Writing an essay is of must in high school and college. However, planning the information that fits within the speculated word count of your essay often proves a daunting task. Since it’s a transgression to exceed and fall below the word count, students often get stressed over meeting the word count.
To help alleviate this stress, this article will highlight ten ways to make an essay longer.
How can I make my essay longer?
Often, you may discover that your essay falls a few words shy of the recommended word count. This does not imply that you stress yourself over reaching the word count provided that you have exhausted all the claims in your paper.
We however recommend that you pay heed to research and cover all the essential components of your argument. Avoid the pressure of submitting to laziness in a bid to meet the word count without exhausting the claims in your paper.
It is key that you start by preparing a plan to outline all the arguments you intend to cover in your essay. This plan will allow you to gauge the areas you have investigated insufficiently, guiding you on the additional pieces of information to include before you start writing your paper.
The outline can also help you avoid complex topics that cannot be exhausted within the speculated word count, saving you from the stress of changing a topic midway through writing your paper.
Tricks to make papers longer
The trick to making an essay longer is to employ various legal tools and enrich the quality of your argument. We however recommend that you avoid unorthodox methods like spamming the work with unnecessary ideas.
Each idea in your paper should build towards your key objective and enrich your overall argument.
The proper ways to make an essay longer
- Spell out numbers and contractions
If your essay comprises some data, you could consider spelling out the digits you have mentioned in various sections. This will increase your word count without adding useless fluff that dilutes the quality of your argument.
Avoid this approach in the results section as it may compromise the readers’ ability to determine your findings.
- Get more descriptive
When writing a narrative or an essay, you may consider expounding further on various ideas and scenarios. These descriptions should help the reader visualize the ideas under discussion and elaborate on complex ideas you had glossed over.
- Use quotations
Quotations are a great way of showing a reader how various resources enrich your argument. Here, you should include the words of the source in quotes and add the necessary quotation linking the information to the source.
Like other elements, avoid spamming your work with quotes as this may make your paper seem like a mosaic of another author’s ideas.
- Add more evidence
If you are writing a scientific paper, consider adding more evidence to lend credence to your arguments. For this, dive deeper into research and gauge more sources that can support your claims.
- Play with the format
Although it’s shunned by many faculties, you could also play around with the line spacing of your paper and the size of the font. This approach will span your work to more pages, feigning a larger size of work.
However, ward off this approach when dealing with serious papers as it could compromise your score due to the editing of your paper.
- Implement in-text citations
Although bibliographies don’t add to the total word count, in-text citations are tallied with your final count. The citations may thus be used to make an essay longer without frivolous content.
- Use transitional words
Transition words are a popular solution to how to make an essay longer. These words help the reader link various ideas bringing about a logical flow of your argument. Be keen to master the words to lengthen an essay and the impact they bring to your paper.
- Define your terms
If your paper has applied multiple topical jargons, you could add definitions to help the reader understand your key arguments. Definitions should however be limited to the technical terms as opposed to terminologies that are not related to the topic. Use simple terms to make your essay readable for your audience.
- Discuss more points of view
The best way to make an essay longer is by investigating more ideas in your paper. If your paper falls short by a large margin, we recommend that you revisit your outline and gauge the ideas that can be investigated further.
- Review the introduction and conclusion
The introduction and conclusion are focal to expressing the theme of your paper. You can thus mess around with these areas to help your reader gain more clarity of your paper’s theme.
Final take
Often, students find themselves confused over the method by which they can increase their paper’s word count. These tips should come in handy to help you lengthen your paper and score a decent grade. Feel free to engage our experts for guidance on analyzing your paper further to make a complete argument.
