how to get more words on your essay

10 Ways to Increase Your Essay Word Count (AI Included)

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One of the biggest challenges students face is writing long-form essays of 2,000 words or more.

Someone brought this up at a recent webinar I attended, and I couldn't help but think back to my freshman year. Several years ago, I had to write a long essay on an interesting but unfamiliar subject. It took me a lot longer than it should.

After writing hundreds of articles, essays and reports, I've developed my own list of 'smart hacks' to help increase word count on any written piece. 

Let's dive into the word count expansion strategies I use today when I write various texts.

How NOT to increase word count

Adding fluff words.

Adding meaningless words only confuses the core arguments and distracts the evaluator. Whatever merit your actual content may have had will be obscured by a mountain of meaningless words.

The sentence in my essay read,

"Violent acts by adults are often caused by childhood exposure to violence.".  

If I try to forcedly add fluff words to expand the text, my sentence would sound stretched:

“Violent acts are often associated with the fact that adults who commit violent acts - acts that are seen as savage, harsh, rough, physically abusive, or otherwise unacceptable in society - have been exposed to similar harsh or extreme violence during their childhoods or when they were young”.

Voice and tone

Although passive voice makes a sentence longer, I have found that my writing is much sharper when I use active voice. Also, do not confuse the need to use a formal or academic tone with passive voice.

Quoting without context

This one is like digging yourself into a hole. I quoted so many out-of-context references that I found my essay running on all sorts of tangents. After spending hours trying to connect the dots between the tangents, I ended up having to rewrite the entire piece because I was unable to justify the distracting content. 

Mindless paraphrasing

You hear it from your professor, and spew it back at her. Mindlessly repeating content in different sections of an essay - as if your teacher wouldn't notice, won't really help you ace your courses.

Even more mistakes

After asking some of my classmates, I found out that some of them had resorted to even worse hacks that eventually got them in trouble:

• Using filler words - In order to fill more pages, some diverge from the specified format and increase fonts, margins, and spacing. You will lose credibility if you do this, and you will also lose points if you deviate from the writing style specified.
• Plagiarism - Plagiarizing large chunks from others' essays or research papers was not only seen as lazy, but it was a fast way from a not-so-great grade to a failed grade.
• Other sneaky tricks - These included whitening out gibberish text and increasing the size of periods. Teachers have seen it all and know every trick in the book.

The right way to increase word count

Eventually, my word count increased in a way that makes each word actually count (pardon the pun), and it turns out there are some pretty cool tricks to do that.

With the right tools and techniques, you spend less time on the heavy lifting, more time on the actual writing, and at the end of the day, you have a much more comprehensive essay that is a delight to read. =

1. Use an AI writing tool

Skip the manual paraphrasing and use a smart AI writing tool. For example, I added almost 50 words to a 125-word paragraph using Wordtune’s text expand feature .

How to add more sentences to a paragraph

One method to expand your word count is to find short paragraphs and adding more sentences that clarify what they mean. This task used to be pretty frustrating, but with the use of AI it's made simple. Start by going over the essay, and notice if there's a paragraph that stands out in terms of being lean and overly simplified. Paste that paragraph into the Wordtune editor, and click the 'Plus' icon.

You'll be able to expand the article in any number of ways, including adding an explanation, an analogy, a counterargument, or even a simple continuation of your idea. Then, simply scroll through the different suggestions that AI produces, and find the best one.

2. Take advantage of outlines

It may seem counter-intuitive, but completing your outline can help you meet your word count goal.

Say you need to turn a 200-word article into a 1,500-word essay. Make an outline of the article before trying to tackle this seemingly impossible task of writing the whole piece.This will give you a clearer picture of how your entire thesis works and how to logically support it.

As an example, suppose we're writing an essay on why kids shouldn't play phone games.

To begin, you need to summarize your message in a few sentences. For example:

‍ “Kids have susceptible brains, and games can change the whole chemistry of their brains in a bad way, causing them to go off on tantrums and screaming fits. Moreover, these games form addictive habits that will persist when the kids become older. By continuing to play phone games, the kids fail to develop emotionally, and may become unsocial introverted people. Moreover, there are signs that games make kids more violent and emotionally unstable. Since phones are always at reach, kids can continuously play throughout the day, not stopping even when eating lunch or when attending a school class.”

Before expanding it, write an outline to get a sense of its structure and flow. As a result, you can easily determine how much text is needed for each section, which ones require expanded text, and which ones can be kept brief.  This clarity not only helps me reduce anxiety, but also gives me a clear plan of action to finish this essay!

For example, for the paragraph on video games, my outline would look something like this:

Introduction (include statistics and research to argue that video games are harmful for kids) and state the thesis (250 words) Negative effects of video games on children: first build larger categories and then substantiate with smaller points, evidence and data within each point: - Effects on emotional development (200 words) - Effects on physical development (200 words) - Effects on social development (200 words) - Effects on intellectual development (200 words) Give counter-views Cite research that talks about potential positive effects of video games, if used the proper way and under supervision (250 words) Give solutions State why parents find it so hard to keep kids away from video games, especially mobile video games, and offer concrete solutions to set better boundaries with kids for video game usage (250 words) Conclusion Offer a strong conclusion that brings all of the essay together in a summary (250 words)

Note that I’ve planned to write a few hundred more words than the prescribed word limit, so I have scope to edit and tighten later on. 

3. Expand your text with intros and conclusions

I use this method all the time to get unstuck and write longer articles without worrying about word counts.

Let's say you finish expanding your outline, and the article is still short a few hundred words.

Two places you should consider expanding are the introduction and conclusion.

How does this work?

• In the introduction and conclusion, you can add free-flowing stories, ideas and paragraphs, without having to validate each sentence with technical reference, sources and quotes.
• You can use anecdotes, personal experiences, news articles, and research findings to introduce your topic, or to close it.
• You can also go into detail about why you were motivated to explore the topic in more depth and why it has helped you to develop your argument. We wrote about essay hooks in more detail here, so be sure to check it out.
• Remind readers why this entire argument matters at the human level in the conclusion. This is done by repeating the topic, the core of your argument, and why you have justified your thesis. 

Add these elements to your introduction and conclusion, and you will quickly reach your essay quota.

Here's an example from the Wordtune blog of an anecdote placed as part of the intro:

4. Use examples to illustrate your point

It is always helpful to provide examples to illustrate complex academic or technical points. As well as adding color and descriptiveness to your own words, examples help your arguments come to life in a way that academic writing cannot. Having read several essays about the same topic, your evaluator will probably find it enjoyable to read something more creative and genuine. 

Examples also help readers visualize your narrative. The situations can be real or imagined, but they must be authentic, relatable, and most importantly, relevant to your topic. Providing examples from your real-life experience will demonstrate to the teacher that you understand your topic.

I started this article by describing my experience as a freshman. The challenges I faced as a student are similar to those you are currently facing, so sharing my journey will help you learn from my mistakes.

5. Invest in serious research 

Research is the most effective way to increase a paper's word count. 

The more research you conduct, the more ideas, perspectives, and information you have to base your arguments on. 

Research takes time and effort, which you may or may not have. 

Here's where my smart tools come into play.

No matter how long a paper is, Wordtune Read will give you all the key highlights.

The following is a composite screenshot of how Wordtune Read summarized the effects of video games on children from a long and complex article. The key highlights on the right help you distill the core messages of the research in minutes, condensing hours of reading into minutes.

In just a few steps, you can add at least two supporting arguments or stats for each point you have in your outline. And just like that, you have several hundred very relevant words, added almost effortlessly to your essay.

6. Ask 'Why' questions

At this stage, the research has already provided you with some solid perspectives, but there's nothing like adding some original perspectives to the existing body of research. Asking ‘why’ questions is an effective way to do this. In addition to strengthening your arguments, it will also enhance your essay with relevant and original content.

Think back to the example of the negative effects of video games on children. Let's say one of the arguments you have is "phone games cause emotional issues". Use a series of 'why' questions to dig deeper into the text. 

Ask questions like: "why is that true?", "Why is it important?", etc. For each answer, ask another why question and develop some original angles based on the insights that may emerge. 

While it beats manual paraphrasing in terms of speed, I felt it also improved the overall quality of the writing.

7. Address the counter view

It's a foolproof way to score brownie points with tutors and also add some value - and word count - to your essay. 

Counter views or counterpoints are positions diametrically opposed to your own.

I argue, for example, that video games negatively affect children in the essay about video games. There is always some literature available (and there is always some literature available) on the counter-side of why and under what circumstances video games can actually have a positive impact on children. I am able to write a pretty solid section on that topic. 

By balancing the pros and cons of both arguments, I will also be able to bridge the two points of view.

Just like that, you've added about 200 words to your essay!

8. Use quotes and references

While the bibliography section doesn’t usually count towards the overall essay word count, there are some easy tricks you can use to maximize the references. Once you are done with the essay, run through your list of citations and find interesting quotes that you may have missed, which you can now incorporate.

9. Get feedback from a friend

If you're like me, working on the same essay for a long time with complete immersion means you develop blind spots to obvious misses and flaws in your text. This could be especially problematic for non-native English speakers .

Ask a trusted friend or peer to look over your essay again. Share your essay on Gdoc with your friends and find out if they spot something that seems missing, out of place, or that stands out like a sore thumb.

Also, ask them to question your assumptions in the essay - this may give you new angles and perspectives to explore, thus expanding the word count even further.

Your friends will help you find the problematic paragraphs in your writing and make them more concise and effective .

10. Add text while editing

Once you have finished writing your essay, you can use the review stage to edit and add text to your essay.

This is another great opportunity to use your AI writing tool, and get suggestions for ways to make your sentences more fluent . You can also replace superfluous words with stronger vocabulary, and pick alternative ways to word sentences that contain repetitive words.

Try and spot long, convoluted sentences and break them up to smaller sentences.

Keep it long and interesting

Essays that meet the prescribed criteria, including word count, indicate to your teachers that you not only possess subject matter knowledge, but also writing, grammar, logic, research, and communication skills.

You can find interesting angles even in the most mundane sounding topics if you challenge yourself to do the work and not worry too much about the word count. With the 11 smart hacks - including use of the smart writing tools - essay writing and meeting the specified word count becomes much easier! 

Learning how to expand a text in an interesting way - and not just by adding fluff - makes you a better writer regardless of the format - essays, reports, statements of purpose - even books! 

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Essay Extender for Students

Have you ever struggled to reach the specific word count while writing an essay? Our online essay extender can help you get the desired word count with just a few simple steps. All you have to do is:

• Copy and paste your essay.
• Choose how many words you need in your paper.
• Click the "Extend" button.

💎 5 Key Advantages of the Essay Extender

🙋 when to use the ai essay extender, 📜 essay extender free examples, 🖇️ essay word extender tips, 🔗 references.

Our essay word extender offers a range of benefits that can enhance your writing experience. Here are some of them:

With its user-friendly interface, our online essay extender can assist you in various ways. Check out these ideas on how you can use the tool.

1. To Increase the Word Count

One of the most common uses of our essay extender is to increase an essay's word count. You add words to the entire text or a specific part, for example, introduction, conclusion, or body paragraphs. This gives you more control over where you want to expand an essay and helps you tailor the extension to the academic requirements .

Our tool adds words without compromising the quality of their writing. Since it uses advanced AI algorithms, it extends the text while maintaining the coherence and flow of the original content.

2. To Add a New Part

AI essay extender can also help you add a new part to your essay. For example, if you have already written the introduction and body paragraphs but are struggling with the conclusion, our tool can generate it.

Similarly, if you need to add a new body paragraph to support your argument , our essay extender can generate a paragraph based on your prompt. This feature is particularly useful when you are short on time and need to complete your essay quickly.

3. To Get New Ideas

Sometimes, you only need a fresh perspective to improve your writing. Our essay extender can generate unique ideas by developing a body paragraph on any topic. This feature is helpful for those who are stuck with their writing and need some inspiration to continue. You can use this generated paragraph as a starting point and further develop it according to your ideas and arguments.

Wanna see how essay extender generator works in practice? Let's try it together. Imagine you're writing an argumentative essay on "Should all internships be paid?" We'll use our tool to add some words to a body paragraph and then develop an effective introduction.

All internships should be paid for the simple fact that interns are providing valuable work and skills to the company. It is unfair to expect young workers, who are often already struggling with student debt, to work for free. Interns are not just shadowing or observing; they actively contribute to the company's operations and success. By not compensating them, companies are perpetuating a cycle of unpaid labor and exploiting the enthusiasm and eagerness of young workers. Furthermore, paying interns shows that their time and contributions are valued, allowing them to gain practical experience without financial strain.

All internships should be paid for the simple fact that interns are providing valuable work and skills to the company. It is unfair to expect young workers, who are often already struggling with student debt, to work for free. Interns are not just shadowing or observing; they actively contribute to the company's operations and success. For example, a student who is completing an unpaid internship at a marketing firm may be responsible for creating social media content, conducting market research, and assisting with client meetings. These tasks require time, effort, and skills, and the intern should be compensated for their contributions. By not compensating them, companies are perpetuating a cycle of unpaid labor and exploiting the enthusiasm and eagerness of young workers. Moreover, unpaid internships often come with hidden costs that can be a significant burden for students. For instance, a student interning in a different city may have to cover transportation, housing, and other expenses on top of working for free. Furthermore, paying interns shows that their time and contributions are valued, allowing them to gain practical experience without financial strain. Companies should recognize the contributions interns bring to their organization and compensate them accordingly for their hard work.

Internships have become a common way for students to gain practical experience and valuable skills in their chosen field. However, the issue of whether these internships should be paid or not has sparked a debate. While some argue that unpaid internships provide valuable learning opportunities, others believe that all internships should be paid to ensure fair treatment of young workers. In this essay, we will explore why all internships should be paid, including the value that interns bring to organizations and the hidden costs of unpaid internships.

Check out these helpful tips to work on your academic writing skills and extend an essay manually.

• Expand your arguments . Instead of simply stating your point, provide more detailed examples to support your ideas.
• Use transitional phrases . Transition phrases such as "in addition," "furthermore," and "moreover" can help you connect your ideas and add more depth to your essay.
• Include relevant statistics and data . Adding statistics and data from reliable sources can boost the credibility of your essay and help you expand your arguments.
• Incorporate quotes . Including quotes from experts or authoritative individuals adds depth and weight to your essay.
• Provide background information . If you feel that certain concepts need more explanation, you can provide background information to help the reader better understand your points.

Remember, when expanding on your arguments, it is essential to do so smartly. This means providing detailed explanations and relevant examples that add length to your essay and strengthen your points.

❓ Essay Extender FAQ

Updated: Jul 19th, 2024

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Increase the word count of any text effortlessly with IvyPanda's free Essay Extender. Just fill out the form, and our online tool will add particular paragraphs or even double your content in a couple of clicks! Try it now and expand your writing while keeping it coherent and relevant.

How to Increase your Essay's Word Count

It happens. You pour your heart out to write the perfect college essay. You've included everything you could possibly think of in your work. Before you submit your magnificent piece of writing, you enter the essay into a word counter.

And there it is: You've come up short on your word count .

Whether it's a college application, a scholarship essay, or a report for class, word counts can be daunting sometimes. And when you come up short, there are solutions available to bulk up your writing.

This article will help you find ways to add to your word count without sacrificing on the quality of your work.

1. Know your Goal and How to Measure It Accurately

Is the requirement 800–1000 words? Is it 500 words maximum? Knowing the exact word goal is crucial when beginning to write, especially for something as important as a college entrance essay or a scholarship competition. Always be sure to read the detailed requirements for each assignment.

It's also important to use an accurate word counter for essays to calculate your word count. Find a reliable online tool to help you track your word count as you're working so you can have peace of mind that you're creating something that fits the requirements you've been given.

Once you've figured out what word count you're aiming for, it's common to look for some short cuts to help estimate your word count as you work. Some writers ask, " How many pages is 1,000 words? ". Although this varies with font type, font size, and spacing choices, generally speaking, double-spaced, typed fonts provide about 250 words per page.

Remember this is just a general rule. Always verify with a word counter before you submit a piece of writing such as a college essay.

2. Be Aware of What NOT To Do

When writers fall short of word counts, they sometimes add filler words that don't improve the quality of the writing at all. Adding pointless fillers will instead make the writing weaker.

Does the following sound familiar?

You add a few more random words, ask yourself, "How many words is this now?", check it in a word counter, and then repeat this process until you've reached the desired word count.

Though I've been guilty of this myself once or twice, this is NOT the way to properly bulk up your essay.

Being wordy in your writing does not make you appear more intelligent. If you start adding miscellaneous words to your essays, it becomes very, very, very, very obvious to your reader. (See what I did there?) It would be really, really redundant and repetitive and even more redundant to just add extra words that essentially mean the same thing. (See. I did it again.)

What you choose to add to your writing needs to be high quality and necessary. This next hint will help you add words that will enhance your writing instead of hurting it.

3. Reread Your Essay and Dig Deeper

There are many ways to add quality content to your essays that will increase your word count while still improving your work. Here are some ways to dig deeper into your writing:

Add More Details

Look for places where you might have been vague and clarify. Remember to always try to show—don't tell .

For example, let's say you previously wrote: "My feet were cold."

Can you show us "cold"? Perhaps add details to explain: "My toes were tingling and numb from the chilling, icy snow that was seeping into my tattered shoes."

These details add to your word count while painting a clear picture for your reader.

Offer an Example

If it's appropriate, offer an example.

In a college application essay, you might state, "I have won several awards." However, it's more powerful to provide an example of a specific award that has a deeper meaning: "Winning the most improved player award for volleyball was a proud moment for me. It celebrated how far I had come and how hard I had to work to become a better player for myself and my teammates."

Support Arguments with More Facts and Quotes

Find areas where you are trying to make a point, and back these statements up with more detail. Is there a quality fact you can add to support your case? Is there a great quote from an expert that will help? Adding more solid evidence to your argument can help make your opinion stronger and more supported.

Change Up Your Introduction and Conclusion

The beginning and end of your essay tend to be more flexible than the body. If you feel the body of your essay is already well-supported and doesn't need more information, perhaps it's time to rework the intro or the conclusion . Is there an interesting story you can tell? Is there a way to wrap things up that is more compelling and ties your thoughts together in a more coherent way?

4. Ask a Peer for Help

Sometimes we can't see the gaps in our own writing, so asking a friend to help out can be useful.

Have your friend read through your piece and ask him for feedback. What isn't clear? What needs more explanation? What other questions does he have for you?

These questions can help guide you to places where you can expand and provide more details.

Getting an accurate word count is important for writing college essays and qualifying for scholarship opportunities. But you shouldn't just add any words to help you meet the required length; instead, make sure you're adding quality words to balance essay length with essay quality.

Using the tips mentioned above, you will be on your way to adding the bulk you need to reach your word count and improving your writing by crafting more details and clarifications that will ultimately produce a better piece of writing.

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How to make an Essay Longer – 21 Easy Tips!

Chris Drew (PhD)

Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

Learn about our Editorial Process

Just about all the advice on the first page of google about how to make a paper longer sucks. No, really. The tricks they suggest suck so bad I can’t believe how bad it sucks.

Most advice on how to make your essay longer tells you to do gimmicky things that will lose you marks.

How do I know? Because I read it. And I (yes, I’m a professor) would instantly see through all those things.

Let me tell you: if you’re wasting time turning “15” into “fifteen” to get an extra 6 characters into your essay , increasing font size, or sticking fluffy adjectives into sentences to make your essay longer and increase word count, you’re stuffing up. You’re flushing marks down the drain.

So, here’s what you SHOULD do to make your essay longer.

How to Make an Essay Longer

1. make sure you included everything.

I can’t tell you how many of my students submit assignments and forget to include important points! Go back to your writing prompt . That’s the thing that you’re going to be graded on.

Go and check out exactly what your teacher asked you to write about. Did you write about every point they suggested?

Related Article: 17+ Great Ideas For An Essay About Yourself

2. Make Every Paragraph at least 4 Sentences

Scan over each paragraph. Do you have any paragraphs that are less than 4 sentences long? This is your low-hanging fruit for making your paper longer. You need to make these paragraphs longer and your page count will naturally increase.

The best paragraphs should be 4 – 7 sentences long .

If you’ve got a 1, 2 or 3 sentence paragraph, make sure you go back through it. What new points can you include to make your paragraph better? Maybe you can:

• Add a sentence at the start of the paragraph explaining what the paragraph is about;
• Add a sentence giving a real-life example of the points you’re trying to make
• Add a sentence giving an explanation of your points.

Or, you can try adding points explaining:

• Why the thing is true;
• Where the thing happened;
• How the thing happened;
• When the thing happened.

3. Define your Terms

Have you written a paragraph defining your key terms? If you’re writing an essay on modernism, write a paragraph defining modernism. If your essay is about education , write a paragraph giving a brief history of education. This will make your paper better – and longer!

You should have a paragraph or two right after your introduction defining and explaining what your topic is!

Now, if you are going to provide a definition for a term in college or university level writing , you need to read this article . In it, I show you how to write a full paragraph that defines a term in the right way using a research paper, not a dictionary!.

4. Get new Ideas from your Class Handouts

Below are the class handouts that you should go back through to add new ideas. They’re your most important sources. Go through all these sources and try to take down and more key points you can add:

• Handouts or worksheets in class?
• Readings or articles that they asked you to read?
• Lecture slides?

6. Get new Ideas from Friends

You will have many classmates working on the same essay as you. What ideas have your friends come up with? See if you can find out. You want it to seem like you’re working to help each other out. You don’t want to be a sponge, taking from them and not giving back. Help each other out so you both get better marks. I recommend being strategic about this:

• Offer to look over each others’ work and give suggestions;
• Trade key points in bullet point format;
• Brainstorm together to create a master list of key ideas.

8. Get new Ideas from Blogs

There are websites online about just about every topic that you can possibly imagine. That includes the topic you’re writing your essay on!

Let me ask you a question: Why would you waste your time trying to add padding to old sentences to increase your word count when you can write new ones that will win more marks?

It’s really so simple – google your essay topic or question and see what comes up. What have other people said on the topic? What ideas can you grab from others and use for yourself? You can also get new ideas from Google Scholar, which can provide you with a free to access research paper that will give you ideas as well. 

12. Use the Keep Writing Website

Keep Writing is a website where you can write your essay. But, it won’t let you delete anything. So you have to just keep on typing. This means you can just write ideas that roll off the top of your head. I gave this website a go to write this article you’re reading right now and it really did help me just write in a way that flowed nicely and added to my page count quickly. I must admit, after using the website, I copied the text and did some edits. But by that point I had a ton of words in there – more than enough – and I could shorten the essay by deleting the words that weren’t so good. I ended up having the opposite problem – too many words!

13. Include one new Example in Each Paragraph

Another thing you can do is go through each and every paragraph and add one more example and some supporting evidence. Even if you’ve included one example in each paragraph, that’s okay. You can still add more examples. In fact, teachers love to see examples and supporting evidence.

Good examples are what separates good and bad students.

Teachers love to see examples because you can only give examples if you understand the topic. So, when we see examples we go “Yes! You Got It! You understand it!”

16. Don’t add Pointless Words!

‘Padding’ is what we call it when you stick extra words in a sentence just to increase your word count. I’ve taken a sentence from earlier in this post and I’m going to show you the sentence as it is, then show it to you with padding.

Here’s the original:

“You’re going to need some new points to add to your essay. You should not try to make your sentences you’ve already written longer. You shouldn’t be trying to add in fluffy new words or saying things in a longer way.”

Here’s the padding:

“You’re going to need some new points to actually add to your essay , which actually is quite significant . You should not actually try to generally make your sentences you’ve already written longer , generally contrary to popular belief . You shouldn’t be trying to generally add in fluffy new words or saying things in a longer way , which is fairly significant. ”

Your teacher is going to read this and think “This student is a terrible writer.” And you’ll lose a ton of marks.

17. Don’t Change the Formatting

Increasing the line spacing, font size or character spacing will just make your paper worse. You should have ONE space between each word. Your line spacing should either be 2.0 or 1.5 spacing. That’s it. Those are your options. Stick to normal margins in Microsoft Word You should use font size 12. If you artificially change any of this, your teacher will see through it and grade you down .

Final Thoughts

Making an essay longer needs to be done in a way that will get you marks. I can’t believe that there are websites ranking high on google that recommend tricks like “make the space between lines bigger” and “increase your margins”.

If a student did that in my class, I’d fail them instantly. There are smarter and better ways to do it – whether you’re writing a grade 7 essay or dissertation chapter! Do it the right way and you’ll grow your marks and be on the way to success.

• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 10 Reasons you’re Perpetually Single
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 20 Montessori Toddler Bedrooms (Design Inspiration)
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 21 Montessori Homeschool Setups
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 101 Hidden Talents Examples

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How to Increase Your Essay Word Count

Add Examples

Skim through your essay looking for any place you have used an example to make a point. In most cases, you should be able to provide additional examples which will make your essay stronger by showing your understanding of the topic while also increasing the word count. You can also go through the essay and look for statements made where inserting an example would be appropriate to help support the statement.

Address Different Viewpoints

An effective way of increasing word count and improving your essay at the same time is to address different viewpoints to your own. You have the opportunity to discuss how these alternative viewpoints differ from the conclusions you have made, and it gives you an opportunity to explain why you believe your conclusions are superior. This shows you have considered a range of different opinions while coming to your conclusions, and in doing so make your essay stronger while adding more words.

Clarify Statements

When you find the statements in your writing, if inserting an example doesn’t make sense, then clarifying the statement may be appropriate. This can be achieved by inserting one or more specific statements to clarify the original one. A common way to do this is to follow the statement with, “In other words…” It’s important not to over-clarify statements or use this for every statement you write as it will begin to look like filler, but using it sporadically throughout your essay can increase the word count and show you perfectly understand the points you’re trying to make.

Find Additional Sources

Another way to improve your essay and increase word count is to find additional sources you haven’t previously mentioned which support the statements and conclusions you have made. The more sources you have, the stronger the essay will be in most cases. Spending some time searching for additional sources to add to the essay can be a great way to add quality content to it.

Use Quotations

Chances are you already have appropriate quotations in your essay, and if that’s the case, skip over this suggestion. Adding more will likely not add to your essay. If you haven’t used any, however, finding appropriate quotations from experts in the field that support your statements can be an excellent way to add words to your essay while improving it at the same time.

Rework Introduction and Conclusion

If all of the above haven’t enabled you to reach your word count minimum and you need some filler, look to put it in your introduction and conclusion rather than the body of the essay. Most teachers give more leeway with the introduction and conclusion to be wordy than the guts of the essay. This is something you should try to avoid if at all possible (it’s never good to be wordier than you have to be), but if you tried everything else, it’s better to do it in these two places than in the heart of the essay.

If you’re writing an essay which has a minimum page count instead of a minimum word count, the above suggestions will work, but you have a bit more wiggle room as well. You can make slight adjustments to the font and font size you use through a Words per Page Counter . As long as you don’t go overboard, this can be a relatively easy way to increase page count while not taking away from the essay.

(Photo courtesy of Caleb Roenigk )

I hate it when teachers give a word count. Word count shouldn’t matter at all. It should be the quality of the writing. If I can get my point across in 1000 words, why do I need to write 2500? It makes no sense at all.

You have never been a teacher. If you ever are, you will know why we give word counts.

That’s a lazy answer. Students who write well shouldn’t be punished with a word count because other students aren’t good students. It’s the teacher’s job to help those students who aren’t doing as well without forcing those good students to do stupid things that make no sense for them.

If you can make it more fun to read, this can also help with word count. Add emphasizes or explain something in more detail. There are so many great ways to increase your word count. It shouldn’t be too hard if you put your mind to it!

Word count never mattered as soon as I got to college, my professors used the “bikini rule,” short enough to keep it interesting, long enough to cover the important parts. Don’t use 2000 words to say what you can in 500

This isn’t the correct question to ask. It’s easy to increase word count on an essay, but it’s difficult to increase word count to make the essay better. So many people decide to increase their word count by inserting sentences, paragraphs, quotes and other non-necessary information simply to reach the word count. While it achieves the goal of increasing the word count, it doesn’t make the essay any better, and it usually makes it much worse. What you should always strive for is to increase the number of words in the essay while also making the essay stronger than it was before.

….Read the article you’re commenting on?

In my experience, college is even worse than high school in this regard. I regularly have to conform to word counts and page counts. Right now, I’m writing a research paper that has an 8 page minimum. Why? Because the professor said so. I could certainly be a lot more concise if I didn’t have to pad it out, but this is what’s required of me. The kicker is that the prof is DEFINITELY going to take off points due to obvious padding. DON’T FORCE ME INTO AN ARBITRARY LENGTH, THEN.

Just change the font style to a bigger one and then do the same with the size of the font but not too big or it will seem too obvious.

My professor requires Times New Roman

Really? Great!

LOL i hate Times New Roman, it’s so boring. There are so many interesting fonts out there, why should we have to make it boring? Plus, cool fonts catch your eye and draw you in. I get not wanting super crazy fonts but at least a little wiggle room here! C’mon!

try using Bookman Old Style

Your prof is stupid

My teacher wants me to write a 5 page essay and a 2 minute speech about the same book which is barely 200 pages

For me it’s either times new roman or arial

Mine too I just use it with other things I write now due to habit

bruh they LOOK at the word counts, just cuz the font will be bigger doesn’t mean that they’ll think you have gone over the limit

page counts tho

they are talking about page counts, not word counts

You’re a fuckin dumbass, increasing font size is too obvious

That’s mean

just make your periods a font style bigger, professors will notice a font style bigger for the text

Making a period a font size bigger isn’t going to do anything.

the teachers can see the word count so, there is no point in doing that

Teachers do check the font and word size y’know?

well, part of it is that you cannot be bothered to write out the word “professor” and… well let me show you a corrected version of your post.

*In my experience, college is even worse than high school in this regard. I regularly have to conform to word counts and page counts. Right now, I’m writing a research paper that has an 8-page minimum. Why? It was because the professor said so. I could be a lot more concise if I didn’t have to pad it out, but such are the requirements. The kicker is that the professor is going to take off points due to my padding. So don’t force me to an arbitrary length!

Don’t go ruining people’s self-esteem.

I’m only in Junior high and I have to write over that amount. Be grateful that your situation isn’t as bad as it could be.

That’s just nasty.

Yep, I agree!

I appreciate that I can put it to use when I tutor! Thank you.

LOL never heard of the bikini rule. I love it

Where did you go to college?

So basically you’re saying that you don’t trust your students to be able to write correctly in your class? Isn’t that more a reflection on your teaching than it is on the students who are writing?

See what you just did you got your point across in 18 words YOU JUST ARE STUPID! Anyways why are you on this web site if you are a teacher?

riiiight that’s what i was thinking like this is meant to help students lol

If it makes so much sense to give word count limits to teachers then please explain

but that makes no sense…there is no reason to do so if they are great at writing all ready…

what do i do if my word count is 800 and i only have 512

add another 288!

You keep going no matter what! Thats what i do!

This is a poor answer because it doesn’t give any reason for the word counts. The point was that they -don’t- know why the word counts are necessary, and just stating that “you don’t have my experience and if you did you’d know why” isn’t an argument or a good contribution to the discussion, when surely it would have been a better idea to just explain why word counts are necessary in the first place.

WHY DO YOU?

Care to explain? That was a super vague answer.

want to expand on that? XD

U realise this is an article for student right? u don’t need to be here dissing all of us. [EDIT]: so many dislikes on teach’s post. lmao

look, not. helping. this is why i hated a bunch of my professors, you all act like we should be overjoyed that you aren’t making us ruin our writing more because we have to stretch it out, you have students with real potential, why do so many ignorant professors waste that and take off marks for something the student cannot control? seems wrong huh?

I’m not a teacher but I do understand that word counts push students to do their best, although I according to everyone, have always been teacher’s pet, and I love to write so having a word count is an amazing way for me to experiment with my writing.

But I have an assignment in which they say use the set format, which doesn’t allow for many words, but they say it has to be 500. I physically can’t stick to the structure and the word count. I understand max word counts, but I can get my entire point across in 300 words, and I am seriously struggling to increase. I think that minimum word counts should not be put in place as I can get the point across in a lot less.

What is your essay’s point? Is it simple? I have to write 1250 word essays regularly, and I’m only on this article because I have 1156 and can’t come up with more. You sound lucky to me.

ill never be one so tell why >:(

it seems teach got the “nobody liked that” experience

We gotta keep this comment section going for 2020.

lol so many dislikes

Proceeds to not give the reason! just makes you sound like a moron with excuses. you have not proven her wrong in the slightest.

Oh my god, you are right.

Teachers too often tried to make things easier on themselves to the detriment of the students are trying to teach. I think making minimum word counts is one of those. On the other hand, I think that maximum word counts can actually be beneficial because it forces the students to better edit their writing.

“Teachers too often tried to make things easier on themselves to the detriment of the students [they] are trying to teach.” Are you making this very bold statement because you have experienced it as a teacher, completed an in-depth research on this topic, or are you just making your opinion seem like a fact? I ask simply because I am a teacher, a high school English teacher to be more specific, and I found your comment to be nothing but overblown opinion. I cannot speak for every teacher, but in my class, I have to put a minimum word count on my essay assignments or I would have the majority of the students attempt to turn in a paragraph and say it is an essay. It would not matter that I instructed them on the purpose of the essay, explained what an introductory paragraph, body paragraph, and a conclusion paragraph are and their individual purposes. It also would not matter if I also spent an entire six week grading period teaching, instructing, modeling, and practicing writing essay, I would still have some that would turn in a ridiculously short essay and argue that they have “gotten to the point.” However, any logical person would know that these student’s essays would not meet the required components of an essay and would not serve as evidence of mastery, which is what a teacher is suppose to do right? Help students master certain skills, regardless of what is “easier on” them?

Just grade them an F

Lol! Sorry to break it to you, but Z isn’t a grade. Sorry.

Lana! r/whooosh

yes it is, its a double f

nobody likes your long paragraphs.

Instead of using a minimum word count, say that you must have at least five paragraphs, and if they turn in 5 sentences, that’s on them. High school students know that a section is longer than a sentence. And if they pretend not too, that’s on them. And your problem that they turn in just a paragraph? They know what an essay is, they are lazy and, quite frankly, don’t care about the class. So give them an incomplete grade and the chance to rewrite it, if they decline, they have failed that assignment. It is harsh but necessary.

I don’t think you understand: if I can get it across in a short paragraph, and otherwise it would be graded well, then why should I have to write a three-hundred word long paragraph just to explain the same thing? I shouldn’t have to. That’s the answer.

I think that minimum word counts are fine with this reasoning, but I am very reluctant to agree with you due to your unnecessary rudeness. Also, teachers, please don’t make the minimum more than 800 words! For college, I understand, but not below college.

Exactly! 2000 words in 4 days! IMPOSSIBLE

2000/4 = 500/1

Just write approx 500 words per day; spend like 1-2 hours for the next couple day adding like 500 words every time. Or you could be a knucklehead like me and try to get it all done in one go, then me suffering the next morning because you fell asleep at 3:30

The only thing thats impossible is impossibility!!!

Hey you stole my Name!

Its Not Impossible, the only thing thats Impossible is Impossibility!!!

i agree 100%

Guidelines are so unaccepted. 🙁

I was researching but I got caught up reading you guys arguing

lmao yeah me too

Same here. Whoops.

Once more… same here.

I am supposed to be writing an essay then I just saw war in the comments so I had to read.

exactly, what is the point in a word count when you can make it easier on yourself and write shorter essays

i only have to write 400 words luckily, but it’s in a language im not great at 🙁 i only need 40 more but don’t have any ideass

Our teacher gave us a 20000 word count for the Australia Murray River Basin… I’d be lucky if my teachers ever give me a 2500 word count. Last year one of the students in our class scored a 38000 word count when the minimum word count was 25000. don’t complain. International School Of Hefei (CISH)

Just had to re-read that. Twenty THOUSAND word count? I was given that as a goal for a story in one of my classes, and we had the entire year to do it. I don’t know how long y’all had for it, but either way that’s too much for an essay.

yeah I’m in class right now in grade 8 and have to do a 250 word since assessment but I cant think of anything else to add because I stuck to the assessment sheet and used the teaches advise but I only have 227 words. (I will add my assessment below)

Energy comes in six basic forms that are chemical which is renewable, electrical, radiant, mechanical, thermal and nuclear. These types of energy are both renewable and nonrenewer, electrical, thermal and radiant are all renewable energy types but electrical, chemical mechanical and nuclear are non-renewable because there is not a infinite source of this type of energy. There are other types but these are the six basic types of energy that make up other types. Energy is the thing that powers most electrical items you can’t create and destroy energy but you can move it to an object like a light bulb or battery. Energy can be transferred by copper and other conductive materials. There are also materials that are nonconductive like wood and rubber. Energy is mostly transferred between thing with wires like when you charge you phone or turn on light. Energy can change form into other types of energy. for example if you turn on a light bulb the electric energy will turn into thermal energy and light energy. A car is also a good example of this because the car hold chemical bonds of fuel which later turns into several different types of energy and gases. The law of conservation states that every type of energy can not be created or destroyed it can and will only be transferred into other types of energy.

Now you need to write an article on how to decrease word count when you go hopelessly over the maximum allowed.

Yes! This is what I need. I don’t understand how people can write under the word count given. I’m ALWAYS over, and by a lot. I had a 1000 word paper to write and I wrote 2500. Teachers never give enough word count for writing.

I once had 200 word essay and i wrote 400!

I struggle to get to the word count, but once I’m there I go over and struggle to remove stuff without ruining it.

Here you go: https://wordcounter.net/blog/2016/01/26/101025_how-to-reduce-essay-word-count.html

The second link in the first paragraph is to just such an article.

A thesaurus is your friend when you are only a bit under word count. I’m glad to see you added one to your tool. it’s so much easier than going back and forth to another thesaurus website. Thank you for making this useful tool and not charging any money for it.

Adjectives and adverbs can help with this, but it won’t make the essay stronger. You usually want to eliminate adverbs and adjectives in your writing to make it better. You have to make a decision as to whether word count is more important or a better essay is more important before using these methods.

I’m 500 words short of the minimum word count my teacher assigned for my essay. What is the best way to increase word count fast without a lot of effort?

Did you even read the article?

Don’t use contractions.

Writing takes effort. If you want to write with no effort, your writing is going to suck.

I hate that I never seem to be able to write enough words for assignments. If I have answered a question, why do I need to write more meaningless words?

You should never write meaningless words. You would be much better off adding a different perspective or adding more support to your view. meaningless words will only lower your grade.

I have to write 7,000+ characters with spaces!!!! By thursday! I have 5,200 done. What should I do?

Write more… or put a ton of smiley faces in 😉

As a teacher, I’m glad to see legitimate ways for students to increase their essay word count instead of all the “tricks” students don’t think we know, but we do. Adding random words in white so it appears the word count is higher than it is doesn’t work because we know approximately how many pages the assignment should be. Best to actually do the work!

You are the exception. I have a great way to increase word count when I’m short on words. I will write a bunch of random text at the end of the essay, then change it to white so you can’t see it even though it’s there. Now the teacher thinks you have written the required word count. Brilliant! Teachers are so clueless that this works 100% of the time. Now you will never be under your word count and you don’t have to write a bunch of filler crap that isn’t needed. You can thank me later.

To add onto this, feel free to change the font size of the white text to fit in more words into less space.

There must be so many students who come to this article for the exact same reason as I did. (“hi” all you sleep-deprived people) I’m 500 words short on my essay and I need to figure out how to make it longer before tomorrow’s class. thank you for this list of ideas. I think I’ll be able to incorporate a few of them to make my essay long enough to reach the word count.

Yes, this is the exact reason I’m here, but I need to add 600 words to my essay. Why do teachers make the assignments so long when there is only a limited amount to say on the given topic?

I’m one of those looking for a way to extend an essay by 300 words when I’ve already said everything there is to say on the topic. I guess I’ll add a lot of useless quotes just to satisfy the teacher.

I think attitude has a lot to do with it. If you’re writing an essay you have little to no interest in writing, it’s much more difficult to write it and reach the word count. If it’s something you have a lot of interest in, then the issue is usually staying beneath the word count limit. One of the best ways to increase word count on essays is to take an interest in the topic. If you learn to become more curious and have an interest in things that may not at first seem to be interesting, you’ll be surprised at how much easier it is to write essays and to always reach the designated word count.

That easy to say and all, what if your teacher assigns you a topic? And what if that topic is totally boring? It’s hard to write about things that are boring and you have no interest in, so of course it’s going to be difficult to reach the word count. If you’re in school, you have to write with the teacher tells you to write, not what interests you. So your suggestion sounds good and all, but in reality we don’t have that choice.

I think the best way to increase the word count of an essay is to add more examples. This clarifies what you’re trying to say which adds value to the essay so anyone reading will understand exactly the point you want to get across. All my friends are bad at giving examples, but I am good and I’m always going over the word count while they are always under.

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. My entire essay is almost only quotes. This is the easiest way to make your essay meet word count. Just put in a lot of quotes and you’ll get there in no time.

It maybe the easiest way to increase your word count, but if your entire essay is all quotes you probably aren’t going to get a very good grade on it. Quotes should be used to support the points that you’re trying to make, but they shouldn’t be your entire essay. If you want to do well in school, you have to know the difference between these two.

This is lazy writing. It will not help you become better in the long run, and the teacher will see what you’ve done and mark down your paper. The easiest way is often not the best way to approach increasing an essay word count.

Cite every single quote in a bibliography at the bottom to make the word count huge.

This is really a skill that every teacher should teach their students. Not just assign an essay, but explain how the steps they need to take to reach a word count. It would be a great benefit to most students (I know some students are wordy and always hit their word count, but most of us don’t). I wish teachers cared enough to actually help us.

On almost any topic you care to mention volumes have been written. To imagine you have covered the topic fully and still be 500-600 words short of required count is ridiculous. The idea that the shortfall is due to the clarity of your arguments or exceptional command of language & vocabulary is laughable in most cases.

If it’s too short, it lacks content. Do more research.

The quality of your writing may suggest you are the love child of William Shakespeare and Jane Austen, but if it doesn’t cover the assignment material you won’t get the marks.

Teachers know the key points they expect to be covered on an assignment and allow a word allocation for each point, as well as marks allocation.

For example, a 1,000 word requirement may indicate a short intro and conclusion and 4 x 200 word key points.

You might be able to work out the scheme by reviewing assignments where you scored well. How many key points did you make, compared to word count?

Word count = 170.

Not everyone is born with the ability to write or enjoys writing, so sometimes it can be extremely hard to write a long essay. These tips surely did help a lot. I would also suggest learning enjoy writing more. If you like to do it, it should be easier to do.

how do you learn to like something? either you like it or you don’t.

HEy! you stole my name!!!

Any teachers out there? Why exactly do assignments have a minimum and maximum word count assigned? Is it for the students’ benefit or the teachers? I’m curious as it would seem that word count shouldn’t really matter, but that actual writing for the assignment. I waiting to hear a good answer to this question.

Word count forces students to be more concise in their writing and focus on the most important points. Minimum word counts make the student research more to find alternative supporting evidence they may have overlooked without it.

If you can’t increase your word count, you don’t know what you’re writing about well enough. There should be no issue writing about any topic up to 5000 words as long as you are familiar with the topic. If you find you don’t have enough to write about something, it’s because you haven’t taken the time to study the topic well enough.

This isn’t true. Sometimes you don’t need a lot of words to cover the topic at hand and adding more words just to increase word count does nothing but add unneeded words. Sure, you can add the words, but they are useless and don’t make the essay better. Why would anyone want to do that?

Where did you get this Bogus Idea, I’ve been trying to finish an essay and I love the topic we’re doing, but it’s almost impossible to write 2500 words on it, and according to your logic “There should be no issue writing about any topic up to 5000 words” that’s a lie.

I stumbled upon this and it’s been helpful, but are there other ways to increase word count? I still have about 500 more words to write.

Any teachers out there? Why exactly do assignments have a minimum and maximum word count assigned? Is it for the students’ benefit or the teachers? I’m curious as it would seem that word count shouldn’t really matter, but that actual writing for the assignment

As teachers, we know approximately how long an essay should be to get the points across for that particular assignment. That is why we assign a word count. If the student is well under they have not explored the topic in-depth enough and if they are well over, they are being too wordy.

Still you don’t need a word count, just let the kids try and let them be creative 😒!

But wouldn’t addressing the prompt in fewer words than assigned show that the student is smarter? Why spend 1000 words saying something that’s equally if not more so effective in 500 words?

“if they are well over, they are being too wordy.”

Now here’s something *I* don’t get. I can understand being “wordy” as something bad if it’s a student looking in a thesaurus to make every word more complicated, but I’ve done essays where I’ve covered all the points related to the topic I wanted to talk about, delivered them with examples and references where needed, and accidentally gone over the word limit to where I either have to make my essay weaker to not get points taken off OR get points taken off for being “wordy”? Why??

Hello Prince Charming! Come and Save Me from School Please! NOW!!!

The best way to increase a paper’s word count is to do more research. The more research you do, the more information you’ll have, and the more you can write on the topic.

Look, everyone has a different opinions about Word Counts, I really don’t like word counts but I do the essay anyways! So quit complaining!

Or at the bottom of your essay type a bunch of random letters like this mkfneofheoughero; then turn that to a white font.

LOL!!!!!!!!!!

you sir are a genius

well yes, genius solution, but uh— that’s cheating.

But like what if we have a page count minimum and the teacher can see if the page is full or not?

This helped a lot, thank you so much!! I don’t understand what it is with teachers and word-count. I’ve heard some teachers say, “When you become a teacher, you’ll understand why we give word counts” and I guess I do. It’s to make sure you covered all of the criteria and stuff. But If my essay word count is 800 words, and I’ve only written 300 and gotten my point across, why do I have to be marked down for it? I am in year 9 at school and I have a Geography essay due in last period today about biomes. I have gotten my point across and now I have to fluff about writing another 500 words. Thanks again, and wish me luck! 🙂

Bruh. You ain’t seen nothing yet. English 1301 has KILLED me. I’m 1500 words short….

bruh im currently 1500 words short on a 1500 word essay due tomorrow 🙁

All of you guys are complaining about essays of 2000 words or less, but I have to write a 25 000 word essay, in three weeks, which really isn’t that hard. I, for one, enjoy writing essays, but be lucky that you don’t have them of this length to write 😉

That’s not an essay it’s a book.

Actually, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s stone is 76,944, and that is the average length for a book so 25,000, is more like a 4 chapter fanfic…

I’ve never been a teacher but have been a university student. Personally, I get very uncomfortable when word counts aren’t given, because the fact is that the professor likely has a quiet expectation on the issue. I don’t want to try to have to hit that count by inference.

How one structures his essay depends on that word count (2000 v 3000 maybe not so much but say 1000 v 5000 is quite different). I’d like to know what kind of essay he wants.

heh, I once passed an essay online which had a minimum word count I just added random gibberish to the end in a white font to conceal it with tiny font size. try that if u really have to.

I have an idea – write a few words after each paragraph and make them white. The teacher will never know… 🙂

I think the refrigorator eat windows and the good skull

i’m 6 pages short on a compare/contrast religion paper focused around love that is due on tuesday. i have already gone over the five religions and though i need more substance (6 pages more), i don’t want to add so much that it’s just an information dump. my three options that i can see right now are: start over with a similar topic so i don’t have to just scrap everything, add more anyway, or just finish it and turn it in under the requirement but with good writing. what should i do?? do i have any other options??

use double space😂😁

i came across this because this is literally my problem now. well…

all i need is 12 more words! thats why i came to this website!

i only have 600 word for nuclear reactors i’m amazed how u guys can do 1000+ word without your brain exploding.

If i had a 2500 Word count minimum. I would die.

i love how everyone’s arguing on a blog. not complaining tho!

most of you are in college and are fussing about 1000 word essays meanwhile me still in middle school having to do 4-5 pages aka more than 1000 words

Word counts ‘work’ until students learn to hate writing, because only their word counts — not their points — matter.

UGH….. I’ve done this already and I still have 200 words to go! 🙁 It was pretty amusing to read through the comments saying someone is in Highschool or College and be like “Sucker, I’m still in Junior High”. RIP.

I had the best time reading your argument before I finished my essay thanks for the good times. 🙂

The word count at my University is a maximum word count, not a minimum. The word count is there to suggest the level of detail we’re expected to go into. For example, my last essay had a 2,500 word maximum. I could easily have written a 10,000 word dissertation or a 100 word summary. For the detail expected. I ended up with 2,464 words. If you’re writing 1,000 words for a 2,500 word essay, even if that seems OK to you, you’ve not added enough detail.

oh my god, this was SO helpful you dont understand how much this page helped me. Thank You!!!

if you have ever bean a teacher you would under stand why word counts exist jk I think text matters more than the amount of words

Im only in the 8th grade, we are righting an essay right now about the holocaust, we have to write 12 PAGES!! WHAT. i can explain it in a page or two😩

When writing a essay you got to stay on topic make sure you proofread and using correct grammar

word counts make me sad

me reading the comments in 2024 🙂 cuz i hate essay as well.

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10 Ways to Increase Essay Word Count (AI Included)

• Sep 19, 2023
• By CopyScribe AI Team

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Hey students, I know hearing “You have one day to complete a 2000-word essay” can feel like a horror movie tagline, especially when dealing with an unfamiliar topic and struggling to meet the word count. 

You might wonder, ” How will I stretch this into a full essay?” or “How to Increase Essay Word Count”.  But don’t stress; we’ve got your back!

Our game-changing solution is Copyscribe’s “ Text Extender ” tool and practical essay-writing techniques (like incorporating examples, quotes, and references). This combo will help you reach that daunting word count without pulling your hair out,  staring at a blank screen for hours, or wasting time and effort.

Are you curious about other effective methods to increase the word count of your essay while making it more engaging and informative for your readers?

 Stick around—we’ve compiled 10 awesome tips just for you to improve your essay and make it super captivating to read.

• Avoid using fluff words, passive voices, and repetitive words that affect the overall quality of your essay negatively and expand the number of words only.
• One of the most effective, quickest, and perfect ways to expand essay word count is using the AI powered paragraph expander feature “Text Extender” by Copyscribe.ai. It is an amazing sentence expander tool.
• You can also meet your word count requirements and make sentences longer by adding examples, references, and quotation in your essay.
• Researching your topic in detail is essential to writing a quality essay and more words.
• You can use the “General Writing” feature of Copyscribe.ai to bring more precision and perfection to your writing.
• Copyscribe is designed to improve your essay writing experience by introducing amazing features (such as text extender, content shortening, passive to active voice) and more.

So, take advantage of this magical AI-powered tool to write essays and assignments quickly.

Wrong Ways to Increase Your Essay Word Count

Do you know what is the most annoying aspect of writing an essay?

Spending hours to meet the required word count but still needs to achieve this goal. 

After choosing the writing style and completing the main ideas of your essay, it is heartbreaking and stressful to realize you are just halfway through completing the required word count.

Nevertheless, we recommend you refrain from using any illogical method to increase your essay’s word count, as using such shortcuts can decrease your content quality and make it challenging to understand what you wrote.

1-Don’t Include Fluff Words

Never include fluff words in your essay, as they can adversely affect your essay’s quality. Surely, fluff words can expand your word count from 12 to 45, but adding meaningless words can divert the targeted audience’s mind, and they will never get your essay’s main idea.

Here’s an example.

Augmented reality lets students see science ideas as pictures on a screen in the classroom or real life.

If we forcefully add fluff and irrelevant words to expand our terms it may look stretched and meaningless to readers. 

In the educational setting of a classroom or even in the real-world environment, augmented reality technology allows eager young minds to visually observe and interact with complex science concepts by transforming them into easily understandable, graphical images displayed on a digital screen.

The first phrase is simpler as it perfectly conveys the message without diverting readers (unlike the second one). So, expanding word count by adding fillers is the worst idea every student should avoid.

2-Avoid Using Passive Voices

No denial: passive voice makes sentences longer but you can express your ideas better and in simple words using active voice. Using passive voice (that too unnecessarily) in your academic papers can negatively affect your grades and your paper’s quality.

3-Avoid Repetitive Sentences

Want to ace your academic papers or essays? The trick is easy: don’t repeat the same points or sentences. Doing so confuses your readers and muddles your main point. For top-quality writing, vary your language and cover different ideas in each section. Besides, focus the word limit to make written essay enjoyable, easy to understand, and shows you know your stuff.

10 Ways to Increase Essay Word Count

Want to know the secret behind expanding your essay’s wordcount? 

We will share some cool hacks to increase word count in an essay without compromising the quality and readability of the content. 

Follow these hacks to take your essay to the next level and get higher grades.

1- Use an AI Paragraph Extender

Looking for the easy way to increase word count?

You can use AI tools to add extra sentences to your essay and expand the word count.

Yes, you heard it right!

For example, you can use the Copyscribe.ai “ Text Extender ” feature to increase  essay’s paragraphs.

You can easily use this amazing ‘Text Extender’ feature following these simple steps.

• Login to Copyscribe.ai > Templates > General Writing > Text Extender
• Choose the paragraph you want to expand and add it in the “Description” section.
• You can also add some main keywords in the “keywords” section.
• Choose “Language,” “Quality Type,” “Tone of Voice,” and “Number of Results”.
• To extend your essay, you can include the desired word count in the “Max Result Length” bar.
• Once you have added all the information.
• Click on “Generate.”

Following these simple steps and using this magical content generator tool will help you generate elaborative, up-to-the-mark, and relevant essays without spending too much time.

2-Create an Outline

If you want to write a well-written essay in a limited time, it may be appealing to dive in and start writing immediately. 

But hold your horses!

Have you crafted a solid outline?

With a solid outline, you can ensure quality write-up, meet targeted word count, and enjoy your entire writing process. 

With the proper outline, you can allocate the word count for each section or paragraph of your essay. Besides, it helps build a sturdy foundation for your essay. 

Every professional writer can tell you that preparing a thorough outline is one of the most critical steps in crafting and completing a quality essay.

No worries, if you have trouble creating an outline for your essay, you can also use AI tools . You can ask any of the conversational AIs to create a top-notch and relevant outline for your essay. 

Nevertheless, adding a detailed prompt and waiting for AI’s magic to craft an outline for you is important.

Copyscribe.ai’s “ Articles Outline ” is a way to go when creating an outline. 

Here’s how you can give an outline command.

• Log-in to copyscribe.ai
• Write “Article Outlines” in the search bar to look for this magical feature of Copyscribe.
• Mention “Blog Title”
• Choose language, quality type, tone of voice, and max result length.
• Click on “Generate” after adding all your commands.

Wow, you have generated the finest and most relevant outline for your essay in no time.

What are you waiting for? Your outline is ready; now, start writing!

3-Use Examples to Illustrate Your Point

If you want to increase your essay’s word count, including examples is one of the smartest techniques to contemplate. You can use examples to illustrate your ideas better. 

Moreover, it helps readers to understand your arguments better and drive your point home. It makes the essay engaging, convincing, and readable. 

Therefore, always incorporate some well-fitted and relevant examples to spice up your write-up and elevate your essay to a new level. Surely, its a great way to increase word count and quality of the essay. 

4-In-depth Research is the Key

No worries if you have a written assignment of minimum word count. Another effective method to increase your essay’s wordcount is to know more arguments and counterarguments relevant to your topic.

The better you know your topic, the more you can explain sentences and examples.

Its the best way to increase word count of your assignment without incorporating fluff or irrelevant content.

That’s why it is suggested to in-depth research your topic before the write-up starts.

Unless you are using AI word  count tool, research can take considerable time. Therefore, use AI tools to streamline your research process and access advantageous academic resources in less time.

5- Rework Introduction and Conclusion

It is another great way to expand your assignment’s or essay’s wordcount without incorporating irrelevant sentences and fluff words. 

Let’s say you have completed your essay’s outline, but it still requires 200-300 words to meet the word count requirement. 

You can expand the introduction and conclusion to meet this goal.

Do you know how it works?

• The introduction and conclusion are the two best places where you can add free-flowing stories, quotes, and ideas without citing them every time or mentioning sources. The smartest way to increase word count is to find additional sources.
• You can include personal experiences, anecdotes, news articles, and research findings to introduce or close your topic. This included whitening out gibberish text and increasing the size of the period.
• You can also write in detail about the motivation behind choosing this topic and your strategies for writing the essay.
• In the conclusion section, remind your readers why the specific argument matters at the human level. You can do it by repeating the topic, the core arguments discussed in the essay, and how you justified your topic.

You can add more content in these sections instead of including them in the body of the essay. So, add these elements to your essay’s introduction and conclusion to meet your targeted word count.

6-Add References and Quote

Quotes and references improve the credibility of your essay and make your content authentic to read. Also, its a perfect way to increase the word count without adding fluffs and fillers.

However, it is essential to know that more than adding references and quotes in your essay is needed; you must cite them properly in the citation list. 

If you don’t cite your sources, it may question your essay’s credibility. Also, it may lead to plagiarism and formatting errors. So, double-check your work and make sure the mentioned sources are well-attributed.

7-Ask Why Questions

It’s the stage where your research has already provided you with some logical perspectives. But, it’s better to add some original perspectives to the existing research to expand your paper’s word count.

You can ask “Why” questions to do this more effectively. It strengthens your arguments and provides relevant content to increase your word count. 

Think back to the example of “benefits of technology on education.”

 Let’s say one of your arguments is, “Excess use of technology may affect education negatively.”

You can add a series of “why” topics to dig deeper into the text. 

Ask questions like  “Why is it true?” “Why do you think it happens?” etc. Adding these questions will make your essay more interesting and increase the word count.

8-Address the Counter View

Using alternative point of view can also help increase the wordcount. Moreover, you impress your teachers and makes your essay better and longer using this smart strategy.

For example, if you discuss “technology is essential for students in the 21st century,” you can also discuss “how the negative use of technology can affect students’ grades,” etc.

Addressing the counter-views and arguments will balance your essay and show you have discussed both sides of the story. Thus, arguments must be added to the word count.

9-Get Your Friend’s Feedback

Surely, writing a 2000-word essay on a unique topic is an achievement for a student. That’s why most students overlook loopholes and flaws in their write-ups. It is a key concern and a problematic situation for non-native English speakers.

You can ask a peer or any of your trusted friends to look over your essay and recommend things you could add to your essay. Share your essay on a Gdoc with your peer/friend to get their valued feedback. They can highlight something missing, misplaced, or looks out of context. 

This way, you can find more problematic paragraphs and make the essay more effective and concise.

10- Add Text When You Edit Your Essay

Still trying to increase wordcount?

Once you have finished writing your essay, please review it and consider editing where needed. This way, you can add more content and increase the length. 

It’s another great opportunity to use AI writing tools and get suggestions to write more fluent sentences and write a long essay with the help of AI. 

Replace redundant words with strong vocabulary and replace repetitive words with alternatives. 

Try to spot long phrases and divide them into small terms and paragraphs. You can add as many words as needed but they must be relevant to the context.

Did the discussion mentioned above help increase your word count?

If yes then follow these strategies and increase word count without compromising the quality.

Copyscribe.ai: All-in-One Writing Assistant

Copyscribe is an AI assistant ideally designed to take your essay writing experience to the next level, with multiple impressive features such as Text extender and Article Outlines. 

So, you must take advantage of it to create a masterpiece while completing your academic tasks, assignments, and essays.

Copyscribe Writing Features

Copyscribe comes with 50+ templates designed for your different writing needs. Here are some remarkable templates of copyscribe you can use while writing your essay.

• Text Extender (It can extend short sentences into more descriptive and informative paragraphs).
• Content Shorten (to shorten your content into a different voice and style to make it appealing to the readers).
• The article outlines (to help you write better content consistently).
• Article rewriter
• Paragraph writer
• Passive to active voice
• Tone changer
• Rewrite with keywords
• Bullet point answers

So, use any of these features to increase the word count of your essay and make it interesting to read.

Frequently Asked Questions

To increase the essay’s wordcount, consider the following strategies:

• Expand on Points: Each point or argument in your essay can be expanded. Add more examples, quotes, or data to support your statements.
• Include Counterarguments: Present and refute them to add depth to your essay.
• Add Subsections: Introduce new subtopics or subsections relevant to the main topic.
• Review the Introduction and Conclusion: Often, these sections can be elaborated upon to provide more context or summarize more thoroughly.

Several AI-based tools are designed to assist with writing such as Copyscribe, EssayBot, Textcortex, and Wordtune. These can help you rephrase content, suggest additional points, and expand on existing ones to make your essay longer. However, use them responsibly to expand word count without sacrificing quality. 

Here are some tactics:

• Use Descriptive Language: Instead of saying “good,” you could say “exceptionally good,” or instead of “fast,” use “rapidly.” as natural language processing matters.
• Include Additional Evidence: Cite more research, include more case studies, or add more anecdotes.

Clarify Statements: If you’ve made broad statements, break them down into specific points.

If your assignment’s maximum word count is 1000+ words, you can extend it by following simple strategies:

• Add Quotations: Incorporate relevant quotations from experts as they can increase 10% length of the essay.
• Use Examples: Use concrete examples to illustrate abstract concepts.
• Expand Each Paragraph: Review each paragraph to see if your point can be further elaborated. Follow these strategies if you need to increase your shorter essay or reach your word count limit

Every student tries to reach the minimum word count of the assignment. Nevertheless, the word count for an extended essay will largely depend on the guidelines set by your educational institution or the specific course for which the essay is being written.  It mainly depends on the kind of essay you are writing. In many cases, extended essays are expected to be around 4000 words essay length for subjects like History or English, but it’s essential to adhere to any guidelines you’ve been given. If you’re unsure, consult with your instructor or advisor to look for practical options to reach the word count limit.

The minimum word count of essay depends on the type of essay you are writing. However, the length of 250 words is generally considered to be short for an academic essay. Such a word count would likely be appropriate for a high school essay assignment or perhaps as one part of a longer university paper, but it would be insufficient for a detailed analysis or research paper. Typically, academic essays at the college level are at least 500 words (usually a short essay), and they can be much longer depending on the topic and requirements.

Various AI platforms like Copyscribe, Wordtune, and Grammarly can assist with essays by expanding word count,  checking grammar, suggesting sentence structures, and even offering ideas to include. These tools with word counter can help you track the total words you have written.

Absolutely. AI tools can provide real-time feedback, offer synonyms for overused words, and correct grammatical errors. This lets you focus more on the content and less on writing mechanics. So, follow AI tools to increase word count in essay.

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How to Expand Your Essay Without Losing Your Reader’s Attention

Table of contents

• 1 Essential Parts of an Essay
• 2.1 Illustrate Your Ideas With Examples
• 2.2 Include Quotations to Increase the Word Count
• 2.3 Build On Your Message
• 2.4 Make Sure the Notions Are Clear
• 2.5 Elaborate More Transitional Phrases
• 2.6 Provide Supporting Evidence To Achieve Required Word Count
• 2.7 Always Create an Outline to Fit the Paper’s Word Count
• 3 Tricks Which Can’t Work for Your Teacher

Is your essay word count not up to the mark? Each of us faced this problem when writing voluminous works. You have already outlined all your thoughts and developed your idea, but the length of writing is still insufficient. Don’t worry, there are some easy tricks to solve this problem. In this article, we will share with you working tips on how to make your essay longer. We will also warn you about techniques that should not be used to make your essay longer, not to put your assessment at risk.

Essential Parts of an Essay

Any essay consists of three main parts: introduction, body part, and conclusion . The first paragraph exists to interest the reader, attract his attention, and bring him up to date. A topic sentence is a common beginning for an essay. It briefly reflects the main narrative of the paper.

Then follows the main part, divided into one to three paragraphs, each presenting new ideas. In the central section, you present the bulk of the intended information. Be sure to follow the logic of the narrative, and remember to use linking words to transition between topics.

And finally, there are conclusions. You can find some examples of strong conclusions on  writing service PapersOwl . In this paragraph, you have to clearly and briefly lay down the thoughts that you came up with in the course of essay writing. In simple words, if the reader only gets acquainted with the introduction and conclusion, he should be able to clearly understand what the essay is about.

Tips on How to Make an Essay Longer

Well, you have already completed the basic requirements and written the three main sections of the paper, but still, there are not enough words to fulfill the minimum page count. This will never happen when you purchase custom essays  written by professionals. However, let’s point out the ways to improve your essay quality and get a perfect score.

Illustrate Your Ideas With Examples

The requirements for some essays include the obligatory use of examples to reinforce ideas. Adding visuals to your essay will not only help increase the word count but also make it easier for readers to understand. Give multiple examples to support your information. Provide an example from the lives of famous people, a convincing argument, your own experience, or even scientific experiment data. This will allow you to sound more convincing and also fill the paper’s word count.

Include Quotations to Increase the Word Count

Many worthy thoughts have already come upon the greatest minds of mankind. By using relevant quotations, you can expand the volume of your essay, filling it with deeper meaning. Choose  quotes for essay  papers that seem appropriate to you and integrate them into writing. Quotations may be presented as ideas that inspired you to create your paper. However, do not forget to read the citation rules and references formatting so as not to be accused of plagiarism.

Build On Your Message

Read your finished writing again and ensure you have expressed yourself clearly and haven’t missed any detail. Develop your points to share them with the public as unambiguously as possible. Give a few additional arguments, view the topic from new angles, and expand the backstory to immerse the reader in the context of the paper. Don’t forget about the counterargument section .

Make Sure the Notions Are Clear

If you have used professional vocabulary in your writing, do not forget to add an explanation. You can create a small glossary or simply explain the meaning of the terms in the general flow. Such important details should be available to the reader so that he has the opportunity to understand the key information.

Elaborate More Transitional Phrases

Having smooth transitions between one idea and the other, one paragraph and another, will ensure ease of reading. If you find yourself in a situation where you need to add length to an essay, you can enrich the text with transitional words and structures. And although this will not add extra information, it will help you keep the narrative coherent.

Provide Supporting Evidence To Achieve Required Word Count

Examine the data, and figure out information that can be supporting evidence for the thoughts you’ve outlined in your essay. The presence of visual indicators leads to an increase in the level of trust in you as a specialist. The trick of presenting more evidence can greatly increase the word count in your essay.

Always Create an Outline to Fit the Paper’s Word Count

Long-form essays require clear structure. Writing an essay outline will save you from the problem of not reaching the minimum word count. In the process of structuring your thoughts, you must indicate how many words you need to write in each section. What should you do if you have already written an essay without having developed an outline before, and now you need to expand it? You still have to create a plan yourself or resort to assignment writing help  online. Analyze the finished work, write down the main structural units, and calculate the number of words. This will give you an idea of which paragraphs to expand.

Tricks Which Can’t Work for Your Teacher

Sometimes, in a desperate desire to lengthen their essay, students resort to ineffective methods. As a result, they remain dissatisfied with their assessment. Let’s look at what mistakes you should avoid so as not to endanger your performance.

Do not try to enlarge your essay by formatting . Increasing line spacing or making the font size bigger won’t get you to the point. The problem is that the larger font is visible, so your teacher will notice your cheating straight away. Playing with standards of margin size and choosing larger font will undermine your reputation in the teacher’s eyes. It’s always better to provide more examples or simply make the header longer to poet some extra space for the research.

Shifting the responsibility to your trusted friend is not an option. Many people advise giving your paper to a friend for verification, but this is not at all a reliable solution. You can entrust the check to a professional writer, who will check if you missed something and if the font size and other formatting are correct. However, delegating paper verification to a friend if he is not a certified linguist will not bring results.

Adding more words by eliminating abbreviations does not require much work, but it greatly simplifies the content of your research. Don’t resort to a redundancy writing  strategy, but try to add a couple of sentences to the conclusion. This will not only increase the length but give you some extra points for interesting ideas.

Plagiarizing other writers’ thoughts and directly copying phrases and paragraphs is the worst idea of all. Your research paper is supposed to be original, and each argument you provide should be formulated creatively. However, there are still some tricks to beat Turnitin  that professional writers have shared with students. Still, don’t try to make your essay longer by copy-pasting.

The last point is not to double your own argument. We know it can be hard for students to come up with ideas on how to increase the length of the paper, but parroting your own points is not going to make your essay interesting for readers. Try to add a couple of sentences to each of the existing paragraphs instead.

Writing an essay is a difficult and complex task. Turning your thoughts into coherent and structured phrases is more of a challenge than it might seem. However, when you have wandered into a dead end, do not despair. Taking a fresh look at your writing will help you gather your thoughts and write a great essay. By following our simple tips, you can easily add length to your paper and get a high score.

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• Writing Tips

How to Make an Essay Longer

7-minute read

• 10th May 2023

So you have an essay due the next day. You’ve been holed up in your dorm all day writing it, and now you’ve finished the conclusion. You shake your fist in celebratory fashion as you punctuate the paper’s last sentence. However, your jaw drops in horror when you focus on the word count. The essay rubric states that you must write at least 1,500 words, but you’ve written only 1,000 ! How can this be? You worked so hard to do what the assignment asked you. We know the feeling, and we’re sure every college student experiences it at least once.

So with time running out, you can do the following:

●  Submit the essay and hope the professor doesn’t notice

●  Add some gibberish sentences to get close enough to the required word count

We don’t recommend these options. Making an essay longer seems daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. That’s why we’re providing this post on expanding your essay while keeping it relevant to the topic. We’ll share our helpful tips, and by the end of the post, you’ll know what to do next time your essay falls short of the word count.

1. Add Content to the Essay

Adding more details is a great starting point for increasing the word count. Review your essay and see whether you should have addressed additional points about the topic. Could you include a few more arguments?  

You’ll likely have to review your sources to find additional claims. We understand that you might not want to do this, especially if the clock reads midnight and your class starts in nine hours. However, adding more content not only increases the word count; it also makes your essay more credible. 

If you need to add content, make sure it’s relevant to the topic. Consider the following example:

Personal details about the source’s author are irrelevant. Submitting such details will only earn you the wrath of your professor’s red ink. Let’s try an alternative:

Expanding on the citation with personal insight about screen time adds punch while keeping the discussion relevant. Additional details must move your essay forward the way dialogue and narrative do for a work of fiction.  

2. Add Transitional Sentences and Phrases

Your essay might be short of words because it lacks transitional phrases, so you should add some to the mix. In fact, every academic paper should include a healthy blend of transitional sentences and transitional words/phrases . Not sure what we mean by that? You know words and phrases such as however , moreover , and in addition . 

As with details, transitional phrases help to move the essay forward, so make sure to use them correctly. Let’s take an example from an essay about the late Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic:

As you can see, the writer uses transitional phrases correctly, adding value and words to the essay. When you use them correctly, transitional sentences and phrases improve the flow of your writing , enhancing readability. Professors expect coherent essays that flow smoothly, so transitional sentences and phrases are mandatory, regardless of word count. 

That being said, it can be easy to overuse linking words, particularly if you’re a non-native writer. Check out this interesting article from Fabio Cerpeloni, who argues that linking words can impact the readability of your text . 

3. Spell Out Words and Numbers

If you have contractions in your essay, such as can’t , won’t , and couldn’t , write them out in full. You shouldn’t use contractions at all in academic writing because they’re considered informal. Although using full versions of words seems to be a miniscule measure, doing so can go a long way to increasing your word count. And as a rule, you can also spell out numbers one through eleven. Again, doing this will help expand your essay.

Find this useful?

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To save time switching out your contractions, make sure you’re familiar with Microsoft Word’s find and replace tool .  

4. Add More Examples

Using at least two examples, you should aim to support every argument you present. If you have only one example for an argument, add a couple more. Provide citations to support your claims; otherwise, your professor will question your knowledge. As with details, examples will strengthen your essay. It’s a win–win situation!

If the essay has enough citations but still needs more words, you could try paraphrasing claims from sources. Just be sure to paraphrase effectively . You wouldn’t want to fall into the trap of plagiarism!

5. Review the Introduction and Conclusion

Now that you’ve written the essay, go back to the introduction and the conclusion. You might be able to expand on them and provide extra details. Remember that the introduction serves as a lead-in to the essay. In other words, it captures your readers’ attention and makes them want to keep reading. If your introduction appears weak, add details that will engage the reader properly.

And for the conclusion, provide a takeaway for the reader and offer a call to action. For example, what are the most important things to remember about your essay? The conclusion may lack punch, so add some details to improve it.

6. Expand Your Research on the Topic

The amount of research you’ve done could affect the word count. One way to check this is by reviewing your reference list. It should have at least five sources, so if yours has fewer, you need to do more research. Again, it’s not something you’d like to do in the middle of the night; however, sacrifices must be made if your essay needs more research. We guarantee your professor will notice if you haven’t done enough research. Here’s an extra tip: adding details will be much easier if you’re fully knowledgeable about the topic. Trust us on this!

While making an essay longer may seem daunting, doing so is easier if you’ve adequately researched the topic. The essay likely needs more ideas or examples, so go ahead and add them. Additional details will lend value, improve flow, and make your essay more credible. The most important thing to remember is that any details you add must be relevant. Simply adding fluff will weaken your essay and cost you marks. So never submit an essay with a low word count; your professor will notice! And after all, expanding on an essay is part of mastering essay writing skills .

We recommend not waiting until the last minute to check that your essay meets the required word count. Adding details or doing additional research the night before will only spell trouble. We understand the difficulty of making time when multiple papers are due in the same week. However, college life will test your time management skills like nothing else! Use your time wisely!

1.  Why do essays fall short of the required word count?

This is often due to a lack of details and transitional sentences. Review your essay to see whether it’s missing important examples that can strengthen your claims.

2.  Can I simply add “fluff” to increase the word count?

Anything you add to the essay must be relevant and must add value. Your professor is no fool, after all!

3. I hear proofreading is essential before submitting my essay. Can anyone help me with this?

We suggest our proofreading experts at Proofed! They can check your writing for grammar and punctuation errors and ensure perfect spelling and concision. Consider submitting a 500-word document for free today!

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7 Ways to Increase Word Count in Your Essay

No matter how much work you put into a piece of writing you can sometimes find yourself needing to increase word count. While most colleges and universities allow students to be 5-10% under the required words, less than this will result in significantly lower marks. In these situations, it is advisable to find ways of adding to your total number of words.

This article will give you the seven best suggestions to increase word count.

• Clarify your statements – An easy way to increase word count in your essays is to look for sentences that can be clarified with a follow-up statement. Although you need to avoid over-using this technique so that your writing doesn’t become too long-winded, you can effectively insert a few sentences that start with “in other words…” or “for example…”.
• Use supporting quotations – If you haven’t already, add a few quotations from well-respected authors to support your own points. Alternatively, you can slightly increase the length of text that you’ve already cited, by including the sentence before or after the relevant quote.
• Add another example – Look for paragraphs where you’ve used examples to illustrate your points, and add another one. This can demonstrate your thorough understanding of the topic, and it will add a significant number of words.
• Insert tables or diagrams – While your bibliography and footnotes aren’t usually included in the word count, tables, diagrams and illustrations are, especially when they appear in the main body of the work. Try to find relevant items to insert that provide important data, rather than purely illustrative material.
• Address alternative viewpoints – A great way to increase word count (and quality) is with opposing viewpoints. Include reference sources that counter your own argument. Then be sure to include these sources and also explain why you feel your own position is superior.
• Consult one more text – Although you’ve already put many hours into your writing, you can still eke out more words by simply consulting one more source. To save time, approach this strategically by consulting the source for specific topics that you’ve already mentioned in your writing. If it’s a book, use the index to quickly locate relevant material.
• Expand your introduction or conclusion – Finally, a good place to add words is in the Introduction and Conclusion. These paragraphs are typically expected to be less critical in nature, so you can get away with padding them out a bit.

Further Reading

• Surviving Your Dissertation: A Comprehensive Guide to Content and Process
• The Good Study Guide
• Thinking Critically

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How to Expand an Essay – 4 Tips to Increase the Word Count

Do you feel that you’ve written all you could in this essay, but it’s still short of the word count requirement? Maybe you need to add a few hundred or even a thousand words.

If so, you’ve come to the right place. I’m Tutor Phil, and in this tutorial I’ll show you how to increase your essay’s word count. 

These four tips or techniques will work for any type of an essay. They will also improve the quality of your paper. 

So, let’s dive right in. Here are…

Four easy ways to expand your essay:

1. Add an explanation

If you read through your essay, you will likely notice that one or more ideas could use some kind of an explanation. 

Very often, we assume that the reader is familiar with all the concepts that we discuss in our writing. But what if we could find a concept or a term that many people might actually be unfamiliar with?

That’s our opportunity to expand our paper. Here’s an example. Let’s assume you’re writing an essay on human psychology, and you include this statement:

“John became a victim of the ostrich effect when he chose to deny that his family did not share his outlook on the situation.”

One phrase stands out in this sentence. Some readers may wonder: “ What is an ‘ostrich effect? ’”

If they are unfamiliar with the term, they might need to distract themselves from your essay for a second and go look it up. 

What if you did the work for them and simply explained the term in your essay:

“The ‘ostrich effect’ refers to a peculiar behavior of this tropical bird in dangerous or critical situations. When facing danger, an ostrich buries its head in the sand. This way, it prevents itself from seeing what is happening around it. Unfortunately, while this helps relieve anxiety, this is not an effective strategy to deal with the actual threat.”

By adding this explanation, we just added 58 words to the essay. And we can probably find another concept or two to explain.

This is especially effective when you’re writing an essay on some complex topic. But it can work in a simple and mundane topic, as well. You can even deliberately plant an uncommon concept and then explain it.

How to use this technique

To use this technique over and over in your essay, all you need to do is read through the body of your essay from the beginning, scanning it for a term that may be unfamiliar to the reader.

Here are some questions you can ask and then provide an answer as an explanation.  

What is this?

The answer to this question defines something. It is usually a short description of the idea or a thing.

How does this work?

This question gives you a chance to add quite a bit of content. In it, you would explain or describe how something works, from beginning to end. 

If it’s some kind of a mechanical contraption, you can describe its components, explain what each one does, and describe the entire process of its function. 

If it’s a natural process, such as the development of a fetus, you can describe that process in some detail.

You can do the same with a computer program or app, a legal procedure, or anything else that consists of parts and takes steps or stages to complete.

Why is it effective?

Here is your chance to explain why this thing or process works well. In effect, you are describing the strengths and advantages of the thing or process.

What does it enable?

By answering this question, you explain what other things, effects, or benefits become possible thanks to the thing or process you’re discussing. 

Note that you can use any and all of these questions for every concept you want to expand on. 

But use your discretion. This technique is very powerful, and it’s easy to go overboard and explain too much. 

Remember – you have three other techniques you can use. So, employ a variety of these methods. 

2. Use the Counterargument technique

Here is a very effective technique to add two paragraphs of quality material to your paper. You can use this technique multiple times in your essay while making your argumentation more powerful.

I call it the Counterargument technique, and it has three easy steps.

The Counterargument Technique

Step 1. Pick a spot in your paper where one of the authors you’ve used as a source could disagree with a point. 

This should not be your main point. Choose a supporting idea in the body of your essay that sounds like someone could challenge it.

Let’s use an example of a paper on human psychology again, and let’s say that one of the points you make is that people almost never change. This statement sounds like someone out there could challenge it.

Once we’ve picked the statement, we’re ready for the next step. 

Step 2. Challenge this statement.  

You can introduce your challenge in one of the following ways:

“Some authors disagree with this assumption. They claim that…” 

“Some may argue that…”

And then you explain what they claim.

This could be an author that you have already researched. Or, you could go out there and find just one article in which the author presents an argument contrary to the statement you chose.

Don’t worry – the whole source doesn’t have to challenge the statement. If only a small part of it contains contradictory material, you have just found your challenge. And now you’re ready for the next step. 

Step 3. Answer the challenge.  

In this step, you simply write down an answer or a rebuttal to the challenge you just presented. When you do this, you provide even stronger support for your thesis.

For example, it can go something like this:

The original argument:

“People almost never change.”  

The challenge:

“Well, some authors seem to disagree with this view and claim that people can change under certain circumstances.” 

And here you can cite this other author or authors who present the challenge.

And now comes the answer to the challenge:

“However, these authors are mistaken because modern psychology presents abundant evidence that human psychology loves the status quo.” 

And you can provide the reason or reasons you believe the challenge does not hold water. You can make your counterargument as detailed as you want and even add examples. 

When you do it the way I just described, you are not contradicting yourself. 

Instead, you are actually strengthening your argument because you show that you are aware that some people may disagree with it. But their argument is weak for the reasons that you provide. 

Here’s a video I created to walk you through this technique:

3. Add examples

I have graded a lot of papers as a university writing instructor. And I can tell you that students don’t use enough examples in their essays.

Their content is mostly general. Sometimes, they’ll use statistics or formal facts. But those are not specific examples.

An example is usually an image or a story, a depiction of an event or a description of a human being in a particular place and time. 

Examples have colors, smells, names, exact dates, and other details that make them come alive in the reader’s imagination. 

Let’s come back to our imaginary essay about human psychology in which John is used as a general example of the “ostrich effect.”

We wrote a nice explanation of the effect earlier. But we don’t have to leave it at that. We can now add a specific example of John being a victim of the ostrich effect:

“For the past three weeks, John’s wife Liz has tried to get him to recognize that their daughter had been receiving poor grades in school. But faced with the challenges of his new business, John has just kept brushing the topic aside. One day Liz became so angry with her husband that she simply stopped talking to him. That got his attention.”

This is a specific example of John’s habit of denying important facts. We can extend this example even more by providing more details. 

The beauty of using examples is that you can write as much or as little as you want without struggling for words. 

Here’s a tip: you can use your personal examples. And you can include them in simple essays that you would write on a test or even in research papers.

Just make sure that your personal example is relevant and serves to support the point.

4. Add a whole section

This technique is great for expanding your essay by a lot – by 30% or more. And you can even repeat it and add more than one whole section.

Let’s say that you have three supporting ideas for your main point. And you have already written as much as you could about those three points.

To use our human psychology example, let’s say that this is our main structure:

We have three nice sections, each devoted to a part of human psychology. And let’s say that our thesis is the following:

“The three parts of human psychology that primarily determine behavior are emotions, intellect, and decision-making.”

And let’s say that each section in this paper is about 500 words long. And we need another 500 words. 

Can we think of another part of human psychology that also determines human behavior? Of course we can.

I’ll just consult my own basic knowledge of psychology to do it. You can consult your own knowledge or do quick research to find one more supporting idea.

And here we are. The ego is another major contributor to human behavior. 

Now, let’s add this to our whole structure:

Given that this section is similar in length to the others, by the time we have written it out in the body of the essay, we’ll have 500 more words!

Also, we must not forget to update our thesis statement:

“The four parts of human psychology that primarily determine behavior are emotions, intellect, decision-making, and the ego.”

If you wonder how to fill out a new section with high quality material, you should read my guide on how to write body paragraphs . 

Hope this is helpful!

Tutor Phil is an e-learning professional who helps adult learners finish their degrees by teaching them academic writing skills.

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How to Make an Essay Longer Than It Really Is: 9 Hacks that Work

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How to Increase Word Count

Last Updated: December 20, 2022 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Stephanie Wong Ken, MFA . Stephanie Wong Ken is a writer based in Canada. Stephanie's writing has appeared in Joyland, Catapult, Pithead Chapel, Cosmonaut's Avenue, and other publications. She holds an MFA in Fiction and Creative Writing from Portland State University. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 101,313 times.

Word count is the total number of words in a document. You may be trying to increase the word count of your essay for a class or a paper for a school assignment. Or, perhaps you want to increase the word count of your novel or short story to meet a deadline. Bolstering word count can be done by adding new content or by expanding on existing content. With the right approach, you can increase word count in your work easily and efficiently.

Adjusting Existing Content in Your Paper

• For example, you may use clarifying phrases like, “In other words…” or “As noted in my previous paragraph…”.

• For example, you may notice that there is a long sentence in your introduction that could be broken up and then elaborated on further. Or maybe there is an image from the text that you want to describe in a bit more detail in your conclusion to wrap up the paper.

• For example, if you have a short quote from a section of the text, add another quote that relates to it so you can flesh out your ideas more in your paper.
• You can also substitute your existing quotes for quotes that are longer or more relevant to your ideas. This can make your paper stronger and help you increase the word count.

Adding New Content to the Paper

• For example, if you are writing a paper on reproductive rights in Oregon, you may include a section on an opposing viewpoint on abortion rights from a credible source.

• For example, you may add another example from the source text that illustrates the theme of your essay. Or you may include another case study to support your argument in a paper.

• For example, if you are writing a paper on reproductive rights in Oregon, you may look for a recent government source that you can then pull content from to add to your paper. Or you may add scholarly articles to your paper to help support your ideas more fully.

• You should also avoid using overly complex words in your sentences. Do not try to increase word count by adding a lot of “very,” “really,” and “rather” in your sentences. This will only clutter up your essay and weaken your sentences.

Increasing Word Count for a Novel or Short Story

• For example, if you have a scene where two characters are arguing in a forest, you may include more details about the forest setting. You can also elaborate on what the characters are wearing in the scene as well as how they move their bodies when they are speaking to each other.

• For example, you may try adding in section of backstory for your main character about their childhood. Or you may include a chapter that discusses the history of the relationship between two characters as a form of backstory.

• For example, maybe you have a conflict that happens mid-way in the novel. You may try to resolve this conflict by adding content to the last section of the novel so it feels more wrapped up and complete.

• For example, perhaps you add in a family member for your main character who plays a minor part in the story. Or maybe you include a best friend character to add more content to the novel.

• For example, if you are writing a novel about the end of a marriage, you may have the main plot be the end of the marriage from the perspective of the couple. The subplot could then be how the marriage affects the children of the couple.

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21 Helpful and Easy Tips to Make an Essay Longer

Bookman Old Style > Times New Roman.

When you're writing a school paper after researching and typing for what feels like ages, but you still haven't reached your teacher's required page count, it's normal to feel frustrated. Maybe you get a little creative and play Microsoft Word gymnastics with different fonts and spacing, or become super expressive with your descriptions. There's also a chance you missed something on the assignment rubric, or overlooked the opportunity to include more quotes from trusted sources. You might even be able to load up on a few more examples for your argument, easily boosting the word count with additional research. Still a couple pages behind the limit? Don't worry. Below, we have over 20 tips to help you hit that page requirement.

1. Make sure you included everything on the rubric. If you forgot a whole section focusing on the counter argument, that could be the reason why your paper is a couple pages shorter than needed.

2. Load up on transitional phrases. Your paper isn't long enough, therefore it may be necessary to add some transitional phrases because they take up space. On the other hand , this could make your paper really wordy, however , it may be necessary. See what I did there?

3. Spell out your numbers. There are four editorial styles — AP, APA, MLA, and Chicago. Each one has a different rule for spelling out numbers, which can work out in your favor. For instance, in APA, you write out all numbers under 10. So a one-character "7" becomes a five-character "seven." In MLA, you spell out all numbers at the beginning of a sentence, and all simple numbers (those that are one or two words). Make sure to check the assignment rubric to see what style your paper should be written in!

4. Ditch the contractions. Honestly, you probably should not even be using contractions in a formal essay, so if you are filling up your paper with "don't," "won't," and "can't," switch them out for "do not," "will not," and "cannot."

5. Use numerous examples. Make sure to do extensive research on your essay topic and come up with at least 2-3 examples for every argument presented. One example might seem like enough, but adding a couple more points improves your paper and boosts its word count.

6. Add quotes. Including quotes, whether they be from a book, news article, or trusted source, helps strengthen and validate the point you're making in a paper. But you can't just drop a quotation without context. Introducing, writing out, and properly unpacking a quote can add value — and length — to your essay.

7. Start getting really descriptive about everything. How illustrative can you get about the evolution of electricity, you ask? Well, the answer is: Very. The howling wind gushed passed Benjamin Franklin at 30 miles per hour on that cold, rainy night, pulling the string of his kite taught as it fought to stay in the sky and sent his grey hair flying up in the sky like silvery wisps.

8. Try to make your header longer. If possible, of course. Some teachers clearly state what information needs to be included in the header. But if there's no guideline, add what you can within reason — I'm not sure your teacher is going to appreciate your TikTok or Insta handle listed on the page.

9. Have someone proofread. Getting another pair of eyes to read your paper might reveal some areas in need of work. Maybe you need to elaborate a bit more on a certain argument, or include a quote to strengthen an example.

10. Revisit your introduction paragraph. Sometimes, an introduction is easiest to write after the paper has been written. Having already presented and thoroughly discussed the argument in the essay's body paragraphs, you have a more concrete understanding of what direction the paper takes. There might be some information or ideas you can add into the intro, to better set up the paper's points.

11. Make your spacing larger. Your teacher probably won't be able to tell the difference between double spacing and 2.5 spacing. *fingers crossed*

12 . While you're at it, expand the spacing between the characters. Yes, I'm talking between each and every letter.

13. Raise the font size from 12pt to 12.5pt. Nobody has to know!

14. Make all periods and commas 14pt. It sounds tedious, but simply command-f and search for the period, that way you can change all of them at once.

15. Put extra space around your (super long and bolded) title. It needs some space to shine and breathe, obvs.

16. Change the font. You can't get too crazy or else your teacher will call you out, so you stick with something super similar to Times New Roman, but slightly bigger, like Bookman Old Style. However some teachers specify a certain font in the paper's assignment requirements — in the case, don't try to switch things up.

17. Reverse outline. After you've finished penning your essay, read it through and write an outline on what you have written so far. This strategy can reveal some paragraphs in need of further development. If you notice one super long paragraph, try breaking the ideas down into separate paragraphs. This might bump the page count up a bit, and give you the opportunity to include a few more transition sentences.

18. Make your margins bigger. You have to be careful about the left and right margins, and the top can be tricky. But the bottom margin, you can practically make it as big as you want. And then you can...

19. Add a fancy footer with page numbers. Obviously (hopefully), your teacher will appreciate your attention to detail and presentation.

20. Add a header with the title of your paper to every single page. Just in case your teacher forgets what your paper is about. You only want to help.

21. Make a separate cover page. Technically, the rubric didn't say it couldn't count as page one.

When I'm not holed up in my room going on a completely unproductive Netflix binge or Tumblr stalking Timothée Chalomet, I'm searching for awesome celeb news stories that Seventeen readers will love!

Leah Campano is an Associate Editor at Seventeen, where she covers pop culture, entertainment news, health, and politics. On the weekends, you can probably find her watching marathons of vintage Real Housewives episodes or searching for New York City’s best almond croissants. 

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• 40 Useful Words and Phrases for Top-Notch Essays

To be truly brilliant, an essay needs to utilise the right language. You could make a great point, but if it’s not intelligently articulated, you almost needn’t have bothered.

Developing the language skills to build an argument and to write persuasively is crucial if you’re to write outstanding essays every time. In this article, we’re going to equip you with the words and phrases you need to write a top-notch essay, along with examples of how to utilise them.

It’s by no means an exhaustive list, and there will often be other ways of using the words and phrases we describe that we won’t have room to include, but there should be more than enough below to help you make an instant improvement to your essay-writing skills.

If you’re interested in developing your language and persuasive skills, Oxford Royale offers summer courses at its Oxford Summer School , Cambridge Summer School , London Summer School , San Francisco Summer School and Yale Summer School . You can study courses to learn english , prepare for careers in law , medicine , business , engineering and leadership.

General explaining

Let’s start by looking at language for general explanations of complex points.

1. In order to

Usage: “In order to” can be used to introduce an explanation for the purpose of an argument. Example: “In order to understand X, we need first to understand Y.”

2. In other words

Usage: Use “in other words” when you want to express something in a different way (more simply), to make it easier to understand, or to emphasise or expand on a point. Example: “Frogs are amphibians. In other words, they live on the land and in the water.”

3. To put it another way

Usage: This phrase is another way of saying “in other words”, and can be used in particularly complex points, when you feel that an alternative way of wording a problem may help the reader achieve a better understanding of its significance. Example: “Plants rely on photosynthesis. To put it another way, they will die without the sun.”

4. That is to say

Usage: “That is” and “that is to say” can be used to add further detail to your explanation, or to be more precise. Example: “Whales are mammals. That is to say, they must breathe air.”

5. To that end

Usage: Use “to that end” or “to this end” in a similar way to “in order to” or “so”. Example: “Zoologists have long sought to understand how animals communicate with each other. To that end, a new study has been launched that looks at elephant sounds and their possible meanings.”

Adding additional information to support a point

Students often make the mistake of using synonyms of “and” each time they want to add further information in support of a point they’re making, or to build an argument. Here are some cleverer ways of doing this.

6. Moreover

Usage: Employ “moreover” at the start of a sentence to add extra information in support of a point you’re making. Example: “Moreover, the results of a recent piece of research provide compelling evidence in support of…”

7. Furthermore

Usage:This is also generally used at the start of a sentence, to add extra information. Example: “Furthermore, there is evidence to suggest that…”

8. What’s more

Usage: This is used in the same way as “moreover” and “furthermore”. Example: “What’s more, this isn’t the only evidence that supports this hypothesis.”

9. Likewise

Usage: Use “likewise” when you want to talk about something that agrees with what you’ve just mentioned. Example: “Scholar A believes X. Likewise, Scholar B argues compellingly in favour of this point of view.”

10. Similarly

Usage: Use “similarly” in the same way as “likewise”. Example: “Audiences at the time reacted with shock to Beethoven’s new work, because it was very different to what they were used to. Similarly, we have a tendency to react with surprise to the unfamiliar.”

11. Another key thing to remember

Usage: Use the phrase “another key point to remember” or “another key fact to remember” to introduce additional facts without using the word “also”. Example: “As a Romantic, Blake was a proponent of a closer relationship between humans and nature. Another key point to remember is that Blake was writing during the Industrial Revolution, which had a major impact on the world around him.”

12. As well as

Usage: Use “as well as” instead of “also” or “and”. Example: “Scholar A argued that this was due to X, as well as Y.”

13. Not only… but also

Usage: This wording is used to add an extra piece of information, often something that’s in some way more surprising or unexpected than the first piece of information. Example: “Not only did Edmund Hillary have the honour of being the first to reach the summit of Everest, but he was also appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire.”

14. Coupled with

Usage: Used when considering two or more arguments at a time. Example: “Coupled with the literary evidence, the statistics paint a compelling view of…”

15. Firstly, secondly, thirdly…

Usage: This can be used to structure an argument, presenting facts clearly one after the other. Example: “There are many points in support of this view. Firstly, X. Secondly, Y. And thirdly, Z.

16. Not to mention/to say nothing of

Usage: “Not to mention” and “to say nothing of” can be used to add extra information with a bit of emphasis. Example: “The war caused unprecedented suffering to millions of people, not to mention its impact on the country’s economy.”

Words and phrases for demonstrating contrast

When you’re developing an argument, you will often need to present contrasting or opposing opinions or evidence – “it could show this, but it could also show this”, or “X says this, but Y disagrees”. This section covers words you can use instead of the “but” in these examples, to make your writing sound more intelligent and interesting.

17. However

Usage: Use “however” to introduce a point that disagrees with what you’ve just said. Example: “Scholar A thinks this. However, Scholar B reached a different conclusion.”

18. On the other hand

Usage: Usage of this phrase includes introducing a contrasting interpretation of the same piece of evidence, a different piece of evidence that suggests something else, or an opposing opinion. Example: “The historical evidence appears to suggest a clear-cut situation. On the other hand, the archaeological evidence presents a somewhat less straightforward picture of what happened that day.”

19. Having said that

Usage: Used in a similar manner to “on the other hand” or “but”. Example: “The historians are unanimous in telling us X, an agreement that suggests that this version of events must be an accurate account. Having said that, the archaeology tells a different story.”

20. By contrast/in comparison

Usage: Use “by contrast” or “in comparison” when you’re comparing and contrasting pieces of evidence. Example: “Scholar A’s opinion, then, is based on insufficient evidence. By contrast, Scholar B’s opinion seems more plausible.”

21. Then again

Usage: Use this to cast doubt on an assertion. Example: “Writer A asserts that this was the reason for what happened. Then again, it’s possible that he was being paid to say this.”

22. That said

Usage: This is used in the same way as “then again”. Example: “The evidence ostensibly appears to point to this conclusion. That said, much of the evidence is unreliable at best.”

Usage: Use this when you want to introduce a contrasting idea. Example: “Much of scholarship has focused on this evidence. Yet not everyone agrees that this is the most important aspect of the situation.”

Adding a proviso or acknowledging reservations

Sometimes, you may need to acknowledge a shortfalling in a piece of evidence, or add a proviso. Here are some ways of doing so.

24. Despite this

Usage: Use “despite this” or “in spite of this” when you want to outline a point that stands regardless of a shortfalling in the evidence. Example: “The sample size was small, but the results were important despite this.”

25. With this in mind

Usage: Use this when you want your reader to consider a point in the knowledge of something else. Example: “We’ve seen that the methods used in the 19th century study did not always live up to the rigorous standards expected in scientific research today, which makes it difficult to draw definite conclusions. With this in mind, let’s look at a more recent study to see how the results compare.”

26. Provided that

Usage: This means “on condition that”. You can also say “providing that” or just “providing” to mean the same thing. Example: “We may use this as evidence to support our argument, provided that we bear in mind the limitations of the methods used to obtain it.”

27. In view of/in light of

Usage: These phrases are used when something has shed light on something else. Example: “In light of the evidence from the 2013 study, we have a better understanding of…”

28. Nonetheless

Usage: This is similar to “despite this”. Example: “The study had its limitations, but it was nonetheless groundbreaking for its day.”

29. Nevertheless

Usage: This is the same as “nonetheless”. Example: “The study was flawed, but it was important nevertheless.”

30. Notwithstanding

Usage: This is another way of saying “nonetheless”. Example: “Notwithstanding the limitations of the methodology used, it was an important study in the development of how we view the workings of the human mind.”

Giving examples

Good essays always back up points with examples, but it’s going to get boring if you use the expression “for example” every time. Here are a couple of other ways of saying the same thing.

31. For instance

Example: “Some birds migrate to avoid harsher winter climates. Swallows, for instance, leave the UK in early winter and fly south…”

32. To give an illustration

Example: “To give an illustration of what I mean, let’s look at the case of…”

Signifying importance

When you want to demonstrate that a point is particularly important, there are several ways of highlighting it as such.

33. Significantly

Usage: Used to introduce a point that is loaded with meaning that might not be immediately apparent. Example: “Significantly, Tacitus omits to tell us the kind of gossip prevalent in Suetonius’ accounts of the same period.”

34. Notably

Usage: This can be used to mean “significantly” (as above), and it can also be used interchangeably with “in particular” (the example below demonstrates the first of these ways of using it). Example: “Actual figures are notably absent from Scholar A’s analysis.”

35. Importantly

Usage: Use “importantly” interchangeably with “significantly”. Example: “Importantly, Scholar A was being employed by X when he wrote this work, and was presumably therefore under pressure to portray the situation more favourably than he perhaps might otherwise have done.”

Summarising

You’ve almost made it to the end of the essay, but your work isn’t over yet. You need to end by wrapping up everything you’ve talked about, showing that you’ve considered the arguments on both sides and reached the most likely conclusion. Here are some words and phrases to help you.

36. In conclusion

Usage: Typically used to introduce the concluding paragraph or sentence of an essay, summarising what you’ve discussed in a broad overview. Example: “In conclusion, the evidence points almost exclusively to Argument A.”

37. Above all

Usage: Used to signify what you believe to be the most significant point, and the main takeaway from the essay. Example: “Above all, it seems pertinent to remember that…”

38. Persuasive

Usage: This is a useful word to use when summarising which argument you find most convincing. Example: “Scholar A’s point – that Constanze Mozart was motivated by financial gain – seems to me to be the most persuasive argument for her actions following Mozart’s death.”

39. Compelling

Usage: Use in the same way as “persuasive” above. Example: “The most compelling argument is presented by Scholar A.”

40. All things considered

Usage: This means “taking everything into account”. Example: “All things considered, it seems reasonable to assume that…”

How many of these words and phrases will you get into your next essay? And are any of your favourite essay terms missing from our list? Let us know in the comments below, or get in touch here to find out more about courses that can help you with your essays.

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How To Add More Words To Essay: Smart Guide

One thing that stresses college students out is how to arrive at the exact word count of a college essay. It can quickly become a challenge when you are struggling with your word count. With the help of this article, you’ll find relevant information to help you meet your word count requirements.

A subtle academic challenges students face often comes in handy when there’s an essay assignment. The stress is even intensified most times when it’s an essay with an outlined word count. The worst feeling is usually spending so much time piecing an essay only to realize that you’ve not scratched the surface of the required word count.

This essay focuses on this student challenge, addressing how to add more words to an essay, how to fluff an essay, and every other relevant point associated with increasing and reaching the required word count for an essay.

How to Increase Word Count in an Essay

How to make an essay longer is one of the things many students need to know. A major mistake students make while writing an essay is making their words wordier to increase their word count. This is not an excellent way to reach your target word count. This makes your essay lengthy, making it difficult for the professor to access and, in turn, affecting your grade point.

Here are some helpful methods on how to get more words in an essay and how to increase word count to reach your target:

• Introduce examples: Examples are a constructive way or tricks to increase word count. With the addition of examples into your essay, you give more room to expand the work. Most examples often require you to highlight them. Using this as a good writing technique, you can meet your required word count and still have a soundly written essay.
• Introductory points or sub-sub-headings: This is an effective way on how to up your word count. Introducing new associates points to your subheadings will help you reach your required word count and enhance your work.
• Sentence clarification: This is essential, especially when you are writing an academic essay that will require you to be as elaborate as possible. Always tweak in clarification of your sentences but do not overdo them; else, your work looks tacky.

How to Expand an Essay Creatively

Often, writing assignments have specified word counts. The teacher expects that regardless of how you decide to tweak your essay, it still arrives at that particular word count. In most cases, exceeding or not reaching the required word count could be penalized. A typical example of a required word count could be, “write an essay of not more than 500 words on institutionalized racism in the American South”. Essays like this require that even while you buttress your points on institutionalized racism, you do not exceed the assigned word count.

Here are pieces of advice on how to add words to essay:

• Use the “how” and “why” questions to introduce new points. This doesn’t only help you stay detailed in your essay but expands the essay as well.
• Infuse concrete examples of points you’ve made. This not only makes your work look properly researched but also expands your essay.
• Expand the introduction and conclusion. Try as much as possible to make the introduction and conclusion touch across every core point within your essay.

How to Pad Out an Essay When Writing an Assignment

What do you do when you feel you’ve used up every relevant word you think will be essential to your essay? This can be challenging most times. This is where knowing how to pad your essay is necessary.

In padding, you use words not only to increase word count but also to grow word count. Here are some helpful words to make your essay longer and grow word count.

Generally Explaining:

When you are generally explaining an idea or ideas, be attentive to phrases like

In order to In other words To put it another way That is to say They claim that Looking into

Adding Details:

When adding details, you can use some of these words:

It is important to recognize Additionally Evidently To add weight to this point Contextually Consequently It’s important to note As well as Not only… but also From outlined point It could be drawn as Conclusion could be drawn as/towards Evidence shown proves Moreover Pointing out Pointing towards Not to mention In light of It should be noted Likewise

These words enable you to develop unique ways to tweak up your ideas within the body of an essay.

How to Reach Word Count for Your College Essay

How many times have you started writing an essay and have wondered how you’ll reach a specifically required word count? This is true for many students who are constantly looking for valuable tricks on quickly attaining word count.

Below are informative tricks and tips to increase word count.

Expound your introductory paragraphs and your concluding paragraphs. Making sure that all the relevant points of your essay is conveyed in both of them will help you reach your word count Draw a writing outline. Outlines are essential in any form of essay writing. They do not just guide you through the writing process but are also helpful in reaching your word count. Each relevant point is outlined and assigned a particular word count to help you reach your goal. Introduce ‘detailing.’ While detailing helps in making your essay less vague; it also helps you to attain a required word count as they are essay fillers. Avoid using contracted words. Most students do not realize this but contracted words shorten your word count and if you are looking to extend your words, avoid their usage. Make use of transitional phrases. With the help of transitional phrases like, “this is to suggest that…”, “owing to previously stated points,” “to buttress the point further,” “to give a vivid illustration of.” Introduce opposing phrases like, “Notwithstanding that,” “having noted the previous point…”, “in contrast to the evidence that presents the view that…”, “however, not all points stipulate that…”, “looking into this debate from this angle points to the fact that…”. Phrases like this give you more solid sentences to contrast, which influences your word count.

How to Add More to an Essay While Writing

One of the necessary skill sets every college student should acquire is the ability of adding words to an essay skillfully without ruining the content of the essay. Knowing how to elongate your essay successfully will help to save you the constant stress of checking your word count.

For most students, their resolve is usually essay flutters or essay expanders. While there are many ways to arrive at this, here are some important creative ways to reach it.

• Use quotations: This is essential when writing literature or critical review in an essay. Try as much as possible to add useful quotations within the body of the essay. Also, make sure that said quotation correlates with the points you’ve stated.
• Make use of example: While using examples within your essay creates the impression that your work is adequately informed, it also adds to the word count of your essay. For instance, while writing on specific topics, use examples as a strategy to draw more insight into the work. You win both ways with this.
• Introduce diagrams, charts & tables: For illustration or visualization, these are relevant, but they can also serve other purposes aside from helping the reader visualize what is written. It makes your work clean and adds more to the content of your essay.
• The use of sources: While writing an academic essay, always include sources. The inclusion of sources does not just enhance the quality or authenticity of your work; it also adds to your word count.

Introducing these models as an effective way to add more to your essay makes the writing process easier for you.

How to Make an Essay Have More Words

The only way to make sure your essay has more words is to learn how to become crafty with writing. Most students spend much time explaining points in their work which makes their essay look tacky. To note how to lengthen an essay word count or become one of the most intentional essay fluffers, these appropriate steps must be followed:

• Always thinking of introducing new but closely related ideas into your essay.
• Make use of as many subheadings as possible
• Introduce sub-sub-headings in areas where they are necessary
• Know when to use transitional words to incorporate more words
• Introduce examples to your essay points
• Give as many points as possible
• Introduce relevant sources
• Avoid too much use of contracted form. “I’m, you’re, it’s, they’ll”, etc.
• Introduce as many relevant topics into the essay
• Make the introduction and conclusion as comprehensive and all-encompassing as possible.
• Make use of phrasal verbs in the middle of sentences.

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• Example of a great essay | Explanations, tips & tricks

Example of a Great Essay | Explanations, Tips & Tricks

Published on February 9, 2015 by Shane Bryson . Revised on July 23, 2023 by Shona McCombes.

This example guides you through the structure of an essay. It shows how to build an effective introduction , focused paragraphs , clear transitions between ideas, and a strong conclusion .

Each paragraph addresses a single central point, introduced by a topic sentence , and each point is directly related to the thesis statement .

As you read, hover over the highlighted parts to learn what they do and why they work.

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Table of contents

Other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about writing an essay, an appeal to the senses: the development of the braille system in nineteenth-century france.

The invention of Braille was a major turning point in the history of disability. The writing system of raised dots used by visually impaired people was developed by Louis Braille in nineteenth-century France. In a society that did not value disabled people in general, blindness was particularly stigmatized, and lack of access to reading and writing was a significant barrier to social participation. The idea of tactile reading was not entirely new, but existing methods based on sighted systems were difficult to learn and use. As the first writing system designed for blind people’s needs, Braille was a groundbreaking new accessibility tool. It not only provided practical benefits, but also helped change the cultural status of blindness. This essay begins by discussing the situation of blind people in nineteenth-century Europe. It then describes the invention of Braille and the gradual process of its acceptance within blind education. Subsequently, it explores the wide-ranging effects of this invention on blind people’s social and cultural lives.

Lack of access to reading and writing put blind people at a serious disadvantage in nineteenth-century society. Text was one of the primary methods through which people engaged with culture, communicated with others, and accessed information; without a well-developed reading system that did not rely on sight, blind people were excluded from social participation (Weygand, 2009). While disabled people in general suffered from discrimination, blindness was widely viewed as the worst disability, and it was commonly believed that blind people were incapable of pursuing a profession or improving themselves through culture (Weygand, 2009). This demonstrates the importance of reading and writing to social status at the time: without access to text, it was considered impossible to fully participate in society. Blind people were excluded from the sighted world, but also entirely dependent on sighted people for information and education.

In France, debates about how to deal with disability led to the adoption of different strategies over time. While people with temporary difficulties were able to access public welfare, the most common response to people with long-term disabilities, such as hearing or vision loss, was to group them together in institutions (Tombs, 1996). At first, a joint institute for the blind and deaf was created, and although the partnership was motivated more by financial considerations than by the well-being of the residents, the institute aimed to help people develop skills valuable to society (Weygand, 2009). Eventually blind institutions were separated from deaf institutions, and the focus shifted towards education of the blind, as was the case for the Royal Institute for Blind Youth, which Louis Braille attended (Jimenez et al, 2009). The growing acknowledgement of the uniqueness of different disabilities led to more targeted education strategies, fostering an environment in which the benefits of a specifically blind education could be more widely recognized.

Several different systems of tactile reading can be seen as forerunners to the method Louis Braille developed, but these systems were all developed based on the sighted system. The Royal Institute for Blind Youth in Paris taught the students to read embossed roman letters, a method created by the school’s founder, Valentin Hauy (Jimenez et al., 2009). Reading this way proved to be a rather arduous task, as the letters were difficult to distinguish by touch. The embossed letter method was based on the reading system of sighted people, with minimal adaptation for those with vision loss. As a result, this method did not gain significant success among blind students.

Louis Braille was bound to be influenced by his school’s founder, but the most influential pre-Braille tactile reading system was Charles Barbier’s night writing. A soldier in Napoleon’s army, Barbier developed a system in 1819 that used 12 dots with a five line musical staff (Kersten, 1997). His intention was to develop a system that would allow the military to communicate at night without the need for light (Herron, 2009). The code developed by Barbier was phonetic (Jimenez et al., 2009); in other words, the code was designed for sighted people and was based on the sounds of words, not on an actual alphabet. Barbier discovered that variants of raised dots within a square were the easiest method of reading by touch (Jimenez et al., 2009). This system proved effective for the transmission of short messages between military personnel, but the symbols were too large for the fingertip, greatly reducing the speed at which a message could be read (Herron, 2009). For this reason, it was unsuitable for daily use and was not widely adopted in the blind community.

Nevertheless, Barbier’s military dot system was more efficient than Hauy’s embossed letters, and it provided the framework within which Louis Braille developed his method. Barbier’s system, with its dashes and dots, could form over 4000 combinations (Jimenez et al., 2009). Compared to the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet, this was an absurdly high number. Braille kept the raised dot form, but developed a more manageable system that would reflect the sighted alphabet. He replaced Barbier’s dashes and dots with just six dots in a rectangular configuration (Jimenez et al., 2009). The result was that the blind population in France had a tactile reading system using dots (like Barbier’s) that was based on the structure of the sighted alphabet (like Hauy’s); crucially, this system was the first developed specifically for the purposes of the blind.

While the Braille system gained immediate popularity with the blind students at the Institute in Paris, it had to gain acceptance among the sighted before its adoption throughout France. This support was necessary because sighted teachers and leaders had ultimate control over the propagation of Braille resources. Many of the teachers at the Royal Institute for Blind Youth resisted learning Braille’s system because they found the tactile method of reading difficult to learn (Bullock & Galst, 2009). This resistance was symptomatic of the prevalent attitude that the blind population had to adapt to the sighted world rather than develop their own tools and methods. Over time, however, with the increasing impetus to make social contribution possible for all, teachers began to appreciate the usefulness of Braille’s system (Bullock & Galst, 2009), realizing that access to reading could help improve the productivity and integration of people with vision loss. It took approximately 30 years, but the French government eventually approved the Braille system, and it was established throughout the country (Bullock & Galst, 2009).

Although Blind people remained marginalized throughout the nineteenth century, the Braille system granted them growing opportunities for social participation. Most obviously, Braille allowed people with vision loss to read the same alphabet used by sighted people (Bullock & Galst, 2009), allowing them to participate in certain cultural experiences previously unavailable to them. Written works, such as books and poetry, had previously been inaccessible to the blind population without the aid of a reader, limiting their autonomy. As books began to be distributed in Braille, this barrier was reduced, enabling people with vision loss to access information autonomously. The closing of the gap between the abilities of blind and the sighted contributed to a gradual shift in blind people’s status, lessening the cultural perception of the blind as essentially different and facilitating greater social integration.

The Braille system also had important cultural effects beyond the sphere of written culture. Its invention later led to the development of a music notation system for the blind, although Louis Braille did not develop this system himself (Jimenez, et al., 2009). This development helped remove a cultural obstacle that had been introduced by the popularization of written musical notation in the early 1500s. While music had previously been an arena in which the blind could participate on equal footing, the transition from memory-based performance to notation-based performance meant that blind musicians were no longer able to compete with sighted musicians (Kersten, 1997). As a result, a tactile musical notation system became necessary for professional equality between blind and sighted musicians (Kersten, 1997).

Braille paved the way for dramatic cultural changes in the way blind people were treated and the opportunities available to them. Louis Braille’s innovation was to reimagine existing reading systems from a blind perspective, and the success of this invention required sighted teachers to adapt to their students’ reality instead of the other way around. In this sense, Braille helped drive broader social changes in the status of blindness. New accessibility tools provide practical advantages to those who need them, but they can also change the perspectives and attitudes of those who do not.

Bullock, J. D., & Galst, J. M. (2009). The Story of Louis Braille. Archives of Ophthalmology , 127(11), 1532. https://​doi.org/10.1001/​archophthalmol.2009.286.

Herron, M. (2009, May 6). Blind visionary. Retrieved from https://​eandt.theiet.org/​content/​articles/2009/05/​blind-visionary/.

Jiménez, J., Olea, J., Torres, J., Alonso, I., Harder, D., & Fischer, K. (2009). Biography of Louis Braille and Invention of the Braille Alphabet. Survey of Ophthalmology , 54(1), 142–149. https://​doi.org/10.1016/​j.survophthal.2008.10.006.

Kersten, F.G. (1997). The history and development of Braille music methodology. The Bulletin of Historical Research in Music Education , 18(2). Retrieved from https://​www.jstor.org/​stable/40214926.

Mellor, C.M. (2006). Louis Braille: A touch of genius . Boston: National Braille Press.

Tombs, R. (1996). France: 1814-1914 . London: Pearson Education Ltd.

Weygand, Z. (2009). The blind in French society from the Middle Ages to the century of Louis Braille . Stanford: Stanford University Press.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

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An essay is a focused piece of writing that explains, argues, describes, or narrates.

In high school, you may have to write many different types of essays to develop your writing skills.

Academic essays at college level are usually argumentative : you develop a clear thesis about your topic and make a case for your position using evidence, analysis and interpretation.

The structure of an essay is divided into an introduction that presents your topic and thesis statement , a body containing your in-depth analysis and arguments, and a conclusion wrapping up your ideas.

The structure of the body is flexible, but you should always spend some time thinking about how you can organize your essay to best serve your ideas.

Your essay introduction should include three main things, in this order:

• An opening hook to catch the reader’s attention.
• Relevant background information that the reader needs to know.
• A thesis statement that presents your main point or argument.

The length of each part depends on the length and complexity of your essay .

A thesis statement is a sentence that sums up the central point of your paper or essay . Everything else you write should relate to this key idea.

A topic sentence is a sentence that expresses the main point of a paragraph . Everything else in the paragraph should relate to the topic sentence.

At college level, you must properly cite your sources in all essays , research papers , and other academic texts (except exams and in-class exercises).

Add a citation whenever you quote , paraphrase , or summarize information or ideas from a source. You should also give full source details in a bibliography or reference list at the end of your text.

The exact format of your citations depends on which citation style you are instructed to use. The most common styles are APA , MLA , and Chicago .

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

Bryson, S. (2023, July 23). Example of a Great Essay | Explanations, Tips & Tricks. Scribbr. Retrieved September 9, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/academic-essay/example-essay-structure/

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Shane finished his master's degree in English literature in 2013 and has been working as a writing tutor and editor since 2009. He began proofreading and editing essays with Scribbr in early summer, 2014.

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Essay on Onam: 150 Words Essay for Students on Kerala’s Colorful Harvest Festival

Onam is one of Kerala's most vibrant and significant festivals, celebrated with immense enthusiasm and joy. It marks the annual harvest season and the legendary return of King Mahabali, symbolizing a time of prosperity and unity.

Onam spans ten days, featuring colorful traditions, cultural performances, and grand feasts, making it an important event for families and communities. For students, understanding the cultural and historical importance of Onam is essential as it reflects the values of togetherness, gratitude, and respect for nature. In the following essays, we explore two aspects of this remarkable festival, highlighting its joy and cultural significance.

150 Words Essay on Onam Festival

Essay 1: onam - the festival of unity and joy.

Onam is the most important festival celebrated in Kerala, India, marking the harvest season and the legendary homecoming of King Mahabali. It is a ten-day festival filled with joy, cultural performances, and traditional rituals. The celebration begins with Atham and ends on Thiruvonam, with each day bringing its own customs and festivities.

A highlight of Onam is the grand feast called Onasadya, a lavish vegetarian meal served on banana leaves, including over 20 dishes like sambar, avial, and payasam. Homes are adorned with beautiful floral designs called Pookalam, symbolizing happiness and prosperity. Traditional games, dances like Thiruvathira, and thrilling Vallam Kali (boat races) are integral to the celebration.

Onam fosters unity, bringing together people of all communities to celebrate Kerala's rich cultural heritage. It is a festival of togetherness, gratitude, and joy, celebrated with great enthusiasm by Malayalis around the world.

Essay 2: The Cultural Significance of Onam

Onam is a festival deeply rooted in Kerala's culture and traditions, symbolizing prosperity, unity, and gratitude. Celebrated in the Malayalam month of Chingam (August-September), it marks the return of the legendary King Mahabali, whose reign is believed to have been a golden age of peace and abundance.

The festival emphasizes harmony, with people from all backgrounds participating in the festivities. One of the central aspects of Onam is the Pookalam, a colorful arrangement of flowers that grows more intricate each day, representing happiness and devotion. Families come together for the grand Onasadya feast, which showcases Kerala's culinary diversity.

Onam is also known for its cultural performances, including the traditional dance Pulikali, where men paint themselves as tigers and dance to drumbeats, and the famous Vallam Kali boat races. The festival is a beautiful celebration of Kerala's agricultural roots, culture, and communal harmony.

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