easier to read and easier to mark. Hopefully, this will see your marks growing even more!

Let’s review one more time the five top ways the best students reduce their word count in an essay:

Five Top Ways to Make an Essay Shorter

• Delete your three Worst Paragraphs
• Use Google Translate or Microsoft Excel to Read your Paper out Loud
• Re-Read the Marking Criteria
• Shorten Paragraphs over 6 Sentences Long
• Delete Irrelevant Words

• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 101 Hidden Talents Examples
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 15 Green Flags in a Relationship
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 15 Signs you're Burnt Out, Not Lazy
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 15 Toxic Things Parents Say to their Children

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10 More Ways to Reduce Your Word Count in Academic Writing

Many writers in academia struggle to meet word, page, or character limits. And this struggle is not limited to a particular field. Regardless of your expertise, you will face space limitations when writing a manuscript , grant proposal , abstract , or other document. 

Some writers enjoy the challenge of cutting text to meet a word limit (I certainly do). But others feel overwhelmed by this process. To help writers more easily cut words, I shared some tricks that I use to reduce the word count . This article has become overwhelmingly popular, so I have put together a list of even more ways to reduce the word count of your writing.

1.  Revise nominalizations

Many scientific and medical writers morph verbs and adjectives into nominalizations . When used intentionally, nominalizations can be a powerful tool for naming concepts or describing a complex idea in a few words, such as mutation or expression . But when used too often, nominalizations rob writing of energy and clarity, and they add words to your writing.

Original: We found that aggregation of the protein is dependent on the adenine mutation. (13 words, 78 characters)

Revised: We found that aggregation of the protein depends on the adenine mutation. (12 words, 73 characters)

2.  Reduce redundancy

Redundancies are instances in which a term or phrase unnecessarily repeats words or meanings. You can easily condense redundancies to reduce the length of your text—with the added bonus of also boosting clarity.

Original: Our results show that the protein is small in size and located near to the cell membrane. (17 words, 89 characters)

Revised: Our results show that the protein is small and located near the cell membrane. (14 words, 78 characters)

 3.  Cut filler words

Academic authors often use filler words in their writing that can be easily deleted. Phrases such as literature shows or studies have shown are often unnecessary, and they can disrupt the flow of your writing.

Original: Previous studies have shown that the protein is localized in the cytoplasm. (12 words, 75 characters)

Revised: The protein is localized in the cytoplasm. (7 words, 42 characters) 

4.  Delete references to previous content

Similar to filler words, you can easily shave a few words off your word count if you do not refer to previous content with phrases such as as described in the previous section .

Original: As mentioned in the previous paragraph , cognitive impairment affects memory function. (11 words, 85 characters)

Revised: Cognitive impairment affects memory function. (5 words, 45 characters)

5.  Replace “compared with”

When making comparisons in your writing, replace compared with with the word than or versus .

Original: Patients with diabetes had higher blood pressure compared with patients without diabetes. (12 words, 89 characters)

Revised: Patients with diabetes had higher blood pressure than patients without diabetes. (11 words, 80 characters)

Original: Resistance was greater in cells treated with the drug compared with cells left untreated. (14 words, 89 characters)

Revised: Resistance was greater in cells treated with the drug versus cells left untreated. (13 words, 82 characters)

6.  Delete spaces around mathematical operators

An easy way to reduce the word count is to remove the spaces between numbers and mathematical operators, such as =, <, or >.

Original: The trial classified participants as those with hypertension ( n = 65 ) or without hypertension ( n = 11 ). (17 words, 103 characters)

Revised: The trial classified participants as those with hypertension ( n=65 ) or without hypertension ( n=11 ). (13 words, 99 characters)

Note that some style guides require spaces around mathematical operators. Be sure to check the style guide of the journal or other agency to ensure you use the correct format.

7.  Remove “of”

The preposition of is often overused in formal writing. With some minor rephrasing, you can remove this proposition to shorten the text.

Original: The results showed higher levels of enzymes in the livers of mice. (12 words, 66 characters)

Revised: The results showed higher enzyme levels in mouse livers. (9 words, 56 characters)

Be careful that making this type of revision does not create noun strings , which are complex phrases that are difficult for readers to digest.

8.  Pluralise

In some cases, you can transform the singular form of a word into the plural form to reduce the word count. For example, you can use mice instead of a mouse , or students instead of a student .

Original: A patient with high cholesterol may also have hypertension.

Revised: Patients with high cholesterol may also have hypertension.

9.  Cut repetitions

Carefully reading through your text to cut out repetitions—text or content—is an easy way to quickly reduce your word count. This process is often more time-consuming than some of the other tricks. But it can also lead to more significant cuts than a word here and there.

Keep in mind that your brain may have a hard time recognizing repetitions in your writing. To make this process easier, you might try reading your document backward, sentence by sentence. This will help your mind more clearly see where there might be repetitions in your writing.  

10. Remove unnecessary content

One of the most difficult parts of editing your own writing is deleting text. You might feel attached to the way you worded something or to including a particular concept in your writing. But every word should do important work in your writing.

Carefully read your draft and think critically about each piece of information you include. Delete anything that is not critical to keep. If you find that you still have trouble identifying unnecessary content, reach out to a professional editor or trusted colleague for help. They have a fresh pair of eyes and an unbiased view that can help you find content that can be deleted.

Want to learn other ways to reduce word count? Check out the first post 10 Tricks 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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8 Proven Methods to Reduce Essay Word Count, AI Included

Table of contents

Yona Schnitzer

We all know how hard it is to write long essays with a minimum word count.

But sometimes, we're faced with the opposite challenge - keeping our essays under a maximum count.

How to Reduce Essay Word Count

1. Use an active voice instead of passive 2. Spot the fluff 3. Eliminate redundant words 4. Shorten wordy phrases 5. Stop using "What" and "There" as subjects 6. Drop the conjunctions 7. Forget the running starts 8. Use shorter words

Anyone who has ever tried covering complex topics with a maximum word ceiling can tell you that it can be challenging to reduce the word count without sacrificing the meaning or flow of your piece. 

In this article, I’ll give you 8 easy tips to help you reduce the word count in your essays without compromising the quality of your writing.

So, without further ado, here are 8 proven methods to reduce essay word count:

1. use an active voice instead of passive.

Using an active voice makes your writing more direct and concise. Passive voice often adds unnecessary words and can make your writing sound less engaging. For instance:

By switching to the passive voice, we’ve reduced our overall word count, while also making the sentence more engaging. 

Be sure to check out our full guide on how to nail the active voice .

2. Spot the fluff

One of the easiest ways to reduce word count is to identify any unnecessary or redundant information in your piece. Whether it’s drawn out introductions, or repetitive information, there’s always something that you can do without. Some tools, like Wordtune can actually help you identify areas where you can afford to shorten your writing, or even entire paragraphs that you can cut out.

3. Eliminate redundant words

Many sentences contain words that don't add any value to their meaning and can be easily removed. Very, for example, is a very common offender (see what I did there?). Instead of writing It was very cold outside, just write It was cold outside.

Here are some more examples of redundant words to help you get the idea:

4. Shorten wordy phrases

Another way to reduce word count is to identify and shorten wordy phrases. 

For example, instead of writing "due to the fact that, " you can write "because."  

Once you get in the habit of shortening your phrases, it will be like second nature. There are also some tools that can help you with that, like Wordtune's "shorten" feature, which can suggest shorter ways to write a sentence without sacrificing clarity.

5. Stop using "What" and "There" as subjects

Using "What" or "There" as the subject of a sentence will add unnecessary words to your writing. Instead, you can rephrase the sentence to make the subject more specific. 

For example: 

6. Drop the conjunctions

Conjunctions such as "and," "but," and "however" can be used to connect two independent statements, but they also add unnecessary words to your sentence. Instead of creating one, long sentence that is put together by conjunctions, try writing two separate sentences instead. Usually you’ll find that these end up using less words overall. 

For example:

This may seem like a small difference, but over the course of an entire paper, these small changes will really add up.

7. Forget the running starts

In writing, a "running start" refers to a sentence that begins with a word or phrase that does not provide any useful information and can be easily removed without affecting the meaning of the sentence. Common examples of running starts include words like "it," "there," "here," "this," and "that." These words often add unnecessary words to a sentence and can make the writing sound less direct and less engaging. Removing them can help to make your writing more concise and to the point.

Pro Tip: Wordtune's "Shorten" feature is great at eliminating running starts.

8. Use shorter words

Sometimes, an assignment has a page limit rather than a word count, in this instance, it can be worth it to identify words that can be replaced with shorter words of the same meaning. For example, instead of writing " utilize ," you can write " use ." 

Here are some other common words that can afford to lose a few letters:

Less is more

‍ If you’re looking for tips on how to INCREASE word count, check out this article . 

There are plenty of ways to reduce your word count without sacrificing the quality of your writing. Use these tips and tricks the next time you find yourself desperately trying to squeeze too many sentences onto one page. Keep in mind that whenever you shorten a text, you’re usually improving it by making it more readable and accessible to a larger audience. 

Remember, when it comes to writing - less, is usually more. 

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Reduced version length:

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

• Paste the text you want to shorten. It should be a maximum of 18,000 characters in one go.
• Indicate the length of the text you want to receive as a result of summarization.
• Click “Shorten the text” and get the results.
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✂️ How to Cut Words in an Essay?

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🖋 Essay Word Cutter Benefits

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

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

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

Remove Conjunctions

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

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

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

Eliminate Adverbs and Adjectives

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

Omit Unnecessary Articles – The/That

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

Decrease Wordy Phrases

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

Use an Active Voice

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

Choose Shorter Words and Avoid Unnecessary Transitions

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

For instance:

The word “utilize” can be replaced by use.

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

Thank you for reading this guide!

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

📍 Essay Word Cutter – FAQ

📍 how to cut words from an essay.

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

📍 How to reduce word count in an essay?

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

📍 How to check word count on Word?

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

Updated: Apr 9th, 2024

🔗 References

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

How to Cut Down Words in Your College Essay

It’s easy to let word count maximums dictate how you write. We are, after all, pretty well programmed to stay inside the boxes we are given and create boundaries for ourselves. (It’s the primary reason the 9 Dots Problem is hard for people, when it seems like it should be simple.)

But letting word count limit what and how you write frequently leads to weaker writing: writing that’s cautious, uninspired, playing it safe.

So in this guide, we’re going to talk about how to cut words from your college essay, and offer you a few clear, actionable strategies for how to cut words in your essay (which we’ll get to below), but before we get to those things, we want to set some context for when you should focus on word count and cutting, so you can write and cut more effectively.

So … when should I focus on cutting? 

Shouldn’t I be obsessed with word count?

When you’re writing your college essays, word count should be the last thing you worry about. Even if you’re feeling panicked at the sight of tiny spaces allowing only 150, 250, or 650 words, tell yourself during the drafting and revising phase that you’ll deal with it in due time. And by “due time,” we mean a few weeks before submitting your essays, which is ideally when you should get serious about deleting words.

So if you’re still early in the writing process, you’ll want to wait to actually use the strategies below.

What’s key early on (and really for most of the writing process) is getting interesting, immersive detail down on the (digital) page. Go ahead: get lost in the details. Trust your storytelling instincts. Forget about word count.

Because focusing on word count early in the writing process actually prevents you from getting into the content that you need. I can’t tell  you how many times I’ve seen essays that were just getting to the good stuff, but then didn’t, and when I asked why, the student said, “Well I was worried about word count, so…”

What you want to do first is show a lot—and then a lot more! 

(If you need a quick lesson on Show, Don’t Tell, with clear examples and tactics, conveniently, we have that right here .)

And focus on structure, too. That’s a great tactic, early on. Reverse outline, or begin with one. Write full scenes. Cut and paste, moving things around. Think about your reader, who they are, and what they see through your writing. 

(Also conveniently, if you need a quick lesson on who your audience is, you can check out that same Show Don’t Tell post. )

And don’t worry if your drafts are over the limit by hundreds of words. At CEG we’ve seen people take their essays from 4000 words to 650. We’d generally recommend never writing a 4000-word draft for your personal statement—that’s kinda’ nuts—but we want you to understand that if you’re only a few hundred words over, you’re fine.

In fact, you really can’t write a great essay that’s vulnerable, unique, and detailed unless you first give yourself permission to explore a variety of ideas and scenes. 

As an author who’s had to cut more than 20K words from her novels, I often tell my students: “Overwrite” first and “underwrite” later. Then, when you’re closing in on the last weeks of revision, you roll up your sleeves and jump in ready to remove. 

Or to paraphrase young adult author A.S. King , Bring your Holy $%#@ Chainsaw of Revision to this process, because revision is the sport. 

Wait … revision is a sport?

Yup! Note King says “the.” She makes it a game. With certain projects, she aims to cut 20% of every page in a novel she’s revising. 

With the college essay, the analogy might be 10-20 words a paragraph. And just reframing revision as a challenge to yourself to “get it right”—clearer, more compelling, more you—can be great motivation. 

Think about it this way: if you’re over by 200+ words, the math gets a little less intimidating if you take it paragraph per paragraph. This is how we reach our goals: word by word (or “ bird by bird ,” as author Anne Lamott says). 

And reframes like “revision is a sport” are useful—it’s really easy to get attached to words and phrasing. So practice unattaching yourself by making cutting a game.

And then maybe do a celebration dance whenever you see your word count drop. (Next TikTok trend? #nerdlife)

So how do I cut?

There are four basic strategies. Which you employ can depend on how much you need to cut (though you’ll generally find yourself using all of them in some way).

Word by word.

Phrase by phrase.

Line by line.

Idea by idea.

We’ll get to how to apply these four strategies in a minute. But before that, let’s talk about where to apply them—as in, what content to cut.

What should go? (And what should I keep?)

Here’s a content rubric for Dos and Don’ts to keep in mind as you cut. And by cut, we also mean condense, replace , and summarize .

Obvious “sports commentary.” As in, don’t write like a sportscaster yammering on with statements that explain the obvious. “This shows I am quite persistent and committed to my work.” If you just gave a unique, specific example of persistence and commitment—“I spent 40 days and 40 nights with Khan Academy videos outside of my normal homework till I mastered calculus”—then your point is already made. 

Vague yet eloquent generalizations. If you don’t know what these are, check out our Show, Don’t Tell post .

Ideas or details that are off topic, AKA, not essential to this job interview. If you have to give a lot or background or context to get a story off the ground, think about how you can condense it. Remember, you’re the star of the show, not Mom or Grandpa or your classmates or the debate team. Ask yourself whether the details you’re focusing on show your college-ready skills, interests, values, and accomplishments. If not, bye-bye.

Cinematic detail that helps us see you, as if you’re the focus of a documentary. As in, details of you choosing, acting, thinking, doing. Show who you are and the college readiness we know you possess by being authentic, vulnerable, and real. 

Words that allow for rhythm and flow. Sometimes “extra” words are essential for the sound and pace we want. For “voice” (which is a super vague term, meaning something like “saying something in a way that roughly only you would say it”). So if you have to err on the side of a little more to strike the right beat or tone, do so. 

Surprising and unique insight. Known as the good kind of telling, it’s your surprising and complex sports commentary on your life, your self-awareness of your values, your growth, your unique way you will contribute to a school. 

The Strategies (Again)

Repeat after us, and employ as needed:

Word by word

Phrase by phrase

Line by line

Idea by idea

Word by Word

For the easiest phase of the revision game, and especially if you’re only over word count by, say, 5ish%, cut extraneous words, one by one. 

Which words are extraneous below? Can you cut at least one, then do a celebration dance?

“I couldn’t believe that I would be stuck handling prom preparations.”

That’s right: “I couldn’t believe that I would be stuck handling prom preparations.”

1 word! Let’s dance–

But wait! Hold up! We found another.

“I couldn’t believe that I’ woul d be stuck handling prom preparations.”

Did you know: contractions are actually cool in college essays?

(Sssh: don’t tell your English teacher. But seriously. They’re fine.)

2 words gone! Okay, do your Safety Dance , or the Macarena, or the Dab, or Gangnam Style, or Griddy, or… 

Phrase by Phrase

With phrase by phrase cuts, you want to keep an eye out for ways to tighten for flow and for emphasizing scene versus summary—ways you can actually improve your writing while dropping word count. When we say “flow,” we mean rhythm and pacing—“trippingly on the tongue” (thanks, Hamlet!). Your words should flow through the admission officer’s mind too, and if possible, make them forget they’re reading. 

Here’s an example of some stellar student writing where, alas, he had to cut, because he needed to make room for a salient paragraph on his favorite research project in AP history. Because space was limited (thanks, 650 word count!), he had to turn to his brilliant hook paragraph for some cuts. 

Here’s the original:

“In the 55th minute, with the game deadlocked at zero, South African winger Siphiwe Tshabalala fired a rocket of a ball into the top corner of the net to score the first goal of the tournament. A reaction of shock in the crowd quickly turned to joy.”

Spot any phrases that you could get rid of?

Here’s what he did:

Which actually makes the writing better: Do you see how a super-short, pithy sentence at the close of a long, image-rich sentence works beautifully? Good call, student! He should celebrate those six words gone. And celebrate the fact that he kept some cool, cinematic touches here, those resonant details of a World Cup game that showcases his love of both sports and travel.

But guess what? It’s all in the eye of the beholder, i.e., the author, which means other students have looked at this example since and suggested other cuts. Thus proving the following: there’s no one right way to cut, and many different methods work for individual contexts.

For example:

“In the 55th minute, with the game deadlocked at zero, South African winger Siphiwe Tshabalala fired a rocket of a ball into the top corner of the net to score the first goal of the tournament . A reaction of shock in the crowd quickly turned to joy.”

So if the student happened to be really desperate for cuts, and had to get that opening hook down to just the essentials? Then here are 18 words, gone! 

Need more? “Into the net” could go as well.

In other words, it all depends on the essay you are writing and what is essential to the cinematic portrait of you. Would the student be smarter to add more specifics in another paragraph about his history research paper, and limit the amount of storytelling he does about his visit to a World Cup game? Or is it better to render an immersive portrait of a World Cup game for the reader, to not only illustrate the student’s passion, but also hook the reader?

Only you, the author, can make that kind of call.

A key takeaway here: Notice how frequently prepositional phrases (like “into the top corner” or “of the net” or “of a ball”) are expendable in favor of strong details, and how unnecessary adverbs (e.g. “quickly”) are easy cuts.

Line by Line

To make bigger cuts, sometimes you need to strike through an entire sentence, AKA an independent clause.

(If you have no idea what we’re talking about, now’s the time to school yourself on independent clauses , which can stand on their own as complete sentences. Your college professors will appreciate it.) 

Where do you see an independent clause that could go?

“When I started wearing a mask in public, at the very beginning of the pandemic when no one else was, most of the people that I knew at school were extremely supportive about my situation, but a few people did not understand. Some people snapped my mask straps or whispered and pointed as I walked by.”

Hint: where is there repetition of an idea? Maybe a summary of something that’s already shown with a great example?

“When I started wearing a mask in public, at the very beginning of the pandemic when no one else was, most of the people that I knew at school were extremely supportive about my situation, but a few people did not understand. S some people snapped my mask straps or whispered and pointed as I walked by.”

“A few people did not understand” is an independent clause that could go. Why? The example of the mask-snapping, whispering, pointing classmates does the job for us, and does it better. It’s clear to the reader that they did not understand, not in the least. 

In other words, you can trust the reader to get the point if the details rock. 

But we figure you saw some other places to cut, too, right? Everything else we suggest below is implied: that she’s in public, that it’s school

“When I started wearing a mask in public , at the very beginning of the pandemic when no one else was, most of the people that I knew at school were extremely supportive about my situation , but a few people did not understand. S some people snapped my mask straps or whispered and pointed as I walked by.”

Key takeaway: keep an eye out for independent clauses/complete sentences that are effectively redundant.

Idea by Idea

Every example above is, in a way, essentially a version of this fourth strategy: cutting repeated content. One general principle to keep in mind for every revision is redundancy. Where do you use different words—whether a single word, a phrase, or a sentence—to restate an idea that’s already said?

What if you’d written all this, in the fever of an early draft? (Which, btw, is fine—that’s what early drafts are for.)

“I couldn’t believe that I would be stuck handling prom preparations all by myself, solo, and without anyone to rely on.”

… pretty sure you got it the first time, right?

How about instead  

“I couldn’t believe that I’ woul d be stuck handling prom preparations all by myself, solo , and without anyone to rely on .”

Cutting and the Art of Replacement

When professionals cut, they rewrite, too. They find new, pithier words, phrases, and sentences to say it shorter, which is what admission officers want: more Hemingway, less Herman Melville. So this is a core skill that you will find yourself using to drop word count effectively.

“One doctor's appointment for my semi-annual thyroid check would lead to me being told that I would have to take daily medicine.”

New:  

“One doctor's appointment for my semi-annual thyroid check would lead to me being told that reveal I would have to take daily medicine.”

The student found one word to do the work of several.

Several students since have suggested other cuts, which is cool, because another pair of eyes can often see what we can’t. 

“One doctor's appointment for my semi-annual thyroid check would lead to me being told that reveal I’ woul d have to take daily medicine.”

Again, make it a game—you’ve got lots of options to explore.

So get to cutting

Don’t do so too early in the process, but keep in mind, cutting can be a great brain break when you’re blocked on how to generate new ideas and other essays. If you know for a fact you’ve overwritten, you can switch gears and cut.

Just be sure to keep your most memorable details and voice intact. 

Students: Try Some Exercises:

Practice with some examples below and see how your cuts compare to ours. 

Choose an overwritten section of your essay and apply the strategies.

Try cutting word by word, phrase by phrase, line by line, and idea by idea. Keep in mind there is more than one way to cut. 

When I got cut from cross country and had to face the fact I couldn’t do varsity, I had a crossroads to face. Should I audition for the school play? Should I risk humiliation and falling on my face in front of new peers and a theater director I really didn’t know? Should I subject myself to the slings and arrows of stage fright and start taking Pepto Bismol in the wings? Of course, I was assuming I’d make it that far—truth be told, maybe I wouldn’t even get past callbacks—but the reality was, I was no longer an athlete, I was an actor in waiting, and hoping to find a new identity. I needed to embrace a new set of skills and artistry and redefine myself as a thespian. 

Answers below.

COUNSELORS: NEED A COURSE?

Check out our Practical Strategies Course to learn further strategies and tactics for coaching students to revise effectively. 

When I got cut from varsity cross country and had to face the fact I couldn’t do varsity , I had was at a crossroads to face . Should I audition for the school play? Should I risk humiliation and falling on my face in front of new peers and a theater director I really didn’t know? Should I subject myself to the slings and arrows of stage fright and start taking Pepto Bismol in the wings? Of course, I was assuming I’d make it that far—truth be told, maybe I wouldn’t even get past callbacks—but the reality was, I was no longer an athlete, I was an actor in waiting , and hoping to find a new identity . I needed to embrace a new set of skills and artistry and redefine myself as a thespian. 

After being When I got cut from cross country and had to face the fact I couldn’t do varsity , I faced had a crossroads to face . Should I audition for the school play? Should I risk humiliation and falling on my face in front of new peers and a theater director I really didn’t know ? Should I subject myself to the slings and arrows of stage fright, and start taking Pepto Bismol in the wings? Of course, I was assuming I’d make it that far— truth be told, maybe I wouldn’t even get past callbacks—but the reality was, I was no longer an athlete, I was an actor in waiting , and hoping to find a new identity . I needed to embrace a new identity set of skills and artistry and redefine myself as a thespian . 

Or… (Again, you have lots of options in this game. Have fun.)

Written by Lyn Fairchild Hawks, founder of Success Story essay consulting . Lyn is a graduate of Stanford University and the Vermont College of Fine Arts program in Writing for Children and Young Adults. She loves helping students tell cinematic, insightful stories. She is also the author of young adult novels, short stories, and books for educators, including lessons for teaching Shakespeare. For 15 years she designed and ran online programs for gifted youth at Duke University and prior to that, served as a high school and middle school English teacher. She lives in Chapel Hill, NC.

Top Values: Creativity | Empathy |  Productivity

Andy Simpson has worked as an educator, consultant, and curriculum writer for the past 15 years, and earned degrees from Stanford in Political Science and Drama. He feels most at home on mountain tops and in oceans.

Top Values:  Insight/Growth | Truth | Integrity

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• Writing Tips

Top Tips for Decreasing Your Word Count

4-minute read

• 3rd July 2022

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

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

Look Out for Wordiness

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

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

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

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

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

Eliminate Redundancy

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

Participants were then subjected to an unexpected surprise task.

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

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

Watch Out for Nominalizations

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

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

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

We investigated into the effect of sleep deprivation on memory.

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

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Use Fewer Modifiers

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

The whole experiment was massively impacted by the weather.

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

The experiment was impacted by the weather.

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

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

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

Use the Active Voice

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

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

The recall task was then completed by the participants.

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

The participants then completed the recall task.

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

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

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7 Word Count Tips for Clear, Powerful Academic Writing

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

But they are there for a reason.

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

In this blog post you’ll discover:

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

~ FREE TRAINING ~

How to Actually START Your Essay

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

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

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

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

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

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

7 Simple Ways to Reduce Your Word Count

1. get rid of redundant modifiers.

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

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

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

Absolutely certain > certain

Added bonus > bonus

Basic essentials > essentials

Complete monopoly of the market > monopoly of the market

Crystal clear > clear

End result > result

Exact same > exact/same

Final outcome > outcome

Immediate vicinity > vicinity

Major breakthrough > breakthrough

Make plans in advance > make plans

New initiative > initiative

Natural instinct > instinct

Over exaggerate > exaggerate

Past experience > experience

Past memories > memories

Personal opinion > opinion

Postpone until later > postpone

Revert back > revert

Top priority > priority

True fact > fact

Very unique > unique

Weather conditions > weather

Written down > written

2. De-bloat your inflated phrases

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

Are indications of > indicates

At all times > always

At the present time > at present/currently/now

Collaborate/join together > collaborate/join

Completely ruined > devastated

Concerning the matter of > about

Despite the fact that > although

Due to the fact that > because

During the course of > during

For the purpose of > for

Has a tendency to > tends

Has knowledge of > knows

Has the ability to > can

In a situation in which > when

In order to > to/so that

In the event that > if

It is necessary that > must/should

On the other hand > conversely

On two separate occasions > twice

The majority of > most

There is a chance that > may/might/could

Until such time as > until

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

Whether or not > whether

Will provide a summary > will summarise

With regards to > about

3. Redundant categories

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

Attractive in appearance > attractive

Blue in colour > blue

Heavy in weight > heavy

Honest in character > honest

In a confused state > confused

Of a strange type > strange

Of cheap quality > cheap

Period in time > period

Small in size > small

Unusual in nature > unusual

4. Remove ‘that’

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

Ensure that you make relevant use of both articles

This is the book that she wrote

The report that was approved by the board

I want to buy that car

5. Delete adverbs

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

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

Eat noisily > gulp

Drop rapidly > plummet

Look angrily > scowl

Run quickly > sprint

Say quietly > whisper

Very big > enormous

Very tired > exhausted

6. Eliminate redundant pairings

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

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

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

First and foremost

Hope and trust

Each and every

So on and do forth

Over and done with

One and only

Few and far between

Peace and quiet

Hope and desire

Tidy and presentable

7. Remove ‘helping words’

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

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

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

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

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

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How to decrease your word count, without ruining your point.

Here's our comprehensive guide to writing shorter sentences, without affecting the strength of your argument

Hugo Whitehead

Whether you're at school, university or writing your thirteenth book, you’ve probably got an incurable habit of writing more than you're supposed to. One minute you're struggling to get words on the page, the next you're way over your required word count.

To ease your worries, we've put together a comprehensive guide to writing shorter sentences, without changing the meaning of your content.

Check what is being counted:

First of all, check what is actually being counted. Often, your bibliography, footnotes, appendixes, and image captions aren’t counted in the word limit, so make sure you aren’t including them accidentally.

Watch out for repetition:

Without even realizing it, people will over explain and repeat themselves. Sometimes even good writers will include information twice. For example, “I went to university at the University of Technology Sydney”. Did you notice it? I didn't need to say “to university” because it is already stated in “University of Technology Sydney”. Instead, I should have said “I went to the University of Technology Sydney”. It might sound simple, but you’ll probably want to get someone else to read over your work to find these, as they’re rather hard to catch.

Remove adverbs:

Adverbs are usually unnecessary, and can weaken your writing. A quick thesaurus search will help you find a stronger synonym. For example, changing "very neat" to "immaculate" sounds better, and is one word shorter. You can find out more about the impact of adverbs on your writing in this article .

Remove adjectives:

In some cases, there is no need to over describe something. Especially, if you are trying to cut down you word count, you don’t need to say the day was cloudless, there was little wind, humidity was perfect and it was a lovely 27 degrees. Shorten it by using ideas that are familiar to people e.g. ‘it was a perfect summer day’. Your readers will know what a perfect summer day is like so you don’t need to waste words explaining it.

Use contractions:

This is a rather sneaky trick, but by contracting two words into one, you're easily reducing your word count without changing the meaning at all. For example, change “I have” to “I’ve” or “Would not” to “Wouldn’t”. Be careful though, if you are writing in formal context for an essay, CV or assignment, it’s best to avoid using contractions as they give a rather colloquial tone to your writing.

Use commas:

Sentences are typically used to convey one idea. However, if you can link two of your sentences together to discuss the same idea, do it. By using a comma or conjunction to link two sentences, you're bound to remove some words in the middle. For example, “Emily was so mean to me. She used to bully me” can be changed to “Emily was so mean because she used to bully me”. Make sure you don’t try and link every sentence as it will ruin the flow of your writing.

Eliminate wordy transitions:

Most good writers will try and link their paragraphs together with some form of transition. Whilst this gives flow from paragraph to paragraph, they can be wordy. Try and use a single word to link sentences. For example, use ‘Additionally’ instead of ‘In addition’, or ‘Opposingly’ instead of ‘In contrast’.

Swap out phrases for words:

From time to time, writers will use common phrases or idioms to help explain a situation. They are an easy way to cut out words. For examples, change “Volkswagen Golfs are a dime a dozen in Sydney” for “Volkswagen Golfs are common in Sydney”. Another example is “Jimmy was feeling under the weather on Monday after a big weekend”, which could be changed to “Jimmy was sick after a big weekend”.

Pick your best work:

If you have gone through you work and can’t find any easy spots to reduce your word count, the best thing to do is to re-read your writing and determine what your strongest points are. Focus on a few main points and keep the parts that you feel have the strongest impact on your reader.

It’s not an easy process. Cutting down your word count is a good skill to have, and no doubt you’ll have to do it at some point in the future.

Let Outwrite do it:

Can’t be bothered to do this all yourself? Check out Outwrite’s paraphrasing tool . It can help you rewrite sentences to make them shorter, clearer, and more compelling. Just sign up to our Pro plan, set your Rewrite goal, then get to work!

• Call to +1 844 889-9952

Word Count Reducer

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

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

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

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

• ✂️ How to Use the Word Decreaser?

✅ Word Cutter: the Benefits

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

✂️ Word Count Decreaser Guidelines

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

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

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

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

🕰️ Word Cutter – When to Use It?

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

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

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

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

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

Making a Book Review

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

Writing an Abstract

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

Paraphrasing

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

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

✍️ How to Reduce Word Count?

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

🤩 Why Choose This Reduce-Word-Count Generator?

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

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

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

Updated: May 17th, 2024

📎 References

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

How to Shorten an Essay: 4 Techniques to Reduce Word Count

If you need to shorten your essay by 100-500 words, or even more, you can use one or more of four techniques. You can clean up your sentences, remove repetition, summarize your examples, and/or cut out an entire section.

One of my subscribers recently asked me, “ How do I compress an essay of 700-1000 words, or even more, to just 300 words? ”

In this tutorial I will show you four easy ways to shorten your essay by as much or as little as you wish. I am giving them to you in the order you should try them out.

Here are four techniques to shorten your essay:

Technique #1: Sentence Cleanup

When I taught essay writing in college, I noticed that students wrote sentences that were just too wordy. 

They used 20 words where 10 would have probably done the trick. If you examine your sentences, you’ll often find that you can say the same thing in much fewer words.

“In my opinion, there are many people who want to lose weight.”

This sentence contains 12 words. 

Here’s how we can shorten it by performing a Sentence Cleanup.

First, you never have to say, “ In my opinion, ” because if it were not your opinion, you wouldn’t be stating it. Okay? So, let’s cross out “ in my opinion. ”

“ In my opinion, there are many people who want to lose weight.”

We just cut out three words. 

Next, the phrase “ there are ” is usually unnecessary, and if you take it out, your sentence will become more elegant. So, let’s do it. Let’s just cross it out.

“ There are many people who want to lose weight.”

We also have to cross out the extra word “ who ” because it is only needed if you use “ there are. ”

We just got rid of three more words. 

And so our sentence becomes:

“Many people want to lose weight.”

How many words is that? That is now a six word sentence. Guess what – we just cut this sentence in half. 

Do this enough times in your essay, and it will get a lot shorter.

“How do I cut out 200 words from my essay to make it shorter?”

This sentence contains 14 words. Let’s perform a Sentence Cleanup.

Notice that it is pretty obvious that to cut out 200 words from an essay will make it shorter. Therefore, stating that you want to do it “ to make it shorter ” is unnecessary. 

If we get rid of that phrase, we’ll cut out 4 words from this sentence and make it a lot more elegant. 

“How do I cut out 200 words from my essay to make it shorter ?”

Technique #2: Removing Repetition

Repetition can be found on all levels – in a sentence, in a paragraph, or a section. When you reduce or eliminate repetition in your essay, you are making it less redundant. “Redundant” just means repetitive and therefore useless.

In the last example we just did, we eliminated a redundancy from a sentence. And that’s part of a Sentence Cleanup. But you can also find and eliminate entire redundant sentences.  

Look for repetitive phrases, sentences, and even passages in your content and remove them. 

Students often repeat things over and over, using different words, thinking that they’re writing great content. Those are your opportunities to significantly shorten your essay while improving it at the same time.

Here’s an example from a fictitious student essay. Let’s say the student writes about his trip to Paris and states:

“ I found that Parisians are very nice if you talk to them in French. ”

And then, in the same or even a different paragraph or section, the following sentence would appear:

“Parisians can be very nice people, but they really prefer that you speak French with them.”

Well, the two sentences say the same thing, just using different words. 

So, what do you do? 

Pick the longer sentence and just delete it.

Sometimes you will find a whole paragraph in your essay that is repetitive and can be removed without the essay losing any meaning. If you find such a paragraph, just delete it.

Technique #3: Zooming Out

Make sure that you go through your essay using the first two techniques before you employ this and the next one. 

The only case where you would do Zooming Out first would be if you had to shorten your essay drastically – by 30% or more. 

If you’ve cleaned up all your sentences and removed all repetitive content, and you still need to lose hundreds of words, the Zooming Out technique will really help. 

Here’s how it works. 

You may have heard that in essay writing, you are supposed to proceed from general to specific. Whether you stick to this rule really well in your essay or not, I want you to notice something. 

In your essay, you make statements that are:

• very general
• less general
• somewhat specific
• very specific

The most general statement in your essay is the thesis because it summarizes the entire essay. And the most specific parts of your essay are examples .

So, in order to shorten your essay, you can summarize your examples. I call this Zooming Out because you are taking something that was very specific (zoomed in) and making it more general (zoomed out). 

Let’s say you’re writing about the harms of second-hand smoking. And in one of the sections you provide an example of your friend or someone in the news who became seriously ill because she lived with a smoker for a long time:

“My friend Isabelle was married to a chain smoker. Her husband refused not only to give up his habit but even to reduce it. As years went by, Isabelle began to notice some respiratory symptoms. At first, she developed a light but persistent cough. Then, she started to feel out of breath more and more often. When she finally went to a pulmonologist, a test revealed that she had COPD, a serious lung disease.”

This example is 74 words long. And this is your opportunity to shorten your essay dramatically. 

You can simply contract this example into one short sentence and write something like this:

“A friend of mine developed lung disease after having lived with a chain smoker for twelve years.”

Now, this sentence contains only 17 words. We just cut out 57 words just by Zooming Out on one example. 

We are Zooming Out because we are no longer exploring this example in detail. We simply provide a fact without giving a lot of specific information. 

So, look for these detailed examples in your essay and just summarize each of them into one short sentence.

Technique #4: Cutting out a Section

This technique works very well to cut out a big chunk of your essay in one fell swoop.

Let’s say that you wrote an essay in which you have four supporting points to prove your main point, your thesis. 

If this is a 2,000-word essay, then each section is approximately 500 words long. But do you really need four reasons/sections to support your point?

Is it possible that if you provide only three supporting points, your essay will still work very well?

For example, if you argue that apples are a great food, you could have four supporting points, claiming that apples are:

But what if you simply took out one of these points? Let’s say that you eliminate the section about the portability of apples.

Will your essay still work? Sure it will. It will work just fine with the three remaining supporting points. And you just cut out 500 words (in a 2,000-word essay). 

After you have cut out a section, make sure to go back to your thesis statement and edit it to reflect the change.

I’ll leave you with one final tip. When trying to choose which sentence, paragraph, or section to cut out from your essay, go for the content that you know is not the best.

For example, you may have a section in your essay where you quote too much. Or, perhaps you were not very careful in paraphrasing, and your passage sounds too much like the original source. These would be great bits of content to get rid of.

I hope this was helpful. Now go ahead and shorten your essay to your heart’s desire!

How to Write a 300 Word Essay – Simple Tutorial

How to expand an essay – 4 tips to increase the word count, 10 solid essay writing tips to help you improve quickly, essay writing for beginners: 6-step guide with examples, 6 simple ways to improve sentence structure in your essays.

Tutor Phil is an e-learning professional who helps adult learners finish their degrees by teaching them academic writing skills.

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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

• Call to +1 (844) 889-9952

Essay Trimmer: Reduce the Word Count for Free

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

Looking for an essay trimmer?

Take the 3 steps to remove clutter from your paper:

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

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

🤔 What Is a Word Count Trimmer?

• ️⚙️ How to Use the Trimmer?

✂️ Words to Cut out of Essays

🔻 how to reduce word count.

• 😀 Essay Trimmer: Benefits

❓ Sentence Trimmer: FAQ

🔗 references.

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

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

⚙️ How to Use the Paragraph Trimmer?

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

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

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

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

Use the Shortest Forms of Words & Phrases

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

Don’t Repeat Yourself

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

Choose Active Voice

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

Begin Sentences with the Subject

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

Here’s an example:

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

Focus on the Message

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

😃 Essay Trimmer: Benefits

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

❓ Why Is Word Count Important?

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

❓ How Many Words Should an Essay Be?

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

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

❓ How to Cut Down Words in an Essay?

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

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

❓ How to Check Word Count on Google Docs?

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

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

Updated: May 17th, 2024

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

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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16 Tips on How to Reduce Word Counts and Write Concisely

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

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

Tip #1: Remove redundant words

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tip #2: Remove unnecessary words

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“There are peanuts in this recipe.”

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

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

 Tip #3: Remove the word “that”

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

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

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

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

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

Tip #4: Get rid of unnecessary helping verbs

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tip #5: Replace nouns with verbs

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

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

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

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

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

Tip # 6: Shorten long words

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

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

Long? Yes. Confusing? Just a bit.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tip #8: Replace prepositional phrases with adverbs

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

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

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

Tip #9: Make words plural

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

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

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

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

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

Tip #10: Replace prepositional phrases with possessives

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

“The cover of the ebook needs more work.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tip 11: Rewrite sentences to eliminate prepositions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tip #12: Eliminate conjunctions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 Tip #14: Combine sentences

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

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

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

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

Tip #15: Describe data in one place only

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

Here’s what this looks like:

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

Figure 1. Percentage of customers who saw store ads

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

See how this looks:

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

 Figure 1. Percentage of customers who saw store ads

Tip #16: use abbreviations consistently.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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3 Easy Ways to Reduce Word Counts in Your Research Paper

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Here, we highlight three additional strategies for concise writing: eliminating unnecessary spaces, repetition of units, and wordy transitions.

Updated on June 24, 2014

In other articles, we offer several suggestions for reducing your manuscript's word count, including choosing efficient verbs and phrasing , decreasing redundancy , avoiding extraneous words , and removing filler phrases . We have also discussed the use of abbreviations and acronyms to further reduce word counts, although this approach should not be overused . Here, we highlight three additional strategies for concise writing: eliminating unnecessary spaces, repetition of units, and wordy transitions.

1. Eliminating unnecessary spaces

Extra spaces between numbers and the percentage sign (%), the degree sign (°), symbols (such as Greek letters), or operators (<, >, ≤, ≥, =, and ± are common ones) and within numerical ranges and fractions can lead to word count inflation. The following are a few examples of situations in which you can delete extra spaces to decrease your manuscript's word count:

• 55 % → 55% (-1 word)
• 37 °C → 37°C (-1 word)
• IFN γ → IFN-γ (-1 word)
• P < 0.01 → P<0.01 (-2 words)
• 1990 to 2000 → 1990-2000 (-2 words)
• 5 out of 10 → 5/10 (-3 words)

Although these are small changes, they can add up. Consider using the Microsoft Word Find and Replace tool to identify these constructions, allowing rapid and systematic deletion.

2. Eliminating repetition of units

When detailing more than one quantitative value, units often only need to be mentioned once, as in the following two cases:

• (2 kg vs. 5 kg for the experimental and control groups, respectively) → (2 vs. 5 kg for the experimental and control groups, respectively)
• Samples were collected at 0.5 h, 1 h, 2 h, 4 h, 8 h, and 16 h → Samples were collected at 0.5, 1, 2, 4, 8, and 16 h

3. Eliminating wordy transitions

There are also less wordy substitutes for many common transitional phrases :

• In addition → Additionally, Moreover, Furthermore
• In particular, More specifically → Specifically
• As a result, As a consequence → Thus, Therefore, Consequently
• On the other hand → Additionally, Moreover, Furthermore OR In contrast (depending on the intended meaning )

We hope that today's editing tip has provided helpful advice on further reducing word counts. Please feel free to email us with any comments or questions if you would like to learn more.

Michaela Panter, PhD

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How to Reduce Wordiness

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Written by  Scribendi

Do you find yourself writing sentences that are far too long?

Have you ever re-read a sentence and struggled to finish it in one breath?

If so, you may be suffering from something called prolixity, or in layman's terms, wordiness. Wordiness is one of the most  common ESL mistakes . It happens when a writer, either intentionally or unintentionally, uses far too many words or unnecessarily complex or abstract words.

Wordiness can seriously detract from the coherency and quality of your writing and frustrate your readers. Below, we suggest several ways to help you reduce wordiness and increase quality.

How to Reduce Wordiness: 4 Key Considerations

1. eliminate filler words.

One easy way to avoid wordiness is to limit or eliminate the use of "filler words." Filler words sneak between relevant words, and though they may sound good, they are essentially useless.

Take the phrase "It is commonly believed that . . .," for example. The filler in this phrase is "commonly," as it serves no purpose. Leaving this word out would not change the meaning and would actually improve the sentence.

Often, it is during revision that wordiness becomes apparent. For example, the phrase "Some experts commonly believe that . . ." could be revised to "Some experts believe that . . ." to make the sentence more concise.

2. Remove redundancies

Redundancies are another cause of wordiness. Redundant writing can take two forms: writers may include redundant words or redundant information.

Redundant wording is most often found in descriptive writing. This occurs when writers attempt to describe something and overuse synonyms. Take this sentence: "Mark is a funny, hilarious, and comical person." Here, three words that basically mean the same thing are used to describe Mark.

The second form of redundancy is likely familiar to students worldwide. Redundant information occurs when writers say the same thing many times but in different ways. Readers are forced to read more and yet learn nothing new.

Redundant information often crops up in essays: "Scientists have found that cancer cells can be repressed through the twice-daily consumption of carrot juice. Carrot juice, when consumed on a twice-daily basis, has been found to repress cancer cells."

The two sentences, while written differently, contain the same information. Redundant information should be avoided in order to reduce wordiness in your  essay writing .

3. Avoid overusing qualifiers

Qualifiers come directly before an adjective or  adverb  and are used to either increase or decrease the quality of the modified word. For example, in the phrase "John is very cool," the qualifier is "very." The overuse of such qualifiers can distract readers.

Qualified words can often be replaced by a single more potent word. For example, "Sue is extremely angry" could be shortened to "Sue is furious."

When every adjective or adverb is preceded by "very," "extremely," "barely," or "hardly," the qualifiers begin to lose their meaning. Always try to use one good word rather than two or three mediocre ones. This will instantly improve your writing.

4. Resist logorrhea

This form of wordiness can be the most frustrating. Logorrhea is the intentional use of long sentences or overly abstract wording.

If you've ever read a postmodern novel,  lab report , or law journal, you've likely encountered it.

An author could say something succinctly in three words, but instead they've composed a sentence so laden with adjectives and qualifiers that readers will simply be confused by the time they reach the end. All of these extra words could unnecessarily complicate  expository writing .

Here is an example of logorrhea by a famous writer, George Orwell. He was deliberately satirizing the use of logorrhea in political discourse and wrote this as an example of a sentence with many words but little meaning:

Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account.

If your writing resembles this example, you may want to put down the thesaurus and remember that writing is about conveying a message. Your readers should always be able to understand what you're saying.

Parting Advice

With these four considerations in hand, you should have no trouble reducing wordiness in your writing. 

Image source: iqoncept/bigstockphoto.com

A Professional Editor Can Help You Eliminate Wordiness

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8 Effective Tips to Reduce Word Count

Table of Contents

If you’re wondering how to reduce word count for your article, you’re in luck. This article explores ever

8 Tips to Reduce Word Count in Writing

Writing is a tedious process, often comprised of long paragraphs and many words. Whether you’re writing a paper, an essay, or a blog, there are often long-winded passages that detract from the quality of your work. Yet, writing less can seem complicated and discouraging at first.

Below are eight practical tips to reduce word count without sacrificing significant meaning.

1. Remove “The” & “That” from your sentences

You may often get away without using the word “the” in your content.

Original: I would like to have both the cake and the chocolate for dessert.

Edited: I would like to have both cake and chocolate for dessert.

Likewise, the term “that” is frequently overused and can be easily removed from your writing without much difference.

Original: I noticed that the new intern deleted the folder that contained the main file.

Edited: I noticed the new intern deleted the folder containing the main file.

2. Eliminate Adverbs and Adjectives

Adverbs and adjectives are used to modify verbs and nouns in a sentence. However, strong words don’t always require modification.

The majority of adverbs and adjectives weaken powerful verbs and nouns, lowering the effect of your writing. To make your writing stronger and more concise, eliminate needless adverbs and adjectives.

3. Remove Lengthy Phrases

In any writing project, it’s essential to make a point or idea clear, concise, and practical with few words .

This is essential for better audience comprehension and higher readership. This can be accomplished by trimming the wordy phrases from your writing. Make your writing more organized, and Look for unnecessary words to eliminate and long phrases to condense.

Original: All the new recruits are requested to attend the meeting that has been scheduled for Saturday.

Edited: New recruits are requested to attend the meeting on Saturday.

4. Write in Active Voice

Active voice is when the subject matter of the sentence performs the action. When compared to passive speech, active voice employs fewer words and helps you write clear and compelling content.

It’s easier to read and comprehend when messages are not overly outlined.

Passive: The class was canceled by the teacher.

Active: The teacher canceled the class.

5. Avoid Extra Transitions

You can use several strategies to improve your word count without losing too much meaning. It is common to write sentences that begin with a word or phrase such as “Indeed,” “similarly,” or “furthermore.”

These phrases are sometimes unnecessary, and the reader will likely become discouraged by the repetition. You can quickly revise such transitions without hampering the meaning. You can use simple substitutions to remove unnecessary transitions.

Original: Indeed , we reached the final round of the competition.

Edited: we reached the final round of the competition.

6. Reduce Conjunctions

Try to cut out unnecessary conjunctions. Conjunctions link two discrete statements that can be rewritten as two separate sentences.

Take a look at your writing and find the parts that end with a conjunction such as “that,” “but,” or “for.” This may sound like English grammatical rules, but it’s a copywriting strategy often employed to make writing easier to read.

Original: I wanted to study with my friend in the afternoon, and we needed a quiet place to sit and concentrate.

Edited: I wanted to study with my friend in the afternoon. We needed a quiet place to sit and concentrate.

7. Get Rid of Repetitions

Read through your content carefully to find and cut repetitions. This is an easy way to reduce word count quickly.

Though the process can take longer than other techniques, it leads to more significant word reduction. You may struggle to recognize repetitions in your writing, but reading your content backward sentence-by-sentence can help. It lets your brain be more focused on the content.

8. Remove any Previous Content References.

It’s best not to reference previous information with phrases like those mentioned in the previous section or described earlier. These are mostly filler words, and removing them will help you cut a few words off your word limit.

While these tips can help you reduce your word count quickly , no one suggestion will be more effective than the other. Experiment with a few of these and find what works for you.

Additionally, the order of these tips doesn’t matter; the importance of each point varies for everyone. So try these eight tips to understand which one works best for a particular piece. Ultimately, it all comes down to practice and writing.

Pam is an expert grammarian with years of experience teaching English, writing and ESL Grammar courses at the university level. She is enamored with all things language and fascinated with how we use words to shape our world.

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Eliminating Words

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

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

2. Eliminate unnecessary determiners and modifiers

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

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

• for all intents and purposes

3. Omit repetitive wording

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

4. Omit redundant pairs

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

So are many other pairs of words:

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

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

5. Omit redundant categories

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

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

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