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Although, it seems rather tiresome to make your academic essay shorter. It appears to be not so difficult, especially with the help of the right techniques. There are many ways to make the entire essay look concise and decrease the word count by reducing the number of unnecessary words. Remember about word limits, not to write sentences without sense.
The existing techniques can help you to reduce your essay by several pages. Some essays have more pages than are required, while others are simply incomprehensible. Below, you’ll find all you need to make an essay shorter without making it meaningless.
These tips fit any type of essay: a college essay, a college application essay, a narrative essay, or a descriptive essay.
Turn to the Marking Criteria and Re-Read It
When proofreading academic works, it is always better to have appropriate marking criteria at hand. This is a list of the main things a teacher is looking for when marking your college essay. At times, it’s also called:
- Indicative essay writing content;
- Rubric devoted to marking the essay;
- The results of the learning process.
It’s never difficult to find the rubric dedicated to marking your paper. Just visit the course page, which is usually either on Blackboard or Moodle. This entirely depends on the educational institution you’re studying at. After that, try to identify where the teacher has provided the main details in relation to your educational task. If there is any indicative content, be sure that you’ve found the right place. At times, tutors do not provide any results for your learning.
If, however, the tutor has simply provided the topic itself, it means that they may not have any list of criteria indicating how your paper is marked. In such a case, you’ll have to rely only on the main question of the essay itself.
In case you’ve found the criteria for marking or the main question on writing essays, try to read every paragraph and then look at the criteria once again.
In order to make the essay more concise, you should ask yourself first:
- Do the entire paragraphs in the college essay add any unknown data that will help me write it in line with the paper question?
- Does every paragraph answer the main question of the college application essay or indicative content?
If the essay is not directly related to the main task or indicative content, you only need to reduce the word limit and use other possible techniques on how to shorten an essay.
Remove the Worst Paragraphs
The first step before starting the text, check the word limit, uniqueness, and grammar. Some students are trying to exceed the word count on purpose. This helps to make the paper shorter and get a higher mark. If you exceed the limit of words, you can always look back over your paper and find the paragraphs that are absolutely redundant. After that, you should only delete them.
Deleting the worst parts of the essay guarantees that you’ll make it more interesting for others to read, as it will be without any meaningless paragraphs. It also implies that you leave only the best parts of your paper for the tutor to be impressed with after reading it. It also helps to write the required word count for the teacher to be fully satisfied.
There are many ways to evaluate which parts are the best and which ones are the worst. These include the next points:
- Identify the paragraphs that have the worst list of sources. Tutors will check whether each paragraph has proper referencing in order to assess the paper’s quality. Repetitive phrases make the paper cluttered with meaningless content. Too many sources, or just one, will lead to a lower mark. The worst paragraphs are also those that reduce the depth of content. That’s because it always results in adding details provided in the external source itself. Don’t try to write text just for word count. Remember, that useful content is more important.
- Detect the least persuasive paragraphs. When re-reading the essay, you may think that the argumentation is not so good. Such paragraphs are better to remove from your work, as they never lead to getting the top grade. Teachers often decrease the essay marks for poorly written paragraphs, so it’s better to cut them down completely.
- Unite several paragraphs into just one. At times, there is only one sentence in the paragraphs that is better to delete. If that’s your situation, it’s better to extract the well-written ones and transfer them to the other part of the paper. You can also remove the poorly written sentences from the essay completely. If you decide to do so, try to ensure that all the essay parts address the main question of the work. This may also help to reduce the essay’s word count.
- Create the rating of the paragraphs. Sometimes, it may be hard to find the worst parts of the paper, as you may like all of them. In such a case, all you need is to create the rating of the paragraphs. It will also assist with making the difficult decision to remove some of them.
Make Someone Read Your Essay Out Loud
Ask someone close to read your essay aloud. In order to listen to the paper and evaluate how well-written it is, it’s advisable to use such technologies as Google Translate or “Read-Out-Loud” from Microsoft Excel.
You only need to paste the entire work into the cell and use the read-out-loud function. The process is often more difficult than using Google Translate. However, if you still wish to try it, you can just get the necessary directions from the Microsoft Help option and start the process there. After you listen to your essay, you’ll be able to detect the worst sentences and remove the unnecessary parts. As a good tip, it’s always better to write short sentences than long ones in order to make your essay sound better.
Below, you’ll find things to consider when listening to the paper:
- If a certain part sounds too long, it may make your work boring. As a result, you’ll get a lower mark.
- If the paper doesn’t have the needed focus, you only need to delete the necessary part or proofread it and change what sounds worst of all. This will guarantee that the essay is linked to the paper’s question.
- If any sentence or even a separate phrase in the essay seems too strange to hear, it may be strange to read. In this case, it’s better to edit the content of your paper to ensure that you get a high grade for it.
Take your time to use the read-out-loud option several times in order to detect strange or too-long sentences that may require shortening of the paper. Change passive voice into active voice in order to make the paper sound better. In some situations, students have a tendency to think too long and write the paper with complicated or strange words. In fact, what you require is the opposite. Active voice shows dynamic action and always sounds better.
In most cases, the above points appear to be the best ways to make your paper better written. However, if you cannot do everything on your own, use external help and ask professional writers of US essay writing service to do the job for you.
Other Tips to Make Your Essay Concise
There are other effective methods to make your paper shorter and write articles with needed word count. These tips turn it into a top-grade essay. These include but are not limited to the following:
Delete adjectives and adverbs
This often helps to use more specific words, which allows you to follow the required word limit and eradicate unnecessary information from the paper. In addition, most adjectives modify nouns. This is not good for the paper’s quality, so it’s better to remove them completely.
Make wordy phrases shorter
If you trim the wordy paragraphs, you’ll make your paper sound better. Otherwise, you’ll have a watery text instead of a well-written one.
Use active voice instead of passive voice
This will help you to use shorter phrases throughout the paper. It usually implies that your essay will sound much better for the tutor to consider it a high-quality one. It also helps you to make the message shorter and simpler. In addition, you’ll be able to express your opinion with greater certainty, as the active voice helps to eradicate uncertain or incomprehensible phrases.
Furthermore, using active voice can help adhere to word limit.
Change introductory parts
Running starts are the most frequently used phrases that shape the introduction to every phrase. These often comprise “there is” and “it is,” among many others. Simply put, such phrases frequently appear to be unnecessary for your essay to sound good. Unnecessary transitions should also be removed. This refers to “however”, “nevertheless” and “moreover”. Try to be more specific and consider shortening the word count by removing the unwanted parts of your paper.
Unite sentences with identical meanings
This will help you remove unwanted words from the paper. In order to combine the parts throughout the paper, you can simply rewrite one of them in a shorter way in order to make each sentence express different ideas. Instead of writing two similar sentences, make both of them focus on different ideas in order to improve your writing style and develop your writing skills. Two long sentences, however, may make your work sound worse. Try not to make the paper watery.
Listen to how your essay sounds
If you wish to write something that deserves a top grade, use the internet technologies or your friend’s help in order to listen to the paper. Whether it is a college essay, or academic text, you should read it in loud. This will help you change the content of the essay correctly in order to get a concise, well-written, and high-quality paper.
Final Words
Use the above tips and tricks in order to turn your work into a great college essay deserving of a high mark. All the techniques will let you make your essay shorter and less watery with a proper word count. If you cannot do the job alone, use the option ‘pay for essay’ to hire professional writers who will deliver you a flawless paper. Don’t be ashamed to ask for help with coursework if you have no idea how to write it properly.