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How to Shorten an Essay Without Ruining It

High-school and college essays impose strict word limits to which students struggle to conform. It can be challenging to express your opinion, describe a historical event in full, or tell a good story within 500 words . When it comes to reducing the word count, most learners find it quite hard. “I struggle to shorten my essay without ruining it.” If your thoughts are similar to that, we will try to help you solve this problem.

To illustrate how you can reduce the word count in your paper without impairing its integrity, we will use sample sentences and go through a list of techniques you can apply. To shorten an essay, you can :

• Eliminate redundancy
• Combine sentences with similar meanings
• Avoid referring back
• Listen to your writing

Further, we will give examples of sentences that can be shrunk with their revisions.

Note: You can reverse some tips from our article about essay lengthening .

1. Edit out redundancies and reduce wordiness

What’s redundant? It’s something that exceeds what’s necessary or enough. Redundancy in linguistics implies the usage of words and phrases that repeat what has been already said or can be understood from the context. Although it can help the reader better understand emotions or situations in nonfiction, it’s unwelcome in academic writing. Hence, when trying to shorten your essay, start by eliminating redundancy. Wordy phrasing also falls under this section.

You can clutter your writing with repetitive phrases and needless words without even noticing it. You might want to make the text more detailed or get so inspired when writing that you can’t stop filling your sentences with adjectives and adverbs. That doesn’t mean you’re a terrible writer — you just need to do a bit of editing and reduce the essay’s word count a bit.

Eliminating redundancy

The best way to understand what can be cut out is to see if the meaning of the sentence stays the same when you do so.

Original: I was absolutely certain that each and every quote I provided in my essay about politics made my argument much more compelling.

Let’s edit and shorten the sentence above.

Edited: I was sure every fact in my essay made my argument compelling.

We removed 10 words, and the meaning hasn’t changed. Of course, we exaggerated our example for illustrative purposes.

As for what we deleted, the word “ certain ” doesn’t require a modifier because if you’re not completely certain, you are not certain anymore (if that makes sense). The words “ each ” and “ every ” mean the same, so we can remove one instance. You can remove “I provided” because you specify that the essay is yours, so it’s only logical that those quotes were provided by you. We removed “ about politics ” because this phrase doesn’t have anything to do with the rest of the sentence. And “ much more ” also can be omitted without changing the context.

Below is a list of redundancies, removing which you can make your college essay shorter.

Eliminating wordiness

When revising your essay, make sure every word has its weight and role. Wordiness implies using phrases that can be replaced with one or two words without changing the meaning or choosing a sentence structure with too many articles and prepositions. Also, some words can be deleted without any harm to the text.

To eliminate wordiness, you can:

• Avoid using passive voice
• Replace heavy phrases
• Favor noun clusters
• Use verbs for action
• Stop the preposition train
• Use fewer fillers and qualifiers

Let’s look closer at each method.

Using the active voice

When you use the passive voice, the subject receives the action, and the action doer is often unknown. Instead, use the active voice whenever possible, especially if it’s critical to know who or what acts.

Original: The process of essay shortening is often found as a challenging task.

Edited: Students often find essay shortening challenging.

Simplifying long phrases

Writers might use longer equivalents of phrases in scientific papers or nonfiction, but you should simplify them in essays to reduce the word count.

Original: Due to the fact that the majority of papers have to fall in line with length limitations, students are necessitated to gain an understanding of how to put their thoughts into words clearly.

Edited: Because most papers must meet length requirements, students should learn how to express their thoughts clearly.

Below is a list of such phrases and their equivalents.

Use noun clusters

Prepositions are also counted as words, so by reducing them, you can make your essay shorter.

Original: There are many processes in the industry that must be considered first.

Edited: You must consider many industry processes first.

Express action through verbs

When choosing between using a noun formed from a verb (nominalization) or the verb, opt for the latter.

Original: The economic destabilization is the consequence of the government’s failure to implement effective economic policies.

Edited: The government’s failure to implement effective economic policies destabilized the economy.

Reduce the preposition and article count

Some grammar and readability checking tools call a preposition-riddled sentence sticky or bogged down .

Original: One of the most crucial events in the history of humanity was the tearing down of the Berlin Wall.

Edited: The fall of the Berlin Wall was a momentous event in human history.

Reduce the number of fillers and qualifiers

Fillers are words that add no meaning and value to the sentence. Qualifiers are words that usually come before adjectives and change their quality. Check the list below for the most common words and phrases of these types.

Original: It’s quite important to note that the study revealed rather interesting results.

Edited: The study revealed intriguing results.

You can use the essay shortening tips above as a way to improve your overall writing. If you learn to write without being wordy or using a lot of fillers, the quality of your text will rise a lot.

You can use these eliminating wordiness exercises by Purdue University to check yourself.

2. Combine sentences with similar meanings

When speaking, we use new sentences to elaborate on previous ideas and add a new meaning. Typically, we speak with longer sentences than in writing. If you write the same way you talk, it will take a toll on your essay’s word count.

Original: Many students find it difficult to write within the essay length limit imposed by schools. I also often struggle to fit my essays into the word count confines.

That sentence contains a lot of information that we can combine into a shorter passage.

Edited: Like many students, I find it hard to write essays within length requirements.

The sentence above conveys the same meaning but is much shorter. We got rid of 15 words, more than half of what we got first. Multiply this by all the instances you could compress, and the number could reach 100-150 words! Look for ideas that can be combined in one sentence.

Compress you examples

In your essay, the most specific parts are the examples, and contracting them is an excellent way of shortening your paper. When using someone’s story as an example, you might get carried away and start providing too many details spreading over five or six sentences. If your essay has such parts, “ zoom out ” and shrink them as much as possible.

If you can’t do that, think about replacing them with other examples.

3. Don’t refer to previous paragraphs

Avoid linking to previous information in an essay — it’s a waste of time. Phrases like “ as it was mentioned before ” or “ from the last paragraph, we can conclude ” are redundant. They disorient the readers and prevent them from moving forward.

Original: As it was mentioned earlier, we can improve our education system by…

Edited: We can improve our education system by…

Many students make this mistake when writing a conclusion . They give a mere summary of the body paragraphs when instead, you must tie them together and provide a broader context without sending the reader back.

4. Listen to your essay

Luckily, you don’t need to wait for thunder and get your essay struck by lightning to do that. Use Google Translate’s “ listen ” button or ask somebody to read it out loud for you. Once you hear your writing, you might identify the parts worth deleting. When listening to your essay being read out loud, pay attention to:

• Sentences that feel too long and hefty
• Awkward-sounding words and phrases
• Areas that stray off the topic

Each time you spot something from the list above, pause and reread that part to see if it can be fixed.

This recommendation puts you into the reader’s shoes and lets you cut out all the wordy and strange-sounding passages.

The best way to shorten an essay is by combining all our tips. After several revisions, you will shrink your text without destroying content.

Some online tools can also help you with that:

• Grammarly — its free version is enough to weed out all the fillers and qualifiers.
• OneLook reverse dictionary — can help you replace a wordy concept with one or two words and avoid repetition.
• ClicheFinder — get rid of cliche phrases or substitute them with shorter equivalents. “You can’t draw blood from a stone” can easily become “impossible” or “futile.”
• Smmry — it’s a tool that summarizes texts. Use it if you lack time, but don’t forget to proofread the result.

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. Also, a word limit acts as a guide forcing you to be more to the point and plan your writing.

There are a few things that can help you stick to the word limit from the very beginning. First, create a clear thesis statement that allows you to narrow your focus and stay on the subject. Second, prepare a detailed outline that will define the ideas you want to include. Third, monitor the word count every ten or twenty minutes to see how much space you have left.

Besides the things we cover in our article, you can also try to replace phrasal verbs with their one-word versions (e.g., “ get back ” -> “ return ”). Many phrases that are separated with a comma can be safely removed from your essay (e.g., “ to be honest ” or “ in fact ”).

It depends, but a 10% margin should be fine. If another 100 words will make a difference, add them. However, you should always try to stay under the limit indicated in the requirements, especially for a college application essay. You might get away with writing a bit less text, whereas more will just annoy the reader.

The list of references

• Writing Concisely — The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Effective Use of Language — University of Washington
• Writing Concise Sentences by the Capital Community College Foundation (with exercises)

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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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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/ 15 Self-Actualization Examples (Maslow's Hierarchy)
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ Forest Schools Philosophy & Curriculum, Explained!
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ Montessori's 4 Planes of Development, Explained!
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ Montessori vs Reggio Emilia vs Steiner-Waldorf vs Froebel

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7 Best Ways to Shorten an Essay

• Smodin Editorial Team
• Published: May 14, 2024

Are you removing a lot of words and paragraphs from your essay but still not seeing the word count budge? Whether you’re meeting a strict word count or refining your message, reducing your essay’s length without sacrificing content quality can be challenging.

Luckily, besides just aiming for the minimum word count, there are some pretty simple solutions, like using artificial intelligence, conducting thorough research, and trimming unnecessary words. But there’s more.

In this guide, we’ll unpack some practical tips to help you make your essay concise and impactful. Time to make every word count!

7 Best Ways To Shorten an Essay

Here’s a detailed breakdown of the best ways you can shorten your essay:

1. Use Artificial intelligence

When we talk about academic writing, artificial intelligence (AI) can be a game changer, especially when it comes to reducing the length of your essays.

Tools like Smodin can help make your content more concise while enhancing overall quality. AI can help you shorten your essay through the following methods:

• Automated rewriting : AI rewriting tools can reformulate existing content to make it more straightforward while maintaining the original meaning.
• Sentence simplification : Algorithms can analyze your sentences and suggest simpler alternatives, helping eliminate redundant information and reduce word count.
• Research assistance : Certain platforms have AI-powered research tools that allow you to quickly gather the most relevant information. This ensures that every word in your essay contributes to your argument without unnecessary fillers.
• Plagiarism check : Ensuring your essay is plagiarism-free is crucial. For example, Smodin’s plagiarism detection tools help you identify and replace copied content with original, concise expressions.
• Instant feedback : Receive real-time suggestions on how to streamline your text, focusing on the essentials to effectively communicate your message.
• Reference generation : Automatically generate and insert citations in the correct format, which helps save you time while maintaining the academic integrity of your essay and keeping it short.

2. Identify Unnecessary Words and Remove Them

One of the simplest yet most effective ways to shorten your essay is by identifying and eliminating unnecessary words.

This approach helps decrease word count and sharpens your arguments, making your writing more compelling. You can identify and remove extra words by doing the following:

• Spot wordy phrases : Often, phrases can be condensed without losing meaning. For example, the phrase “due to the fact that” can be replaced with “because.” Be on the lookout for wordy phrases that increase word count needlessly.
• Remove unnecessary prepositional phrases : Prepositional phrases can be redundant or add unnecessary detail. Evaluate whether these phrases add value or just extra words. Cutting them can make sentences more direct.
• Avoid redundancies : Redundant pairs like “absolutely essential” or “future plans” can be reduced to one word without losing informational value.
• Trim excess adjectives and adverbs : Adjectives and adverbs can make writing better but can also lead to over-description. Use them sparingly, especially when they don’t contribute additional meaning to the nouns and verbs they modify.
• Fewer words; more impact : Aim for brevity by using fewer words to express the same idea. This will help to reduce the word count while making your writing more impactful and clear.

3. Tighten Sentence Structure

Tightening your sentence structure is crucial for making your essay more concise and readable. Use active voice to make your writing clearer and more dynamic. This is especially important in academic writing, where you have to get to the point quickly.

In academic essays, shifting from passive voice to active voice can shorten and strengthen your sentences. For example, instead of writing, “The experiment was conducted by the students,” you can say, “The students conducted the experiment.” This reduces the number of words and places the action directly with the subject, making your sentences more direct.

Combining two separate sentences into one can streamline your ideas and reduce redundancies. Look for opportunities where sentences can be merged without losing their significance. For example, “He wrote the book. It became a bestseller.” can be rephrased as “He wrote the book, which became a bestseller.”

Also, avoid unnecessary qualifiers and modifiers that don’t add substantial information. Sentences often become bogged down with these extras, making them cluttered and long.

4. Conduct Thorough Research

When writing essays, extensive research can make the final output a lot shorter. Effective research helps you gather precise information that’s relevant to your topic. This means you’ll write more directly and avoid needless elaboration. Here’s how you can conduct research effectively:

• Define the scope of your research : Determine what information is essential to the argument. This initial step will help you focus your research efforts and prevent irrelevant data.
• Identify key sources : Begin with scholarly databases and academic journals that offer peer-reviewed articles. These sources provide credible, authoritative information that can be crucial for academic writing.
• Use precise keywords : When searching for information, use specific keywords related to your essay topic. Precision here will help find the most relevant articles and studies, reducing time spent on unnecessary reading.
• Evaluate sources : Assess the relevance and reliability of each source. Check the publication date to ensure the information is current and relevant to your topic.
• Take notes efficiently : As you research, jot down important points, quotes, and references. Organize these notes according to the sections in your essay to make writing faster.
• Synthesize information : Combine information from multiple sources to build a strong argument. This will allow you to write comprehensively and with fewer words, as each sentence carries more weight.

5. Improve Your Paragraph Structure

Streamlining paragraphs can make your essay shorter and more digestible for the reader. With a well-structured paragraph, you can focus on a single idea supported by concise statements.

Begin each paragraph with a topic sentence that clearly states the main idea. This sentence sets the direction and tone, letting the reader know what to expect. It also helps ensure that every following sentence relates directly to the main idea.

Condense supporting information by merging ideas that logically coexist within a single sentence or phrase. After that, evaluate each sentence for its contribution to the paragraph’s main idea. Remove any information that is repeated or goes into too much detail.

Focus on providing evidence and explanations that directly support the main point. You should also end each paragraph with a sentence that reinforces the main idea and potentially links to the next paragraph. This creates smooth transitions and keeps the essay focused and cohesive.

6. Refine the Introduction and Conclusion

These sections frame your essay and influence how your arguments are perceived. Here are some ways to keep them concise yet effective.

Introduction

The introduction should be engaging and concise, clearly stating the purpose and scope of your essay. Begin with a hook that grabs the reader’s attention, followed by background information that sets the context. Incorporate your thesis statement early on, ideally at the end of the intro.

The conclusion needs to reinforce the thesis. Summarize key points in the essay and show how they support the thesis. Provide a final thought that leaves the reader with something to ponder.

Also, remember to keep it tight – the conclusion isn’t a place for introducing new ideas. It should wrap up the ones you presented and prompt the reader to pose their own questions.

7. Edit and Proofread

Keep your essay concise and error-free by allocating ample time for editing and proofreading. These processes scrutinize your work at different levels, from the overall structure to word choices and punctuation. Here’s how you can go about it:

Start by reading through your entire paper to get a feel for its flow and coherence. Check if all paragraphs support your thesis statement and if section transitions are smooth. This will help you spot areas where the argument might be weak, or wording could be clearer.

Focus next on paragraph structure. Ensure each paragraph sticks to one main idea and that all sentences directly support the idea. Remove any repetitive or irrelevant sentences that don’t add value.

Then, look for clarity and style. Replace complex words with simpler alternatives to maintain readability. Keep your tone consistent throughout the paper. Adjust the sentence length and structure to enhance the flow and make it more engaging.

Proofreading

Proofreading comes after editing. The focus here is catching typing errors, grammatical mistakes, and inconsistent formatting. It’s always best to proofread with fresh eyes, so consider taking a break before this step.

Use tools like spell checkers, but don’t rely solely on them. Read your essay aloud or have someone else review it. Hearing the words can help you catch errors you may have missed.

Lastly, check for punctuation errors and ensure all citations and references are formatted according to the required academic style. This and all of the above are areas in which AI can help get the job done with speed and precision.

Why You Might Need to Shorten Your Essay

Ever heard the expression “less is more”? When it comes to academic writing, it normally is. Keeping your essays concise offers several benefits:

• Enhances clarity : A shorter essay forces you to focus on the main points and critical arguments, reducing the risk of going off-topic. This clarity makes your writing more impactful and easier for the reader to follow.
• Meets word limits : Many academic assignments have a maximum word count. Learning to express your thoughts concisely helps you stay within these limits without sacrificing essential content.
• Saves time : For both the writer and the reader, shorter essays take less time to write, revise, and read. This efficiency is especially valuable in academic settings where time is usually limited.
• Increases engagement : Readers are more likely to stay engaged with a document that gets to the point quickly. Lengthy texts can deter readers, especially if the content has unnecessary words or redundant points.
• Improves writing skills : Shortening essays helps refine your writing skills. You become better at identifying and eliminating fluff, focusing instead on what really adds value to your paper.

Overall, adopting a more succinct writing style helps you meet academic requirements and polish your communication skills.

Why Use Smodin To Shorten an Essay

Using AI-powered platforms like Smodin to shorten your essay is both the simplest and the least time-consuming method available. Here’s why you should probably make Smodin your go-to essay shortener:

• Efficiency : Smodin eases the editing process, using advanced algorithms to quickly identify areas where content can be condensed without losing meaning.
• Accuracy : With its powerful AI, Smodin ensures that the essence of your essays stays intact while getting rid of unnecessary words, making your writing more precise.
• Ease of use : Smodin is user-friendly, making it accessible even to those who aren’t the most tech-savvy. Its easy-to-grasp interface allows for seamless navigation and operation.

Smodin’s offerings

• Rewriter : Available in over 50 languages, this tool helps rewrite text to be more concise.
• Article Writer : Assists in drafting articles that are crisp and to the point.
• Plagiarism and Auto Citation : Ensures your essay is original and correctly cited, which is crucial in academic writing.
• Language Detection : Identifies the language of the text, ensuring the right adjustments are made for clarity.

All these tools and more are what make Smodin an excellent choice for academics looking to reduce the length of their essays.

Final Thoughts

Word counts can be a real headache, especially when you need to say a lot with a little. Thankfully, by identifying unnecessary words, tightening your sentences, and using tools like Smodin, you can make your essay concise without losing its meaning. Remember, a shorter essay doesn’t just meet word limits; and it’s clear, more compelling, and more likely to keep your reader engaged.

Keep it short, keep it sweet, and make every word count! Get started for free right now with Smodin.

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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• Aug 20, 2021

10 Tips to Trim Your College Essay

Updated: Sep 25, 2021

Is your college essay over the word count? Do you need space to add just a couple more key sentences? Use these tips to reduce words and strengthen your writing.

1. Eliminate adverbs

Look at your use of the word “very” and “ly” words, such as really , extremely , truly , completely , and absolutely .

Do they enhance your story?

Or are they redundant?

Example...(redundant)

He screamed loudly becomes He screamed.

Is there a better way to write it? Can you replace the “-ly” with a stronger adjective or verb?

He ran quickly becomes He raced.

She ran quickly becomes She sprinted.

When appropriate, revise or delete adverbs.

You do not need to remove every adverb, but limiting them (approximately one to every 300 words) will strengthen your writing.

2. Use adjectives sparingly

Writers often use adjectives to beef up their nouns. Instead, use stronger nouns.

A difficult problem becomes a quandary.

A huge hill becomes a mountain.

3. Omit unnecessary transition words

Look for a single word or short phrase followed by a comma.

These include because of this, in fact, first, last, hopefully, to be frank, quite frankly and in conclusion .

Highlight the words or phrases, then read the sentences without them. Does the sentence still make sense?

Ultimately, I realized failure teaches lessons for future success.

I realized failure teaches lessons for future success.

Delete the adverbs that do not add to the meaning.

4. Replace helping (auxiliary) verbs and use a stronger verb

He is going to be attending becomes He will attend.

I was thinking becomes I thought.

I am an avid reader becomes I read avidly.

5. Turn some nouns into verbs

I concluded is better than I came to the conclusion.

This painting portrays life and beauty is better than This painting is a portrayal of life and beauty.

6. Turn a passive sentence into an active sentence

Revise It was impressed upon me from an early age... to

I learned at an early age...

The sentence becomes shorter and more “action-oriented” and puts the focus on "you" the writer.

Pro tip: Here's a quick video where my colleague, Eveyln, teaches students how to turn a passive sentence into "I" focused action sentence.

7. Use contractions

I could not believe... becomes I couldn't believe...

Contractions sound friendlier, more personal, and more genuine. And they save word space.

8. Eliminate most of your thats.

Read the sentence without them. Remove them if they do not add to the sentence.

I want to read that book. [keep - it adds]

The book that I read was long. [delete - does not add]

The book I read was long.

9. Use possessive nouns

Read through your essay and look for "of the" phrasing when describing a noun.

Use the noun's possessive form to eliminate words.

The intricacy of the design amazed me.

The design's intricacy amazed me.

10. Use the plural when possible

Articles like "the" and "a" can be cut by converting the noun from the singular to plural.

Whenever I eat a tamale, I'm transported back in time.

Whenever I eat tamales I'm transported back in time.

It may seem like these revision strategies save only a couple of words per edit, but you will find they add up quickly. Use these ten tips to make your essay more compact and readable.

Bonus tip to gauge your essay's readability

Get a “read” on your writing’s readability with the Hemmingway App .

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How to Shorten an Essay: Reduce Word Count but keep Points

Shortening an Essay

When writing an essay, you may need to shorten it by reducing its word count to the number required by your instructor. In this case, you might have some words you need to eliminate in the essay. Also, you may have to shorten the paragraphs.

Read on for a comprehensive guide on 7 ways how you can shorten your essay but still make the points you intended to keep in the paper. If you need help to shorten your essay, just get in touch with our online essay writers, and the team will help you score an A

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How Do I Make My Essay Shorter

It is possible to shorten your essay or reduce the word count to meet the requirements during the editing process. The editing process should be the last step in writing your essay. The following are some of the most effective techniques to shorten your essay.

When it comes to writing essays, there are two types of students; those who write beyond the word count and those who write below the word count.

For those who write beyond the word count, you can use simple techniques to shorten an essay.

1. Rank your Arguments’ strengths and weakness 

The first technique for making your essay shorter is by ranking your arguments. If your essay is longer than the requirement, rank the points used to support your arguments.

A good essay should contain only the most vital and valid points.

If you find some of your weak supporting points, eliminate them while removing the unnecessary wording.

Students will often be tempted to present a multifaceted point of view to support a single point.

While this may demonstrate your knowledge of the subject, it will add unnecessary content to your essay.

To avoid this and reduce the essay’s length, carefully select the most relevant and vital points.

However, if you still want to include all the points, you can minimize the details, especially within weaker points. This will make your essay shorter.

2. Focus on the Main Point of your Essay

This is a very practical technique for making your essay shorter. When given an essay to complete, the instructor expects you to come up with a topic and support it throughout your essay.

Valid arguments within each paragraph of your essay should support the topic and the thesis statement.

Therefore, if your essay is longer than recommended, look for sentences or entire paragraphs that do not address or support your essay’s main point or topic.

Students may find themselves accidentally going off-topic and including other unnecessary wordings and arguments to make their essays appear “smarter” or well-written.

This can result in unnecessary words and sentences beyond the required word count.

If you identify such unnecessary arguments within your essay while editing, eliminate them to focus more on your main point and achieve the target word count.

3. Eliminate the use of Verbiage

You should eliminate the verbiage if you want to make your essay shorter. This is especially relevant when writing academic essays where you are required to present your arguments professionally and straightforwardly.

Eliminate any extra information or words that do not add value to your point or overall argument. Such verbiage is some of the weak words to avoid in writing essays and research papers.

You can eliminate unnecessary adjectives, adverbs, generalizations, clichés, and lengthy verb phrases here. You can do this while performing the first and second techniques mentioned above.

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4. Write Short Sentences using the Active Voice

As we have noted, academic essays will require you to present your arguments straightforwardly. Using the active voice while constructing your sentences will help you achieve this while keeping them brief.

While this may not apply to all sentences within your essay, try to begin most of your sentences using the subject.

In this case, the subject is the thing or person performing an action. This should be followed by the action the subject performs.

If you use the passive voice, where you describe how the object is acted upon, then your sentences will be longer and contribute to the unwanted length of the essay.

For example, take a simple sentence like, “John plays basketball regularly.”

This sentence is in the active voice because John (subject) performs the action of playing basketball (object).

Now take a sentence like, “basketball is regularly played by John.” The second sentence is in passive voice because it describes how the object (basketball) is acted upon.

The first sentence in the active voice comprises 4 words, while the second sentence in the passive voice comprises 6 words. Therefore, you can see that writing in an active voice shortens your essay.

5. Utilize the most Applicable Strong Verbs

This may seem obvious, but many students cannot find the most applicable verbs. They find those that are close instead of using the perfect verb.

If you want to shorten your essay, find the best verb that conveys a precise meaning.

This is because when you use an imperfect verb, you will end up using more words to clarify the meaning.

Here is an example to clarify what is meant by using the most applicable verb:

“John’s team defeated the opposing team by several points.”

Using “defeated” in the above sentence is not grammatically wrong. However, it is not the best verb to use because John’s team not only defeated the opposing team, they all defeated them by several points.

If you wish to reduce the word count while maintaining the same meaning, you can use the verb “trounce” in place of “defeat.” The new sentence will be:

“John’s team trounced the opposing team.”

6. Quote from the most Relevant Sources

In academic essays, you may be required to provide quotes from secondary sources to support your essay. The number of sources needed depends on the length of the paper. For instance, a 4-page paper may require more secondary sources than a 2-page one.

However, if you find that you have used several quotes that are lengthening your essay, retain quotes from secondary sources that are most related to your topic, and eliminate the rest. Again, only cite the sources that are most relevant to your topic.

7. Avoid Block Quotes

The best way to avoid longer essays is by avoiding direct quotations from other authors. This can be done by paraphrasing their content and just citing the sources without using many words.

Avoiding block quotes will make the paragraphs short and your arguments more captivating to the reader. Therefore, avoid using essay or sentence generators, as these will quote other sources.

However, note that using external sources to support your points and arguments is always advisable when writing an essay. Such supporting content is important for the grades and to back up your claims.

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Weak Words to Avoid in Writing an Essay

Now that we have explored the most applicable methods or techniques that can help make your essay shorter, it is important to identify the unnecessary things to avoid in an essay to avoid going beyond the word count.

1. The passive voice

As we have noted, the passive voice makes your sentences unnecessarily lengthy. On the other hand, the active voice makes the sentences more compelling and clear because they are straight to the point.

Consequently, the active voice uses lesser words compared to the passive voice. Therefore, it is important to avoid the passive voice in an essay.

2. Adverbs and Adjectives

While adjectives modify nouns while adverbs modify verbs, good and well-utilized words in a sentence do not require modifying.

In most cases, adjectives and adverbs weaken strong nouns and verbs, thus weakening your overall writing.

Such weak words add no value to your paragraphs; you must avoid them when writing an essay.

When editing your essay and you find adverbs with “ly” as their endings, you can eliminate them because they act as filler words that add no value to the point you are trying to communicate.

When it comes to adjectives, they do not add meaning to the sentence and are, therefore, unnecessary.

3. Conjunctions

Conjunctions such as and, or, however, but, and, e.g., connect two different sentences that can be written independently. They are unnecessary when you want to make an essay shorter.

These are some of the words that make an essay ridiculously long and create the need to be precise. Eliminating them reduces the word count and shortens the essay.

4. Running Starts and Needless Transitions

Running starts are commonly used phrases that act as an introduction to the sentence. They include “it is, “there is, “the fact that, “and so on. This is basically the opposite of what we discussed in our post on making an essay longer, as we outlined.

Those phrases add unnecessary words to your essay. Needless transitions can be “furthermore,” “then,” indeed,” “however,” and so on.

The bottom line is that when you are told to write a specific number of pages or meet a particular word count, it is imperative to meet the requirements because you will lose some points.

5. First-Person Language

This is a common thing in any essay writing task. It is always advisable that one should avoid using first-person language when writing an essay. This is because the first person is not formal and tends to be confrontational.

Instead of first-person or second-person language, always use a third-person approach. While this does not contribute i reducing the word count, it gives a lot of formality to your essay and puts a warm reading tone.

In addition, using the third person promotes the objectivity of your arguments by presenting them in a manner that can relate to any person, in this case, your readers. Read our guide on avoiding the first-person language in an essay and apply that in your future writing.

Following the above tips will make it easier to shorten your essays.

Watch this video to learn more about this.

With over 10 years in academia and academic assistance, Alicia Smart is the epitome of excellence in the writing industry. She is our managing editor and is in charge of the writing operations at Grade Bees.

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How to Shorten an Essay?

Essay writing can be very challenging. A student who’s writing an essay should come up with the right logical structure, figure out what types of evidence you’re going to use, choose an appropriate style, etc. Besides, all this hard work may lead to a moment of frustration.

You may put a lot of effort into writing your brilliant draft, and then you may realize that you need to get rid of something to meet the word count requirements. The more effort you invest in the writing process, the more difficult it can be to figure out what you should remove.

No matter how challenging this task can be, educators think that students must be able to write concisely and avoid redundancy. Therefore, word count requirements can be very strict. For instance, when writing a college application essay , you should be able to fit all your thoughts into a 500-word limit.

While making your essay shorter, you should also make sure that it will still be impressive. To shorten your essay properly, you should know what to focus on, and this simple guide will help you.

How to reduce essay word count

• Identify irrelevant content
• Cut down on prepositions
• Eliminate the sentences that don’t add value
• Remove unnecessary modifiers and qualifiers
• Remove weaker paragraphs
• Eliminate redundant words and phrases
• Merge sentences by combining their meaning

📌 Shorten your essay by removing irrelevant content

The key to shortening your essay without making it weaker is to make sure that everything that you write is perfectly relevant. However, it may not be easy to get rid of irrelevant content in your essay because if you didn’t consider it somewhat relevant, you wouldn’t include it, in the first place. If you want to get a good grade, you may add various details and explanations to make your essay more engaging.

Including some background information and details is actually a great solution if you want to impress your audience with an informative essay, but we recommend that you think twice before writing any additional information because you should also follow the word count requirements.

Ask yourself, do you really need to include this information? Is it perfectly relevant? Is it necessary to include when writing about your topic? Does it contribute to the overall meaning?

📌 Use prepositions moderately

Prepositions are very useful words because they can help you create a smooth flow of thoughts and put words together to communicate complex ideas. If you take a look at prepositional sentences in your essay, you may realize that many of such sentences won’t make any sense if you remove prepositions from them.

Although prepositional sentences can be very useful, they also have their flip side: they make your essay longer. Given that rewriting such sentences without prepositions can be impossible, a good solution is to remove such phrases completely.

📌 Apply the ‘zoom out’ technique

This approach can be very effective if you realize that you need to shorten your essay significantly. For instance, if you should shorten your essay by 200 or 300 words, this is the right approach. This method is quite simple.

The traditional college essay structure involves writing more general statements first and then adding more specific statements. By moving from general to specific, you can create a proper logical structure so there’s no surprise that many tutors and guides recommend this approach.

When editing your essay, you can see more or less specific information, and the most specific elements of your essay are examples. Although you may want to use more examples to make your essay more unique, if you need to shorten it, you can leave just a few vivid examples and get rid of all the other examples that are not really important.

Zoom out and paint the picture with broad strokes, focusing on the general information. This way, you might be able to shorten your essay considerably.

📌 Get rid of modifiers, qualifiers, adverbs and adjectives

Let’s face it, some verbs can be easily eliminated from your paper without ruining the context. It’s also important to keep in mind the importance of avoiding unnecessary generalization in essay writing. Unnecessary generalization makes your essay weaker. Qualifiers and modifiers can help you avoid generalizations by slightly changing the overall meaning of a sentence.

Words like “some,” “often,” “possibly,” “could,” “sometimes,” “completely,” and others can make your writing more nuanced. However, these words might also make your essay longer, and usually, you can remove them without changing the general meaning of the sentence. Therefore, we recommend that you don’t overuse such words when writing and remove some of them when editing.

📌 Remove the weakest paragraphs to reduce the word count

Another approach that can help you write a strong essay that meets strict word count requirements is to intentionally exceed the word limits when writing so that you can remove entire paragraphs when editing. This is especially helpful if you have to write a really short essay of 200 words .

A great thing about this approach is that you force yourself to admit that some things that you write are much better than others so you can consider your college essay from a teacher’s perspective.

You may want to remove paragraphs that lack references or have references to unreliable sources. You may also think of what paragraphs are the least convincing. Make sure to leave the strongest paragraphs that actually contribute to the topic and that can impress your audience.

📌 Remove redundant words to stay under a word limit

When writing your paper, you may use some unnecessary words that don’t add any meaning. For example, here is a sentence that can be shortened easily: “When writing essays, you should make your essays concise so they won’t be too long.” Here, you can remove the second word “essays,” as well as the end of the sentence because if your essay is concise, it means that it isn’t too long.

For instance, a shortened sentence may look like this: “When writing essays, you should make them concise.” Although the new sentence is just a little shorter, if you remove redundant words in the entire essay, the difference in length might surprise you.

📌 Merge sentences by combining their meaning

To shorten your essay without damaging it, you should make sure that you convey your thoughts concisely. Concise writing will not only help you meet all the requirements but also make your essay more straightforward and easy to read. When editing your essay, pay attention to consecutive sentences that focus on the same idea.

Try to say the same with fewer words by combining the meaning of two sentences and merging them into one. Just make sure that the final sentence isn’t too long because long complex sentences will make your essay difficult to read.

No matter if you’re a high school, college or university student, the writing process is difficult by itself, and it can be especially difficult when dealing with strict requirements regarding the word count. In this helpful guide, we considered a few effective methods that can help you shorten your essay without damaging its meaning.

There are many things you can get rid of while also keeping your academic paper informative and impressive. Moreover, shortening and eliminating unnecessary things can help you improve your essay, making it easier to read, straightforward, logically consistent and more digestible for a reader.

In case if shortening an essay seems like an unbearable task, you can turn to an essay writing company to get it written from scratch or copy-edited down to the required word count.

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How to Shorten a College Essay to Meet the Word Limit

The college application essay is one of the most important components of applying to college. Application essays require a lot of time and effort, so you want to make sure you don’t make easy-to-overlook mistakes such as going over your college application word count.

Unfortunately, many students leave their admissions essay as the last step of their application process after studying for the SAT and learning how to request letters of recommendation. High school students don’t have the time, energy, experience, or organizational skills to prioritize their essay word count and word limits when writing their draft and receiving personal statement editing , recommendation letter editing , or cover letter editing , depending on your admissions documents. 

The good news is that being over the word limit in your admissions essay is not the end of the world. You’ve managed to output a lot of writing for your college essay. That’s a good starting point for revisions. All quality and successful admissions essays  go through the revision process, and a big part of the revision process includes reducing word count.

This article will explore the following topics:

How flexible is the college essay word limit?

• Can you go over/under the college essay word count?
• Why staying under application essay word limits is so hard
• How to shorten the length of your admissions essay
• Get help to cut down your college essay word count
• FAQ about how to shorten your essay length: Advice from editing experts

Your essay must stay within the required word limit whether you’re applying directly to your university or through the Common Application, which has become synonymous with the college application process. 

The Common App specifies the word limit required for each essay. Even though this has changed over the years– from 650 to 500 words in the past –the current Common App essay word count is somewhere between 250 to 650 words. 

Can you go over the essay word limit?

You must be careful about staying within the word limit for each application. Look at the essay prompts closely. Unless specified,  never go over the word limit for a college application essay .

It might be impossible to go over the essay word limit

Some universities may allow you to mail in a copy of your admissions essay, but most will use online applications with text fields that may cut off your essay if it goes over the maximum word count.

Admissions officers may just stop reading or toss out your essay

Admissions officers are busier than Santa’s elves during the winter holiday season. They read dozens if not hundreds of essays per day, and most of those will be rejected. If you fail your application, make sure it’s due to the content or something else; failing due to a simple word limit mistake would be a waste!

Following directions is a key component of being a student

If you told someone to do something and you were in the position to enforce it, would you accept the wrong result if 100 other people were waiting and did it right? Of course not. Therefore, the least you can do is to follow any instructions regarding college essay word limits to show admissions officers you will be a competent student at their school.

Can you go under the essay word limit?

While going over the word limit is a clear and decisive issue, it’s a bit trickier to determine how short your college application essay should be. 

Pay attention to minimum word limits and word ranges 

Some essay prompts will have a suggested minimum– for example, 500 to 650 words. As mentioned above, online text input fields may cut you off at the maximum word count. Some may even have some red text reminding you to input at least 500 words. But you should always double-check these word count guidelines.

The essay is your opportunity to shine

Why would you be so lazy as to only write the minimum amount for your personal statement? This is a great opportunity for you to stand above and apart from other applicants, and choosing your words wisely while presenting your story fully is important.

Add some concrete examples

Examples of events and actions can help you meet the correct word count range. This also reduces redundancy in your writing while reinforcing and supporting your main points. College admissions officers love to hear about your unique experiences.

Why do students find essay word limits difficult?

Why staying under essay word limits is so hard

We now know several reasons why keeping your college essay length in the correct word range so you don’t violate any word limit is important. But  why is staying under essay word limits so hard? 

The essay has no structure or organization

The most effective things are stated simply. And the most effective college admissions essays organize, structure, and communicate efficiently. That doesn’t mean your personal statement will be short; it means that each point should be concise. 

For example, split your writing into clear paragraphs. Organize your essay into separate sections for your academic, leadership, volunteer, and personal experiences. Be sure to add a section on extracurricular activities. Make your structure clear to the reader so that word count will only be a minor consideration. 

The essay does not focus on the essay prompt

If you are having difficulty cutting your word count, look for sentences or even entire paragraphs that are not relevant to the essay prompt. Adding unnecessary information is an easy trap to fall into. Your anecdotes or stories might be interesting and funny, but do they help illustrate why you want to attend UC or Stanford? 

The essay lacks proper vocabulary and verb usage

This tip is more subtle but can really help you reduce essay length and word count. When writing, always use the most appropriate verb, preferably one verb only. It will drastically reduce your word count overall. This is because when you choose the wrong verb, you often must add more words to clarify. 

Average/Wordy:   “I hit the ball so hard it went over the fence.” 

Exceptional/Concise:  “I smashed the ball over the fence.”

The verb “hit” is a solely descriptive action verb. It provides no context about the degree to which you hit the ball, which is why “so hard” or other adverbs are naturally added to regular verbs to provide extra information. Changing the verb completely to something more engaging like “smashed” provides all the context you need. And you just saved 4 out of 11 words!

The essay uses a traditional introduction/conclusion structure

Many students applying to college fall into the trap of trying to fit their essay into a traditional structure consisting of an introduction, body, and conclusion.

With only 650 words, you can recover your word count by skipping the formal rigid essay structure. Instead, dive right into your essay. Your content and experiences are the most important components of your application essay, and you need every word.

Tips to reduce the length of your application essay

Here are some simple tips to cut down the length of your essay. Start with some broad admissions essay tips  first and move on to the easier grammar and proofreading-related steps below.

Remove adverbs

Here’s how to find if your admissions essay has a lot of adverbs: Look for “ly” words around your verbs. Often, these types of adverbs are just filler words and a reflection of spoken conversational English rather than accomplishing anything meaningful. Go through your essay and decide if each adverb is truly necessary. 

Unnecessary adverbs:   “ate quickly”, “ran quickly”

Stronger verbs:   “devoured”, “rushed”

Here is a list of common adverbs you can remove to reduce your essay’s word count:

Remove filler words

Filler words are another crutch or may just be used out of habit. Go through your essay right now with “ctrl + f” or “cmd + f” for Mac users and delete every instance of  actually  and  very.  We promise they add nothing important to your writing. 

Example 

Filler words:  “I found myself actually surprised about how much I learned”

No filler words:  “I was surprised at how much I learned”

The word “actually” is pretty much useless. You must clearly state that you were surprised. Further, “finding yourself” is a conversational filler that comes off as unprofessional.

Avoid using too many prepositional phrases

Prepositions are common linking words such as  of ,  to ,  for ,  by ,  from ,  in , and  on . These are highly dependent on the context of your personal statement, especially when you reference narrative elements in your past. Go through your essay carefully and make changes to reword your sentences and cut down your essay word count.

Too many prepositional phrases:  “I struggled to work in a team in order to get a good grade in the group project”

Fewer prepositional phrases:  “I struggled with the team aspect of the group project”

There’s no need to verbalize that you worked in a team or to mention the grad aspect. Furthermore, these prepositional phrases add extra length to your sentences, which will not help you meet the essay word count.

Be clear and concise. Cut down your word count.

Be direct and decisive in your writing

Students are often told to avoid overgeneralizing groups of people or ideas but that they should also be precise in their English writing. This can lead to the author failing to commit to a concept and coming off as unsure or weak.

An overreliance on modifier words such as adjectives and adverbs is often the culprit. 

Too many modifiers:  “Although my high school grades were  sometimes   slightly  less than average, I  was able to  outperform  many  of my classmates, who often struggled to improve.”

Stronger verbs and adjectives:  “Although my high school grades were inconsistent, I later outperformed my classmates, who struggled to improve.”

You can see how the improved version appears more matter-of-fact, consistent, and even confident despite the admission of lower grades. 

Don’t be a narrator 

Do not waste time restating the common app essay prompt or telling the reader what you will discuss next. This would be fine for an informative article (like the one you’re reading now), but not for an application essay. Eliminating these structural road markers will greatly cut down your word count.

Too much narration:  “I will start by discussing my leadership experiences…” or “The next important part of my academic background was my….”

Less narration:  “I gained leadership experience when…” or “One of my academic achievements was…”

Consider college essay editors for extra help

Get help from a professional college essay editor

The college admissions and application essay landscape is very competitive, and this has led students to seek an edge. One reason why application essay editing services are so popular is due to their speed and quality. They free up students to prepare more college applications and focus on the content of their personal statements instead of drilling down things like grammar and essay word limits.

One of the best things applicants can do is write as many college admissions essays as possible without worrying at all about grammar or word count. Organize your essays by the essay prompt category (e.g. “Why X university?” or “Tell us about an obstacle you overcame”).

Then, send ONE type of each essay to a reputable proofreading company that offers  college essay editing services . When you get your changes back, apply them to all essays of that category. This minimizes the cost but gets you the most benefits. 

FAQ: How to shorten your admissions essay

Advice from our editing experts , can a college essay be longer than 650 words.

• The standard word count for the Common app essay is 650 words. Rule 1) Follow any explicit word limit guidelines. Rule 2) Always go under the limit as opposed to over the word limit.

Can you use contractions and abbreviations in college essays?

• Yes. For college application essays, use contractions and abbreviations. 

Do citations count towards the college essay word limit?

• Every word in the text field or on your page counts towards the essay word limit. Avoid using citations in a college essay as it is not an academic paper.

Does the title count towards the college essay word limit?

• Do not restate the essay prompt or add a title to your essay. If you are submitting a separate MS Word document, add the title or essay prompt (along with your name) as the .doc name. 

How many pages is 650 words?

• A 650-word college application essay will be under 1 page.

How do you shorten long sentences?

• Start by 1) eliminating helper verbs and adverbs, 2) removing redundancy, 3) remove filler words such as “very” and “actually,” and 4) make sure every sentence supports the overall point of the paragraph.

How many paragraphs is a 650-word essay?

• A 500-word essay is 3 to 4 paragraphs. A 650-word essay is 4-5 paragraphs. Your essay should be less than 1 page single or double-spaced.

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...

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At the moment, a maximum of 600 words can be summarized at once, within a few seconds. Want to summarize more? Just paste another block of text. There’s no limit on how much text you can summarize with our text summarizer .

The text summarizer can give you a longer or shorter summary, depending on your wishes. Want a more detailed summary? Just adjust the summary length at the top.

• 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

• Call to +1 844 889-9952

Text Reducer Online

Need to quickly make a summary? Try the text reducer that we offer below. This tool can summarize academic pieces of any level.

This text reducer will make an outstanding summary of any academic writing piece. All you have to do is follow these 3 steps:

• ❓ Why Use the Tool?
• 🧮 How Long Should a Paper Be?

✂️ How to Reduce a Text: Best Tips

🔗 references, ❓ text reducer: why use it.

Academic writing is all about instructions and discipline in their observance. Each genre within its framework always has a standard structure and volume.

Sometimes, the result exceeds the required word count, and you have to shorten it. But as most students postpone their homework to the last, they have no time to work on its shortening. Thus, they end up deleting some paragraphs and ruin the logic. It also happens that a section or chapter takes a disproportionate share of text.

Our text reducer is designed especially for such situations.

All you need to do is:

• Preset the desired number of sentences in the final version;
• Let the tool do all the nasty job for you.

Besides, you can use the same software as a summary generator.

🧮 How Long Should Academic Papers Be?

Before describing what can be deleted without thinking, consider the ultimate purpose. Below, you’ll find the main genres of academic papers and their estimated length.

High School Essay

The standard length of a high school essay is 300 to 1000 words . The suggested word count is not just about the size – it is a complexity barometer. The length sets the boundaries for your argument. For instance, a short 300-word essay needs a focused topic and a brief list of ideas. A more extended variant would allow for a broader approach and a more complicated argumentation.

Distribute the words in a 1000-word essay according to the following scheme:

• Introduction – 100-200 words;
• Each paragraph in a 5-paragraph essay – about 250 words;
• Conclusion – 100-200 words.

Research Paper

Graduate and undergraduate study levels will require you to prepare term papers and academic reports. A standard research paper can take about 5000-6000 words . Still, the exact length and the availability of specific sections (see below) depend on the discipline and teacher’s requirements.

• Title page (50-100 words): include the title, author’s name, and affiliation.
• Abstract (up to 250 words but usually much shorter than that): overview the research project.
• Introduction (about 500 words): explain why the topic is worth studying and identify the unresolved issues. Include a thesis statement (1 or two sentences) presenting your research intentions and hypotheses.
• Methodology (500 to 1000 words): present the methods you have employed to perform the research.
• Findings (as much as necessary to present the results but within the required word count)
• Discussion (up to 1000 words): point out the implications of the findings and suggest the directions for future research.
• Bibliography (usually limited by the number of items, not by the word count).
• Tables and figures (their length does not count in the overall sum).

Book Review

A book review is typically between 1000 and 1500 words but depends on the purpose and format. There’s a world of difference between a review of a fictional and a scientific book. But in both cases, the aim is to help the reader form an initial impression of the work. For a more detailed word count explanation, address this structure:

• Introduction (150 words);
• Author’s qualifications (100 words);
• Presentation of the sources (applicable to a scientific book: 200 words);
• Critique (unlimited but within the maximum word count);
• Conclusion (150 words).

Thesis/Dissertation

A Master’s thesis is up to 40,000 words , and a Ph.D. dissertation is about 80,000 words . But their components are relatively the same. Here’s an example of word count distribution for a thesis or dissertation.

• Introduction (5% of the total): you can slightly extend it to 10%.
• Literature review (5-10% of the paper): if you incorporate this section into the introduction chapter, increase the word count accordingly.
• Methods (20% of the total).
• Results (50% of the text): you can increase or decrease the methods and results sections in proportion to each other.
• Discussion (15% of the total).

The remaining sections (bibliography and appendices) don’t count for the overall paper length.

Reduction of your final word count is always an unpleasant thing to do:

• There is a hazard of losing the essence of your writing.
• You might delete something that makes the text unique and beautiful.
• Deleting every word means you wrote them in vain (and wasted your time).

Check the following assignment details before spotting the things your text could do without. Thus, does the overall paper length comprise:

• The list of references;
• The footnotes;
• The abstract .

If they do count and your writing is still too long to be submitted, here’s how you can resolve the issue.

Tip #1: Shorten the introduction and conclusion

The introduction and conclusion are essential but not the principal parts of an academic paper. Their function is to summarize, not repeat what will or has been said in the main body.

Look through the introduction for any details covered later on and delete them.

Read the conclusion, making sure there are no “new” ideas you haven’t discussed before.

Tip #2: Delete the Chapter-Linking Passages

Many people have a habit of writing a mini-summary at the end of each section and “reminding” them about it in the next one. This practice is redundant and wastes your time and word count.

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

Tip #3: Make the Style More Straightforward

A research paper or essay is not a literary contest work. It is about conveying your ideas and substantiating them. The person reviewing your text most likely won’t read into it but quickly scan it through. Your purpose is to put your thoughts on paper with the minimum words. This is how you can do this without prejudice to the contents.

Look for Redundancies

This category includes:

• Sequences of synonyms (“The text is unnecessary and redundant”);
• Unnecessary epithets (“a good example”: would you include a bad one in your writing? “A difficult dilemma”: are there easy dilemmas?);
• Frequently repeated adverbs (“even,” “just,” “so,” and “too” rank among student’s favorites);
• Explanatory phrases (“bring to an end” equals “finish”);
• Self-repeating passages.

Don’t be afraid to lose some nuances for the benefit of brevity. Besides, if you delete words from a sentence, and it remains relatively the same, those words are redundant.

Simplify the Sentences

Feel free to split all the complex sentences united with “and” or “but.” First, you’ll get rid of some useless words. Second, the readability of your text will only benefit from it.

Get Rid of Prepositions

The English language allows you to express many things in multiple ways. You can equally say “a school of Fine Arts” and “Fine Arts school.” It will become much easier to read when your text is unloaded from prepositions.

You Can Do without Auxiliary Verbs

Although they make your writing more “polite,” you’ll be surprised how much space they take. Your paper will look great without all those “might” and “could.” Just write what you mean without tentativeness.

Tip #4: Apply a Text Minimizer Tool

Under time pressure, you won’t be able to dedicate yourself to refining the already completed text. Try using our sentence reducer for hard-to-read passages. If you need to shorten the entire paper online, this text reducer is at your service free of charge.

Updated: May 17th, 2024

• How long can the academic paper be? – Quora
• Term Paper Guidelines Length Content Style
• How to shorten an article before submitting to a journal
• 8 Ways to Reduce the Word Count for Your Research Paper
• The Ultimate Guide to the 5-Paragraph Essay – ThoughtCo

Free Text Shortener Tool

• 📖 Text Shortener
• 📜 When to Use It
• 🎉 Benefits of the Tool
• ✒️Writing a Summary
• ✍️Summary Examples
• 🎁 Bonus Tips

🔗 References

📖 text shortener guide.

Summarizing is an essential part of academic writing. It shows your ability to separate and present the main findings, plot elements, thoughts, etc. A good summary lets another person easily understand it without reading the original text.

Our free text shortener presents key takeaways of a text using AI technologies. To use it, you need to copy and paste the original text and choose the length of the expected summary. This is how you create a resume with zero stress in a couple of clicks.

In this article, we describe our tool and explain how to write top-scoring summaries.

📜 When to Use Text Shortener Tool

• When you need to write a concluding paragraph. It can be an essay, research paper, lab report, or other academic text. Paste your body paragraphs into the box to create a summary for your concluding part.
• When you need to shorten your essay. Use this tool if you exceed the word limit in your essay or a particular paragraph. It also works as a sentence shortener.
• When you need to read an extensive article. You will do it faster as summarizing tool makes the text shorter, preserving the main information. It is helpful when you need to read many articles and highlight the key points.
• When you need to shorten other researchers’ passages. Including lengthy quotes in your paper is not the best decision. Instead, you can use our tool to make them shorter without changing their sense.
• When you need to take notes. Create an overview of the studying materials with our online shortener. It is a fast and easy way to make notes without writing or typing them manually.
• When you need to refresh your knowledge. Instead of reading a full text or book, just use a summary generator. After a quick revision of the content, you can save and use these extracts later.

🎉 Shorten Sentence Generator Benefits

Below you will find reasons why students love our shortening tool.

✒️ How to Write an Outstanding Summary

If you want to write a summary yourself, this passage is for you. Follow these guidelines to shorten texts better and faster.

• Find only one core thought – this is the basis of the text. Then look for supporting points that revolve around this idea. At this stage, you can list the essential ideas in the text.
• Don’t use judgmental and emotional vocabulary while writing. Your goal is to be as objective as possible. You can also rewrite the informal style to formal. Remember that summarizing is not the same as paraphrasing .
• Keep your summary brief: it shouldn’t be longer than 15% of the initial text. But we still recommend using synonyms and synonymic expressions not to repeat the original passage. Don’t forget to reference the works you have included.
• Reread your summary . Make sure that its writing style corresponds with the rest of your work.
• Add transition words if you notice that there is no flow. Ask yourself: can a person understand the core meaning of your text just after reading the summary?

If yes, congratulations! You have just created a good summary. If not, find the details that you have missed. It can be a logical sequence, a particular argument, event, or evidence. Rewrite your summary till it fully represents the original text.

✍️ Text Shortening Examples

Now let’s take a look at two summary examples.

🎁 Bonus Tips for Students

• Make sure you know what kind of summary you need. For example, an executive summary has particular guidelines and writing formulas.
• Avoid complex terminology and long sentences. Your summary should be independent and straightforward. Imagine that a person unfamiliar with the topic needs to understand the text.
• To shorten a long text, make a one-sentence summary for each paragraph. It will help you control the size of the summary. It also will be easier to navigate the text if you decide to rewrite or adjust your summary.

What does summarize mean?

Summarizing means shortening a larger text without changing its meaning. You can usually see summaries at the end of essays and other academic papers. While shortening a text, you need to cover only the essential details mentioned in the text. In most summaries, you shouldn’t include your opinion on the matter and have to be objective.

How to summarize a story?

You need to retell a story briefly. Imagine that you have read a book and want to describe it to your friend. Highlight the main plot elements and characters that are crucial to the story. Omit the parts that are not essential for a person who wants to understand the plot.

How to summarize a quote?

Read the passage and find its key message. Briefly describe this thought in your own words. Make sure that the summarized piece fits your paper’s tone. If you leave more than three words unchanged, put them in quotation marks. Don’t forget to give credit to the author.

Note: short, clearly expressed quotes do not need shortening.

Updated: Aug 11th, 2022

• How to Write a Summary: 4 Tips for Writing a Good Summary | Masterclass
• Guidelines for Writing a Summary | Hunter College
• 10 Tips for Cutting Your Word Count | The University of Adelaide
• 8 Ways to Reduce the Word Count for Your Research Paper | How to Write a Journal Article

How To Write Better Essays: 5 Outside-the-Box Techniques + Writing Tips

Table of contents

Brinda Gulati

Stuck on a B, chasing that A+? We've all been there. 

I have two degrees in Creative Writing from the University of Warwick with First Class Honors. From 2013 to 2014, I also studied English Literature at the National University of Singapore. 

Translation: I’ve written a lot of academic essays.

Some good. Some inspired. And others, plain lousy.

After a few Bs and the occasional C, I cracked the code on writing good essays. An average academic essay answers a question; but an essay that gets an A+ solves a problem — whether through discussion, analysis, definition, comparison, or evaluation. 

In this blog post, I’ll walk you through how to write better essays. You’ll learn how to construct bullet-proof arguments with five unique thinking techniques, cut the fluff, and discover F.O.C.U.S. to improve your essay writing skills. 

Because essays don’t have to be boring. And writing them doesn’t have to either. 

What Makes A Good Essay?

What is “good” writing? The answer is subjective. For example, I loved reading My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh, but to some, it might be drivel. 

Nonetheless, many examples of good writing share some core qualities. 

There are five overarching qualities of good essay writing : flow, organization, clarity, unity, and specificity. 

I’ve made a fun little acronym to help you remember them better: F.O.C.U.S.™️

F low: Does the writing flow smoothly from one point to the next? 

O rganization: Have you structured your essay with a clear beginning, middle, and end?  

C larity: Is the writing clear, error-free, and unambiguous? 

U nity: Are all the elements of your writing supporting the central thesis?

S pecificity: Have you provided specific details, examples, and evidence to justify your main points? 

A Fellow at The European Graduate School, and my most cherished mentor, Dr. Jeremy Fernando , has perhaps read, written, and graded thousands of academic essays over the years. 

His advice?  

“You’re asking the reader to go on an explorative journey with you; the least you should do is ensure the trip you’re taking them on is the same as the advertised one.”

5 Creative Thinking Techniques For Writing Better Essays

The thing is, good essay writing doesn’t start at — or even as — writing . 

There’s reading, re-reading, pre-writing, revising, then actually writing, editing, and then writing some more.

As with most persuasive arguments , you need frameworks: points of reference, mental models, and structured approaches to guide your decision making.  

That's exactly what we have here. 

1. Try Reverse Outlining

A reverse outline is just what it sounds like: a process that distills a paper down to its bare essentials, leaving only the key points and topic sentences. The result? A clear, bullet-point blueprint of the paper's structure, whether it's your own work or someone else's.

Key Benefits: 

✅Creates an X-ray of a paper's structure to identify its central arguments and assess its logical flow.

✅Helps you actively engage with someone else’s work to deepen your understanding of the material.

✅Reveals structural issues in your own essay, such as missing or misplaced points, redundancies, or weak arguments.

How To Create A Reverse Outline:

This is a two-step, and perhaps infinitely repeatable process.

Take a blank page and draw a line straight down the middle.

• In the left-hand margin, write down the keywords for each paragraph in your essay. Stick to the main points. Be brief. 
• In the right-hand margin, write down how the keyword or topic supports the main argument. Again, don't sit down to write Bonfire of the Vanities . Make it concise . The goal is to persuasively explain your arguments in a few words.

2. Practice The Lotus Blossom Technique

In this structured brainstorming exercise, you plant your main problem in the center box of a 3x3 grid. Then, you’ll fill the surrounding boxes with related themes to expand your thinking. The method was developed by Yasuo Matsumura at Clover Management Research in Japan.

Key Benefits:

✅ A fun, novel alternative to traditional mind-mapping and spider-diagramming.  

✅Helps you visualize your essay slowly unfolding from its core. (Like a lotus, basically.)

✅I like how it's creative and thorough at the same time. An equal combination of freedom and structure.

How To Practice The Lotus Blossom Technique:

• Put your problem/essay question in the center square.
• Fill in the surrounding eight boxes with ideas related to the problem. At this point, you don’t need to elaborate. 
• Now, flesh out each of your eight ideas. Or, as with the lotus flower image — add another row of petals. 

When all your boxes are filled in, you'll have 64 ideas for one essay argument. As far as starting-off points go, this one’s hard to beat. 

Pro Tip : Did you know that dim light is a creative stimulant? Go dark. Light some candles.

3. Build A Toulmin Argument Model

According to philosopher Stephen E. Toulmin, arguments are broken down into six key components: claim, grounds, warrant, qualifier, rebuttal, and backing. 

There are three essential parts to every argument: the claim, the grounds, and the warrant.

• The claim is the main argument you want to prove to your audience. 
• The grounds of an argument are the evidence and facts that support it.
• The warrant is the assumption which links a claim to its grounds, whether implied or explicitly stated.

✅Craft persuasive arguments through an in-depth analysis that closely examines each part of your essay.

✅Analyzing an argument from its components can help clarify its logic.

✅The rebuttal component encourages you to anticipate and address counterarguments. The more perspectives you consider, the more well-rounded your argument will be.

How To Build A Toulmin Argument Model:

Let’s take a published paper — “ Coffee and Health: A Review of Recent Human Research ” by Jane V. Higdon and Balz Frei — and break it down using the Toulmin model. 

Get Wordtune for free > Get Wordtune for free >

• Claim: Consuming moderate amounts of coffee (3-4 cups a day with 300-400 mg of caffeine) has few health risks and some health benefits. Nevertheless, caffeine may be more harmful to pregnant women, children, adolescents, and the elderly.
• Grounds: According to epidemiological studies, coffee may prevent diabetes type 2, Parkinson's disease, and liver disease. 
• Warrant: Studies suggest that coffee consumption in moderation may have some health benefits and poses minimal health risks.
• Backing : A number of well-designed prospective cohort studies with large sample sizes are cited as supporting evidence. 
• Qualifier: This study applies specifically to healthy adults who consume moderate amounts of filtered coffee. Optimal intake hasn’t been defined. 
• Rebuttal: Some may be more sensitive to negative effects. Further research is needed.

I don’t know about you, but I often get convinced of my own arguments when writing essays, and then it’s hard for me to consider other perspectives.

So, if you want a sparring buddy, here’s how Wordtune can help you with counterarguments:

First, I’ve copy-pasted our claim from above 👇🏼

Next, click on the little purple sparkle icon and choose “Counterargument” from the drop-down menu. 

Lo and behold! Not only does Wordtune provide accurate contextual suggestions for a convincing opposing opinion, it goes one step further and cites a clickable source for the research .

Nothing short of time-saving magic , if you ask me.

4. Ask The Five Whys

You need to ask “why” five times to get to the root of any problem. That’s what the inventor of the method, and founder of Toyota Industries, Sakichi Toyoda, believed. 

✅The approach identifies the real problem, not just its surface symptoms. 

✅It’s an easy-to-do and straightforward process that gets to the heart of your essay question.

✅Use this approach in combination with the Toulmin Model to build a killer essay argument.

Asking The Five Whys:

Let’s look at a sample essay question and drill down to its core.

When you have the core of the problem in your palm, you can then start thinking of solutions. Perhaps finding more cost-effective ways to train and support teachers. Or exploring alternative funding options, such as grants and partnerships with local businesses.

5. Experiment With The Ben Franklin Exercise

Franklin wasn’t always a prodigious scholar. While working at a print shop, he reverse engineered the prose from the British magazine, The Spectator , to learn how to write better without a tutor. 

He took detailed notes at a sentence level, contemplated them for some time, and then re-created the sentences without looking at the originals.

In fact, research from MIT shows that it's “not just the study of tiny details that accelerates learning; the act of assembling those details yourself is what makes the difference.” This is called constructionist learning. 

✅Improve your essay writing by studying works of skilled authors through practiced imitation.

✅Organizing your notes from memory will help you construct a solid structure for your essay, and evaluate any gaps in logic and flow.

✅Actively deconstructing and constructing the material allows you to engage deeply with it, and therefore, write better essays.

How I Use The Ben Franklin Exercise:

One of my favorite passages in Literature — as clichéd as may it be — is from Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club . 

• Note how “strongest” and “smartest” are alliterative words, creating a sense of rhythm right in the first sentence.
• The imagery of banality — pumping gas, waiting tables, etc. is at once, vivid and relatable, moving and unmoving.
• The phrase “midddle children of the history man” places the narrative in a broader, more relevant context.
• Notice how the “g” is capitalized for the first mention of war and depression, but then it switches to a small “g” for the same words in the next sentence.
• The repetition of “very very pissed off” is much more effective than simply saving “livid.”

Similarly, start by taking a paragraph from an essay you like. Make sentence-level notes and rewrite its essence without looking at it. 

My Top Tips To Write A Good Essay

1. write lousy first drafts.

You heard me. Write as if your keyboard doesn’t have keys for punctuation. Write as if no one is ever going to read your essay. The goal is to eliminate self-censorship . When you first start writing down your main points, don’t assume the role of a self-editor. 

TRY THIS : Open a blank page, set a timer for two and a half minutes, and type until the bell goes off. Take a break. Repeat. Don’t re-read what you’ve typed. 

Forget proper spelling. Forget good grammar. Those polishes are all for later, when you have something to polish. 

This is freewriting. 

And it’s wildly effective in getting you to stop thinking about deadlines, blinking cursors, and that A+. My highest-scoring essays have all begun with messy, unstructured, poorly-worded first drafts. 

2. Read Other Essays Like A Writer

Think of your favorite book. What makes you call it your favorite? Or a series you’ve watched recently. ( Behind Her Eyes is especially good.) What compels you to see it all the way through? The same principle applies to good essay writing. Have you read an essay in your research that hooked you? Or a friend’s work you wish you could put your name to? 

Read like a writer — become a proactive participant in examining why the writing works. Instead of passively drawing stars next to important observations, ask yourself, “ Why do I like these passages? What are they doing? And how are they doing it?” (Use the Ben Franklin Exercise here.)

Take apart the essay you’re reading like a forensic pathologist doing an autopsy. 

3. Start With An Outline

Speaking of autopsies, a good essay has good bones. Once you’ve disgorged your ideas on the page, start arranging them under headers. 

This blog too, was born in the Notes app on my phone. But if you’re taking the reader with you somewhere, you should know where you’re headed too. 

Pro Tip : Keep two working documents for your essay. One where you dump all the links, sources, and keywords. The other is where you work on your final draft for submission.

4. Cut The Fluff

The deadline’s in a few hours and you’re scrambling to hit minimum word count . Long, winding sentences with gratuitous adjectives you’ve just looked up in the thesaurus to sound more cerebral, erudite, scholarly.

I get it. I’ve done it. And those essays have bellyflopped. Professors know when you’re trying to game them.

Here’s an actual sentence from one of my essays I wrote in 2017:

“Ibsen’s realist drama, and in particular, A Doll’s House , is replete with the problems that chapter and verse modern life – the patriarchal model of the family, money and debt, and the performance of gender.”

And much to my embarrassment, this is the scathing comment from my then-professor: 

“This makes no sense.”

Let’s rework this sentence to make sense using Wordtune (a clever AI helper I wish I had during my university days):

“The patriarchal family model, money and debt, and gendered performance are all apparent in Ibsen's realist drama, especially A Doll's House .”

Much more sensible. 

5. Get Feedback, Edit, And Revise

I can’t emphasize this enough — don’t submit your first draft! Have someone else read it, perhaps a friend in the same class or even from a different major. Look at their eyebrows to see which sections make them frown in confusion. 

Ask them to red-pen sentences and logical gaps. And then —- edit, edit edit! 

Sleep on it. Let the essay stew in the back of your mind for a full night, and come back to it with fresh eyes.

Start (Pre-)Writing Better Essays

The ability to write persuasively will serve you well no matter what stage of your life you are in: high school, university scholar, or a professional trying to get ahead. After all, the human mind is hardwired for storytelling.

Remember, the key is to F.O.C.U.S.

Whether you’re crawling or speeding towards a deadline, bag that A+ with a smart AI assistant like Wordtune !

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Paraphrasing and Summarizing Tool

Our teachers share tons of different information with us, expecting us to keep it all neat and organized in our heads. Is that fair—or even possible?! From now on, you can easily solve the problem of information overload by using our Summarizer online tool to compress any important text into a 10-sentence summary.

The size of your summary is: % ( words, characters)

This tool analyzes the textual patterns of any piece to render the best results. You’ll get the gist of any article, essay, research paper or any other text compressed into just a couple of sentences! You can also use this tool to summarize your own papers or custom writing works and to create great abstracts, thesis statements, and more.

• ❇️ Summary & conclusion generators today
• ✅ Online summarizer’s 5 practical advantages

Extraction-based

Abstraction-based

Aided summarization

• ❓ Summary Making FAQs

❇️ Why Are Summarizing Tools Important?

Today, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and neural networks are developing rapidly. So it would be weird not to take advantage of this development by using an online summarizer.

Modern online summarizing tools are capable of delivering a decent result regardless of the text’s complexity and the length of summary you want to get. And the technology just keeps getting better. It’s very rare that you’ll have to revise the text you get from a summary maker.

Why summary making tool is a must-have for students:

• Because the summary generator delivers a clear structure, the text is easy to digest.
• If you’re working with a lengthy summary, the article summarizer usually divides the text into meaningful parts and complete paragraphs.
• Summary tools are also capable of making a smooth transition from general to specific, uncovering the main ideas of the text in more detail.
• The resulting summary has a good overall readability without additional “information noise,” dangling references, broken-up sentences, or semantic flaws.

✅ Summarizing and Paraphrasing tool: the Benefits

In other words:

It keeps you from missing any important info from the text.

An article summarizer can highlight keywords, so you don’t even have to worry about looking for those. The tool scans the text and picks out the most important details. As a result, you’ll get a clear picture of what the text is about—without stressing about whether or not you’ve missed anything.

It delivers instant results.

How much time does it take you to read through and digest a page? You’ll then spend even more time to write a summary of your own. Let’s say you can finish reading a 500-word article in about 4 minutes. You’ll spend another 10 to 15 minutes writing a short summary. And that’s only if you don’t have to re-read anything!

A summary tool works instantly. You just paste the text, press the button, and get your summary in a split second.

You’ll get all the same important data, only much quicker, and without having to read through all the text yourself (which might contain a lot of unimportant stuff, too).

It increases your productivity.

This one is a result of the previous advantage. Being able to make a summary with a single click allows you to go through way more material.

For instance, when you’re researching a topic, searching the web can easily take hours and hours. You have to carefully read through each article that might contain some piece of information you need.

There’s no such task when using a summary generator. It will give you short snippets that are clear and to the point.

It boosts your study process.

Notes, written answers, and summaries are often the result of study sessions. Being able to produce summaries without having to put in too much effort increases your feeling of accomplishment. All you have left to do is to check out your summaries in order to engage the new material even more and retain the information you’ve gathered.

It can become a vital part of your review sessions.

It doesn’t matter whether you already have summaries or were just about to make them. A text summarizing tool can still be a huge help when you have to review material to prepare for a test or exam.

Attempting to skim the text won’t do you any good and will only turn out to be a waste of time. Having a good summary allows you to avoid this unnecessary and time-consuming step and instead get right down to business.

To memorize the information even better, you can try and interpret the summary in your own words. This way, the material will be more familiar to you. This step will also ensure that the summary has no contextual flaws and that its message is clear.

Just the fact that you can skip all the steps required to summarize the text or article properly makes an online summarizer an absolute winner in terms of usefulness.

All automatic summary tools rely on a certain algorithm to produce the desired result. The way a specific algorithm works is determined by the type of summarization that the tool performs.

📃 3 Types of Summarizing Tools

Conclusion generators can usually perform one of three major summary types:

With this type, the article summarizer will extract snippets from the whole text without changing or altering them in any way.

The process is very similar to extracting key phrases, where the purpose is to find phrases or individual words that could be used as tags for the text or document.

In other words, an extraction-based summary generator copies the most important information from the source text and puts the pieces together to create a summary.

This type of summary is more advanced than the extraction-based type. It involves paraphrasing the parts of text you initially input into the summarizer tool.

Generally speaking, tools that can perform this type of summarization do a much better job of condensing the source text, bringing results that are superior to those of extraction-based summarizers.

The only downside is that it’s much more difficult to develop such summary machine. The main reason for this is that in order to work properly, paraphrasing and summarizing tool requires natural language generation technology. This field is continuously growing, and there have been attempts to create an abstract synopsis capability that’s similar to what we as humans have. But for now, the majority of summary generating tools remain extraction-based.

This type comes as the result of merging findings from the fields of machine learning, text mining, and information retrieval in an attempt to improve the process of automatic summary generation.

This is an obvious step away from fully automatic summarizers towards a slightly different concept. Instead of being a summary generator that does the entire job itself, machine-aided human summarization systems only provide help in the process. For instance, they can highlight passages that could potentially be included in a summary.

On the other hand, human-aided machine summarization systems act in a reverse manner. They generate a summary on their own so that the result can later be processed by a human.

As you can see, the possibilities are endless. It’s only a matter of further developments in the field that will bring automatic text summary creation to the next level.

But for now, a free online summarizer has already proven its usefulness.

If you’re short on time, have a ton of essays and research papers that will take you forever to complete, or just don’t feel like sitting for hours trying to capture the main idea from a lengthy text—be sure to try a free summarizer. It’ll make writing summaries much more effortless and save you extra time to spend on the things that are really important to you.

❓ Paragraph Shortener FAQ

❓ how to summarize an article without plagiarizing.

To create an original summary, follow these tips:

• Read the article several times to have a clear idea of its content
• Inspect the introduction, find the thesis statement and rephrase it
• Write down the article’s key points and phrases so as not to forget them
• Compose your summary without peeking at the source text, relying only on your notes
• Cite all the sources used

Alternatively, you can use our online tool, which creates summaries of source texts automatically.

❓ How to make a paragraph shorter?

To shorten a paragraph, cut the unnecessary or redundant information. Your paragraph should contain only one idea, outlined in an introductory sentence. Make sure to elaborate on it in 2 to 3 sentences, cutting out phrases or ideas t that deviate from the core subject.

Then, eliminate words that don’t add any value to the text, stating the obvious or excessive information. Get rid of unnecessary determiners and modifiers and cut repetitive phrases or words.

❓ How to summarize a research paper?

To create a summary, you need to divide the research paper into key sections and elaborate on each one. You then compose a brief overview of everything that’s crucial in the document.

In your summary, include the following parts:

• An introduction, in which you engage the reader in your study
• An explanation of the hypothesis, or purpose of your research
• Description of the methods used
• A review of the results that ties directly to the hypothesis
• A conclusion in which you outline your interpretation of the results and plans for future study

❓ Is there an app that can summarize articles?

Yes, of course! There are plenty of summary makers available in the App Store or Google Play. Furthermore, you can find some great summarizing tools online that don’t require payment or registration. Or use our automatic summary generator above to get an original summary of your text.

❓ How to summarize an article online?

You can use our free summarizer to create a summary of an article. You don’t have to download it on your computer or pay a subscription or fee to use it.. Just follow these simple instructions and get your summary online:

• Copy and paste your text (up to 17.000 characters long) in the available space
• Choose how long you would like the summary to be
• Indicate whether you want to see keywords
• Click the “Analyze text” button and get your summary online!
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