Clever Tricks on to Shorten Essay Without Ruining It
Imagine this situation. You have done all the required research, developed your thesis statement, and written your paper, only to discover that you have used more words than is advised.
Excessive essay length, like falling below the word count, may have negative implications. Therefore, it’s crucial to cut your work down before turning it in to ensure that you receive the high marks you deserve.
Unfortunately, a lot of students are unsure of how to shorten an essay without destroying it. Continue reading for advice on how to shorten a paper to prevent problems with your tutor.
How to make an essay shorter
Like many students, I once struggled with the question of how to shorten my essay. My devotion to the paper frequently made it difficult for me to cut out extraneous details, which put me in a difficult situation.
I eventually came upon some incredible strategies that allowed me to reduce the word count while maintaining the paper’s meaning. Some of the approaches on how to shorten an essay include:
- Using contraptions
Although contraptions do not drastically reduce your word count, they are a great way to maneuver instances where you are slightly above the word count. However, be wary of using contraptions if your tutor has warned against their use in the paper.
- Reduce the use of adverbs in your paper
Adverbs are descriptive phrases that frequently finish in -ly. These phrases are frequently used to emphasize a certain trait or to contrast two activities. Thankfully, these words are unnecessary in academic writing, allowing you to keep the necessary parts of your paper.
For instance, the sentence:
The government is quite slow in admitting that the rights of disabled persons are largely abused (16 words)
Can be truncated to
The government is reluctant to admit the gross abuse of disabled persons (12 words)
By replacing the adverbs in the sentence.
- Doing away with the fluff
Due to habits, we have formed over our writing experiences, we frequently use more words in our articles than are necessary. These superfluous phrases may bloat your essay, leaving less area for important ideas.
Ideally, ask colleagues and subject-matter experts for advice on how to omit this filler or use an editing tool to streamline your document to the most important points.
- Use active voice
The differences between using active voice and passive voice are well-known to writers. Since the passive voice tends to contain more words, you can change it to make sure you stay under the allowed word limit.
For instance, the sentence:
Necessary services are being provided by the government (8 words)
Could be converted to a shorter size by using active voice:
The government provides necessary services
- Eliminate unnecessary information
When going about shortening your essay, we recommend that you prepare a reverse outline and compare it against your initial outline. These outlines will allow you to identify the repeated ideas and unnecessary information within your essay.
This will help you to merge similar paragraphs and to eliminate redundant ideas within your essay. weigh each argument made in your paper and remove weaker arguments, leaving the strong claims that define your essay.
- Reducing the explanations in your essay
Reducing the amount of time you spend explaining topics in your essay is another excellent way shorten an essay. Some concepts could be represented by a wide variety of justifications in an effort to bolster the validity of your assertions or emphasize the gravity of an issue.
When condensing your paper, remove any unnecessary justifications and leave no more than two examples in each instance.
- Use a shortening tool
There are a few writing methods you can use to condense your work without losing the intended message. Before using other techniques, such as omitting superfluous explanations, we advise you to start by running your essay through these engines to make it shorter.
Final take
Shortening your essay should not give you a hassle. You should find these tips on how to shorten essays useful for streamlining your work without losing sight of its main points. To ensure a seamless experience with your studies, feel free to ask our specialists for advice anytime you encounter any academic difficulties.
