I've finished an essay today, with a measly 1,700 word limit. After getting in everything I wanted to say, it's up to 2,300 words - even after cutting some stuff out
That'll be alright, won't it? I mean, I'm only handing in a physical copy so I guess there's no way of them *actually* knowing how much I've written (unless they count words per line, etc). Anybody ever do this? I don't want the last few hundred words to be discredited, as they're about Alvin 'the Toff' Toffler and his bitchin' third wave theory
I thought the general rule was ±10%
Depends what it's for
You could probably get away with 2,000 no problems. I've never heard of anyone handing in an essay that was too long. They always threatened that they'd cut off the end, but could they really be arsed?
the rule at my uni
was 10% either way you could be penalised for.
its unlikely that you'll get in trouble though. just dont do it too often.
id suggest that some of what you wrote was probably irrelevantm tho.
Cut down the intro and . . .
cut out bits where you explain what you're going to say later on in the essay (I hate that, and I'm marking your essay, dove!). If you feel like you've repeated yourself, you probably have. Cut that. Cut down adjectives too. Done. 2,000. A+. Congrats!
monkey see
monkey do
I just cut out 100 words
That hurt. It's like a cull of my brightest thoughts and relevant witticisms : (
Thinking about it, excluding the bibiography, I'm only now about 300 words over. Not *too* bad
Oh right! . . .
I would never include the bibliography as part of the word count. If you have to put a word count at the end of the essay, exclude the bibliography.
300 words over will be fine. Goodnight and good luck.
I don't actually have to include a word count
And I was just going by the tried and tested Tools - Word Count option. I then realised that I had included the bibliography. Mildly pathetic panic over...
I hate butchering my work
somehow it always ends up just slightly too long after a regular editing job, and I end up having to cut some keystone paragraph out on the morning of the deadline that makes the whole thing look really awkward.
What I always did
was find out the word count first, and write the essay so that it was 10% under the count.
That leaves some latitude to shoehorn in some witty observations and breathless adjectival strings after you have 'finished' the work.
I just had to do this with an article at work
Two pages to fill, I did enough to fill three. And I was so, so proud. I'm tempted to tell them to make the sodding magazine bigger. This stuff is gold :(
"there have been some very
interesting developments in tongue depressers over the last few years for example..."
YAWN
It was about hygienist politics
ACTUALLY. It's got some killer quotes and stuff in it. That I've had to chop :(
dont forget as well
that quotations do not count towards your word count. and neither do foonotes, so write really long footnotes/endnotes.
^^ don't do this
it looks really unprofessional
yeah,
but its really really funny.
aids ! aids ! aids !
my tips
I found that the word that is normally unnessary, anything like it is can be apostrophised (is that a word), hyphonate words that don't actually go together etc. your essay will end up as one long txt message
I wrote 200 words over the word limit
for my GCSE English Language summary question. I think it was supposed to be a 400 word summary and I wrote 600. Because I tried to be clever and work out an average for the number of words per line from 5 lines, then multiply it by the number of lines, but I fucked it up. I cried for like 2 days.
i always thought 20%
wow
I'm so, so glad I never have to write another essay again in my life
SCHOOOOOOOOOOL'S OUT, FOR, THE SUMMER!
10% +/-
Is a myth! if it's 1,700 it should be 1,700 words. Damn it!!!
That's what I'll be teaching my future kids anyway.