Perhaps you’re someone that loves to write with a lot of depth, or maybe you’re one that struggles every time you face a word count over 1000 words. The truth is, during your university journey, whether you’re studying arts or science, you will be faced with plenty of word limits for your assignments.
Word limits are there for a reason, and it's important that you learn how to keep your writing within them. There are also many ways you can increase and decrease a word count too. This article will take you through university word counts in detail, so keep reading!
Purpose of Word Counts
There’s a reason that word limits are set, and most times, they give a gauge on how detailed your discussions need to be. The greater the word count, the more extensive your writing and analysis needs to be.
Word counts are also used to make the assignment fairer: every student gets the same number of words to make their point. The best writers will have enough ideas to cover the minimum word count, but know how to deliver their point concisely, to prevent exceeding the maximum word count. If your writing is under the word count, it is likely that you haven’t gone into enough discussions and have a shallower analysis. If your writing is over the word count, you have probably used too many words, and haven’t been very concise.
In some cases, your professor may give you a 10% tolerance. This means that your final word count can be either 10% higher or lower than the specified word limit. For example, if the limit is 1000 words, your final piece can be between 900 to 1100 words. This rule is not universal though, so always make sure you ask if this is applicable to your assignment.
Exceeding a word limit may lead to penalties – unfortunately, it won’t impress your markers! Sometimes, your marker might stop reading your piece once the limit is reached, potentially missing any great ideas at the end. This can also affect your structure marks. In other cases, the marker may read your entire piece, despite the length. They will mark everything as it is, but then deduct some marks at the end. There’s no worse feeling than working extremely hard on an assignment, scoring well for your writing and then having marks taken off. Trust me, I’ve been there.
What is Included in a Word Count?
There’s no real standard for what is included in a word count – ideally, you will be given some guidance from your professors.
A word count usually includes:
- All words that form the essay
- Any titles or headings within the main piece
- All intext citations (included bracketed ones)
- Any direct quotes
A word count usually excludes:
- Anything on the title page
- References
- Figure captions
- Information in a table
Tips to Help Increase a Word Count
While completing some assignments, it is likely that you might feel as though you’ve exhausted all your ideas before you’ve hit the word limit. Of course, you can’t submit your assignment half done, so here are some ways to increase the word count:
- Increase the depth of your discussions
- Introduce a new idea
- Expand any quotes that were used
- Include more in text-citations
- Try and discuss a new perspective
You shouldn’t try to increase a word count by adding redundant words – this will not get you more marks! A lot of students like to cheat their way into adding words as well – usually by eliminating the use of contractions or adding white coloured text. Your marker will pick this up.
Tips to Help Reduce a Word Count
Need some help on reducing a word count? Here are some tips.
- Use an active voice instead of passive one
Before: The experiment was conducted by the research team [8 words]
After: The research team conducted the experiment [6 words]
- Where possible, delete the words ‘the’ and ‘that.’ In most cases, you won’t lose any meaning.
Before: The movie that we watched at the cinema was the one that everyone had been talking about [17 words]
After: The movie we watched at the cinema was one everyone had been talking about [14 words]
- Remove redundant adjectives and adverbs
Before: The tall and towering skyscraper stood prominently against the bright and shining city skyline [14 words]
After: The skyscraper stood prominently against the city skyline [8 words]
- Find long, wordy sentences and reduce the words
Before: Upon completing the experiment, it was found that all the wastewater samples had various amounts of each of the expected types of the heavy metals [25 words]
After: The experiment showed that the wastewater samples had varying amounts of each heavy metal [14 words]
- Replace conjunctions with full stops
Before: The liquid changed colour when it was exposed to higher temperatures, and it also evaporated after a few hours. [19 words]
After: The liquid changed colour when it was exposed to higher temperatures. It also evaporated after a few hours. [18 words]
- Avoid linking back to previous sections (unless necessary)
Before: As mentioned in the previous section, animals can be treated better by…
After: Animals can be treated better by….
Hopefully this article gave you some insightful information about University word counts. Almost all your assignments at university will have word limits, so it is important that you learn how to write concisely, yet effectively. Best of luck!
