More often than not, you end up needing to reduce word count in your academic writing. This can be a painful task, because you don’t want to lose the substance of your writing, but you’ve got no choice if you want to hand the piece in as required. There are one or two things you can do to reduce word count without affecting the substance of the writing, though. One thing to remember is that reducing word count actually means reducing the number of spaces (i.e. word delimiters) in the text. It’s not about making it faster to read, necessarily. You need to figure out the basics concerning the below-mentioned things:
- Do the footnotes get counted?
- Does it count the abstract?
- Does it count the bibliography part?
By simplifying your style you can reduce the word count: here’s how
The goal here is to reduce your writing down to its bear bones, leaving little else behind. This may make your writing less pleasant to read, but realistically you can’t be marked down for that. This isn’t a literature contest – it’s about getting your ideas down on paper in the least amount of words possible.
Also remember that the person reviewing your work and giving you credit is most likely going to scan through it at high speed. They may not even notice your prose style particularly, instead looking for the important content to follow the thread of your argument. In that case, you’re actually making the experience more pleasant for them by cutting out the extras in your writing.
You should also make the best use of word count tools
By doing so, you get the license to check how many words you are writing. Not just that, it also gives you a license to check how many sentences you are writing and also how many unique words you are incorporating. If you wish to use such a tool, then you can pay a visit to wordcounttool.com.
You should never make the use of adverbs too much
Adverbs happen to be the deletable things when it comes to academic writing. At the least, the adverb-verb pairs can convert a better chosen verb into its own. For instance, “dropped rapidly” can always be replaced with the word “plummeted”. That’s how it actually works!
You should also make sure to delete the adjectives
While the adjectives can make your content livelier and make it more interesting to read, you can sacrifice them and reduce the word count in the academic writing. You probably won’t lose credit for duller writing, but you will for exceeding the word count. Instead of using adjectives, try to keep your prose clear and straightforward, and get straight to the point. You can always avoid the detailed descriptions unless it is necessary for following what you want to explain in your writing.
You should also delete the connectives and prepositions too. In this way, you can actually present a brilliant academic write-up! This brings the closure of this guide enlightening you about the great ways of reducing your word count when it comes to academic contents or write-ups.
