Publisert

How Many Paragraphs Is an Essay?

For example, if you’re writing about capitalism, you could also discuss Karl Marx’s critiques of the economic system. The best arguments are clear and direct, and your paper should strive to be the same. Look to see if you’ve repeated any information in your paper, and delete any redundant points. 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.

how to make an essay shorter

Rewrite the sentences to make them shorter, get rid of unnecessary transitions, and delete adverbs and adjectives if their number is too high. Use spellcheckers to define weaknesses and correct them. Making your essay easy to read and follow doesn’t always mean it helps them be concise.

How to Write Instagram Captions for Your Business + Free Checklist

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. If you saw what the majority of students turn in for homework, you would understand perfectly why there is either a maximum or minimum for writing assignments. If you use an assignment written by Custom-writing.org writers, it should be referenced accordingly.

  • 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.
  • The intro should contain no more than 6-7 sentences, and the conclusion only needs 3-4 sentences.
  • If you follow the above tips, it will be easier to shorten your essays.
  • Keep the introduction and conclusion under 75 words each.

Here at EssayEdge, one of the most common requests we receive from customers is to help them shorten an essay so that it meets a set word, character, or page limit. This highlights one of the many challenges posed by admissions essays. For example, instead of writing “utilize,” you can write “use.” Removing them can help to make your writing more concise and to the point. 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.

Use the Best Verb

These extra words rob prose of energy by making language convoluted and just plain how to make an essay shorter fluffy. The following words and phrases can almost always be cut from an essay.

  • Trying to build up your argument not only adds more words but may also weaken it, especially if you’re using unnecessary words.
  • I’m guessing this is some sort of University assignment, and let’s just say that anyone who grades written assignments on a regular basis is wise to this sort of trick.
  • Anyone who complains about writing too much doesn’t know what a real writing problem is.
  • Check out our Practical Strategies Course to learn further strategies and tactics for coaching students to revise effectively.

If your essay doesn’t respond to the prompt, you likely won’t receive full credit. Expressing ideas and views concisely is a valuable skill. As a screenwriter, I know all the formatting cheats in the world.

Remove Articles

There is always room for flexibility in your essay to allow you to put all the information you need into it. The only requirement from a definition standpoint is that an essay has at least three paragraphs. There are some steady guidelines you can use to help determine the paragraph count you should aim for, however, which we’ll take a look at now. Remember that you don’t want to put too much information in a paragraph, nor do you want to put unrelated information together. A good rule of thumb is that every time you begin talking about a new point or topic, start a new paragraph.

how to make an essay shorter

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. 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. The only case where you would do Zooming Out first would be if you had to shorten your essay drastically – by 30% or more. Look for repetitive phrases, sentences, and even passages in your content and remove them. Overused phrases in a company or industry lose all meaning.

Replace helping auxiliary verbs and use a stronger verb

You must use the active voice if you follow plain language rules. It assists you in simplifying your message and saying precisely what you want to say. The Hemingway App assists you in identifying passive essay outline high school voice. Most adverbs and adjectives weaken strong verbs and nouns, which weaken the power of your writing. Omit unnecessary adverbs and adjectives to make your writing stronger and more concise.

Besides, it makes you formulate your arguments and ideas as clearly and concisely as you can. Don’t be afraid to hit “Enter.” Numerous students are scared of dividing their text into smaller parts while writing. They are afraid that paragraphs of 3-4 sentences will be considered unprofessional by the instructors. However, to make your text more readable, you have to hit “Enter” regularly. Aim to express one single idea in one paragraph with one valid piece of evidence to support it. Schools impose word limits to make sure students do not stuff their writing with lengthy phrases and learn to write clearly. Another reason is to ensure equality so that everyone does the same amount of research.

Turn a passive sentence into an active sentence

If you’re unsure about which sources are relevant, or which types of sources you should be gathering, talk with your instructor. Check with your instructor and find out what citation style you should use. Pare every sentence down to the barest meaning, remove unnecessary adjectives, stop repeating yourself, etc.

how to make an essay shorter

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

5 Eliminate unnecessary prepositional phrases

The readers remember what they’ve just read, so a brief recall of the critical points will suffice to make your argument clear. 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.

Explain how you understand your purpose in studying vet medicine, and tell me what your career goals are. If you’re struggling to keep your essay within a set amount of space, take a look at the following tips. Let’s go over the most important dos and don’ts of intros and look at some outstanding introduction paragraph examples for inspiration. Anyone who complains about writing too much doesn’t know what a real writing problem is. If your paper is not long enough and you need to make an essay longer, there are some tips and tricks you can use to stretch what you’ve written longer. This recommendation puts you into the reader’s shoes and lets you cut out all the wordy and strange-sounding passages.

Free Text Shortener Tool

This paragraph is the first one that the reader sees, so it makes sense to focus some effort on writing it well. Besides, in many cases, it also sounds wordy and indirect. Therefore, you try to avoid it, using active voice whenever you can. Break down several points in a bulleted list if your paper format allows it. This method helps you shorten the paragraph by removing all the transition phrases.

Here you provide all the essential points from the body paragraphs in a single sentence. Make sure it lacks filler information like examples or your speculations. Eliminate “dangling words.” A dangling modifier can be challenging to identify at times.