Have you ever struggled to write an essay, doing research and all, but when you are about to turn it in, you realize you have exceeded the required word count? Well, it happens. But now the question is, how do you shorten it and keep your arguments intact?
Shortening an essay is challenging, especially when you don’t know the right tricks. It can be a struggle because you also don’t want to sacrifice the quality of the work you’ve researched for hours. But in this article, we’ll show you simple yet effective ways to shorten your essay without ruining it.
Review the Grading Standards
Before you shorten an essay, ensure you have reviewed the grading standards. Grading standards/rubrics are the guidelines a professor uses to evaluate an essay, such as word limits. Understand what your teacher looks for in your college essay and ensure you have revised it until it meets all the expectations. Evaluating these guidelines will help you identify the essential components of your essay that you cannot afford to lose when you shorten it. For example, your professor may require you to provide specific examples, analyze a particular concept or theory, or provide a well-supported argument.
Moreover, reviewing the rubric will help you focus on the critical elements to avoid making mistakes that can affect your marks. For instance, if the rubric requires that you use specific formatting styles or citation methods, ensure that you adhere to them when revising the entire essay, trying to shorten it.
Eliminate Your Least Effective Paragraphs
The least effective paragraphs don’t add much impact to your essays and only hinder you from attaining the required word limits. The goal is to create a clear, effective college essay that accurately delivers your message and supports your thesis statement. And this can’t be possible when you have pointless paragraphs.
To gauge which sections are off-topic, you should read the entire paragraphs and identify redundant ones. For instance, you may have discussed a particular point in several paragraphs, some of which may need to be revised. In this case, you can eliminate redundant sections and consolidate your points to create a more robust and compelling argument. While you work to shorten an essay, check the word count to ensure you don’t fall far from the word limit.
Listen to Your Paper
Another effective way to shorten an essay is by reading it out loud. It helps you identify awkward phrases, unnecessary words, and grammatical errors. When we read silently, we easily miss mistakes and inconsistencies in our writing. However, when we read out loud, we engage different parts of our brains and are more likely to catch errors and identify awkward sentences.
Read the essay yourself or ask a buddy or roomie to read it for you as you pay attention to the flow and identify the parts you can omit to make the essay shorter. Check the word limit after each sentence you delete to ensure your college essay is within the word count required.
Additional Pointers for Shortening an Essay
Don’t rush to place an order at a paper writing service to help shorten your paper yet. Apart from deleting paragraphs and listening to your essay, you can employ other techniques to shorten the essay. These approaches also help decrease word count without compromising the essay’s quality.
Delete Adverbs and Adjectives
Adverbs and adjectives help add detail and description to nouns and verbs. Specifically, adjectives modify nouns, while adverbs add more description to verbs. While they are helpful, they also make a composition unnecessarily wordy. Thus, to shorten an essay, identify and delete adjectives and adverbs that don’t add importance to your college essay. You don’t need to write a sophisticated piece, especially for your college application essay. The goal should be a quality and concise paper that meets the guidelines and word limit.
Shorten Long Clauses
In essay writing, writers often use unnecessarily wordy phrases, making their articles dense and challenging to understand. Trimming lengthy clauses is an effective way to make your composition more concise and easy to comprehend. To shorten lengthy clauses, pinpoint phrases you can simplify without changing the meaning. For instance, instead of the phrase “at the present time,” replace it with “now.”
Another strategy to shorten lengthy phrases in essay writing is to delete redundant words or expressions. For instance, instead of the phrase “basic fundamentals,” simplify it to “basics” or “fundamentals.” Similarly, instead of the phrase “circle around,” use “circle.”
When shortening lengthy phrases, ensure that sentences flow logically and smoothly, even after you clip the phrases. Also, write short sentences to put your arguments across. But be careful not to use contractions and slang.
Opt for Active Voice
Using active voice will shorten a composition and make it more straightforward and captivating. Start by identifying sentences written in passive voice. In passive voice, a subject receives the action, making the sentence sound indirect and wordy. To convert the sentence into active voice, rewrite it so that the subject acts.
For instance, instead of “The cake was baked by Sarah,” write “Sarah baked the cake.” The latter sentence is more direct, short and engages the reader by highlighting the person acting. So by identifying sentences that aren’t crafted in active voice and changing them, you’ll easily shorten the composition and meet the specified essay’s word count.
Get Rid of Running Starts
Done all the above, but you still wonder, “Who will I pay to write my paper for cheap and make it short?” Maybe it’s time to fix running starts. Running starts are phrases that come before the main subject of a sentence. For example:
- There is
- There was
- It was
- There were
Such starts help add variety to your writing and create a sense of continuity between sentences, but they also make your essay appear wordy and complex. Thus, it’s vital to rewrite your running starts to make your college application essay more concise.
An effective way to rewrite running starts when trying to shorten a paper is to eliminate them. Instead of beginning a sentence with a long introductory phrase, start the sentence with the main subject.
Another way to rewrite running starts is to use a verb instead of a noun. For example, instead of writing, “The fact that he was late caused problems,” you could write, “His lateness caused problems.” Rewriting eliminated the running start and made the sentence more active.
Merge Sentences With Similar Meanings
Merging sentences with similar meanings helps reduce your paper’s word count. When writing essays, writers often repeat information in multiple sentences, making the writing appear repetitive and redundant. By merging these sentences, you eliminate repetitive phrases and create a more concise and compelling sentence.
To merge sentences, identify the key ideas in each sentence. Look for repeated words, phrases, or concepts you can combine into a single sentence. For example, if you have two sentences that say, “The book is about the life of a famous musician. The musician’s rise to fame is explored in detail,” you could merge them into a single sentence: “The book explores the life and rise to fame of a famous musician.”
Another way to merge sentences is by using conjunctions to connect related ideas. Conjunctions such as “and,” “but,” “or,” and “yet” help you join two or more sentences together, creating a more complex and informative sentence. For example, instead of “I like to swim. I also like to run,” you could write “I like to swim and run.” While doing all these, remember to keep checking your word count as you shorten your essay.
Listen to Your Article
Using text-to-speech technology to review your essay is an effective way to make your essay shorter and reduce its word count. Text-to-speech tools allow you to listen to your essay, which helps identify awkward phrasing, errors, and inconsistencies in your writing.
Various software and online tools are available for free or for a fee to help you read your article aloud. Copy and paste your essay into the program, select the text-to-speech option, and listen as the program reads your essay aloud. As you listen, note sections that might be shortened to meet the specified word limit.
Final Thoughts
Shortening a college essay may seem daunting, but it’s a necessary skill for any student. By following the tips outlined above, you’ll not only be able to make your essay shorter, but you’ll also improve your writing skills. Remember, shortening your essay means reducing word count without ruining the quality. Maintaining your work’s integrity while reducing its length is essential. By implementing these tips, you’ll create a perfect, shortened essay that meets all the required standards, including the word count.