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. 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 SentencesScan 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.
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:
Or, you can try adding points explaining:
3. Define your TermsHave 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!
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 HandoutsBelow 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:
6. Get new Ideas from FriendsYou 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:
8. Get new Ideas from BlogsThere are websites online about just about every topic that you can possibly imagine. That includes the topic you’re writing your essay on!
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 WebsiteKeep 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 ParagraphAnother 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.
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:
Here’s the padding:
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 FormattingIncreasing 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 ThoughtsMaking 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)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. How do you extend a sentence in an essay?Including great transitions in your essay will make it longer and better at the same time. Use transition words and phrases like “with this in mind,” “on the contrary,” and “because….” These transitions should come at the beginning of each paragraph or the end of the paragraph just before it.
How do you make a sentence longer?Combining sentences into a longer one is a simple way of fixing short and choppy sentences. Use coordinating conjunctions (or, and, nor, but, or, yet, so) to avoid strings of short, vaguely related sentences. Subordinating conjunctions (after, since, whereas, because, etc.)
What words can I use to make my essay longer?Adding additional information to support a point. Moreover. Usage: Employ “moreover” at the start of a sentence to add extra information in support of a point you're making. ... . Furthermore. ... . What's more. ... . Likewise. ... . Similarly. ... . Another key thing to remember. ... . As well as. ... . Not only… but also.. How do I stretch my essay longer?How To Stretch An Essay. Broaden your topic.. Add additional supports.. Add several sentences to each paragraph.. Incorporate a few new sources.. Add some quotations.. |