Trimming the Fat: How to Reduce Essay Word Counts

• English
• Further Education (Key Stage 5)

Trimming the Fat: How to Reduce Essay Word Counts

Learning Objective

At the end of the lesson, you will be able to identify and implement strategies for reducing the word count of your essays without sacrificing content or quality.

Introduce the learning objective and explain its importance. Encourage students to actively participate in the lesson.

What do you already know about reducing essay word counts?

Why is Reducing Word Count Important?

Reducing essay word count improves clarity, concision, and readability. It also demonstrates strong writing skills and adherence to guidelines and expectations.

Explain the benefits of reducing word count and how it impacts the overall quality of an essay.

Analyze Your Essay

Review your essay and identify areas where you can eliminate unnecessary or repetitive information. Consider the purpose of each sentence and determine if it adds value to your argument.

Provide tips for students to analyze their essays and identify unnecessary information. Encourage them to use critical thinking skills to determine the value of each sentence.

Avoid Wordiness

Eliminate unnecessary words and phrases, such as 'in order to', 'due to the fact that', or 'it is important to note'. Use concise and direct language to convey your ideas.

Provide examples of wordy phrases and explain how they can be eliminated. Encourage students to practice rewriting sentences to be more concise.

Eliminate Redundancy

Avoid restating information or using unnecessary synonyms. Use precise language and avoid repeating the same ideas in different ways.

Provide examples of redundant phrases and explain how they can be eliminated. Encourage students to practice identifying and eliminating redundancy in their writing.

Simplify Your Sentence Structure

Use simple sentence structures to convey your ideas clearly and concisely. Avoid complex sentences with multiple clauses or phrases.

Provide examples of complex sentences and explain how they can be simplified. Encourage students to practice simplifying sentences in their writing.

Task:

Using the essay on your google classrooms, see if you can reduce the word count by 500 words!

Conclusion

Reducing essay word count is an important skill for any writer to master. By following these strategies, you can create clear, concise, and effective essays that meet word count requirements and impress your readers.

Summarize the key points of the lesson and emphasize the importance of reducing word count in writing. Encourage students to practice these strategies in their own writing.

Write down 3 things you learned in this lesson.

Have students enter three things they learned in this lesson. With this they can indicate their own learning efficiency of this lesson.

Write down 2 things you want to know more about.

Here, students enter two things they would like to know more about. This not only increases involvement, but also gives them more ownership.

Ask 1 question about something you haven't quite understood yet.

The students indicate here (in question form) with which part of the material they still have difficulty. For the teacher, this not only provides insight into the extent to which the students understand/master the material, but also a good starting point for the next lesson.