When an inexperienced student or writer overhears the dubious requirement of one thousand words minimum for an article, essay, or piece of work otherwise, overestimation is the common element that causes fear of such an assignment.
One thousand words- not one thousand pages, one thousand paragraphs, or even close to one thousand sentences. Take a deep breath and initially come to realize that ‘one thousand words’ includes absolutely every chunk of letters separated between spaces, including those caked-on unnecessary descriptive words, the literal ‘if, ands, or buts’, ambiguous restatements, and your given prompt!
Maybe it isn’t your phobia of writing long and difficult articles- your information and all necessary elements are in your article as it is, and everything that needs to be said is said yet you don’t have quite enough words.
With mastering a few easy manipulation techniques such as repetition, garnishing, generalization, and familiarization, you will be steps closer to completing an article of one thousand words without blinking an eye or sweating over what the online word-counting tools will say after you’ve added those daunting two sentences that will ”hopefully” get you to your limit.
With a bit of practice and education regarding the components that make a standard article invaluably lengthy, you won’t even notice that you’ve hit well over your one thousand. You may ask yourself, ‘How can I be so sure that one thousand words is even possible for me?’, or ‘What does it even look like?’. Ironically, you’ve just read 250.
Repetition. No, I am not talking about using article spinners versus unique writing. No, I am not talking about blatantly saying (saying) the same (same) things over and over(and over and over) again. It doesn’t quite work that way, and executing the former will make your article seem unprofessional and written in vain- you need to mask your repetition and at the same time let it pose as a component that may help your reader understand your article better in the long run.
Tactful reiteration is key- when you state a point at the beginning of a paragraph, it is often a wise idea to restate your point or fact subsequent to delving into your issue. For instance, after justifying a statement at the beginning of your article’s paragraph, (ex.: “Tigers adapt to their environments well. Their coats allow them to camouflage themselves, especially during a hunt.”), it is a good idea to add a “therefore…” or “thus…” accompanied by an ‘obvious’ or ‘thereafter’ equation-esque gathering the reader is smart enough to pick up themselves, however it will produce a tone of finality, assurance, and it will subtly increase word count if this technique is done in moderation throughout your piece.
The example sentence above can now be improved with this element and is revised to, “Tigers adapt to their environments well. Their coats allow them to camouflage themselves, especially during a hunt- therefore, obtaining food is easier and doesn’t solely depend on the cat’s agility.”. The former sentence began as eighteen words, but ended as thirty. If you get into the habit of using this tactic, your articles will rack up respectably lengthy credibility without you even noticing it!
Garnishing isn’t just adding tacky knick-knacks all around your house for the holidays. The word can also apply to simply making things longer with descriptive words. Don’t make short, plain, and plentiful sentences, make long and drawn out sentences. Blunt fragments such as ‘This does./This doesn’t.’ are highly inferior in both length and intellectual prospects on the author/researcher’s part in comparison to ‘This is frequently…/this is rarely seen as…’. Leave your points open to speculation- try not to make any fact seem simple, cold, or bereft of being open to interpretation. Doing so will contract your range of possibly being able to make your writing flow healthily and with a lot of vocabulary.
If you must imply certainty, do so with lexiconic grace. Prolong your statements with intelligent adjectives and descriptions that refer to quantity and frequency (‘many, ‘most’, ‘primarily’, ‘prominent’, ‘a lot of’, ‘rarely’, ‘hardly ever’), quality (‘magnificent’, ‘lackluster’), or that refer to speculative concepts (‘seemingly’, ‘apparently’).
Not only will your word count increase, but your article will have a more intelligent feel to it- you as the author will come off as more well-versed in both the topic and the English language.
It’s as easy as it sounds- generalization. No, that doesn’t mean nixing the statistics or looking up important details that will make your article pop. When you generalize points for articles, add them subsequent to your statistics, similar to repetition.
Restate your points in simpler words and space out such restatements between a few sentences, especially if your vocabulary for your initial statement can seem a little ‘much’. In this case, you may want to jack your word count by helping your reader with larger concepts with statements beginning with ‘in other words’, ‘basically’, or ‘to put it in layman’s terms’ (if your subject in the article contains high volume of advanced vocabulary or jargon specific to the topic).
Make statements that clarify what you’re proving on a regular basis for the sake of injecting finality and a rigid structure for what you are trying to get across to your reader. Spread out your hard numbers and statistics throughout your work and aid their causes with factual yet clear generalizations- don’t lump everything into one area and cushion the issues you must press.
What’s familiarization? It’s what I’m talking about, to you. Yes, you. Me, talking to you. That’s the point! Not necessarily for the sake of a word count increase, but familiarization helps an article flow better for both the author and the reader, especially articles of the popular how-to style. Obviously, talking to ‘you’ about the fundamentals of a new United Nations treaty isn’t always appropriate, but when marketing, showing another how to do something, or providing some type of assistance within your piece is your game, you can bet it’s the best approach.
Familiarization includes making assumptions or asking ambiguous questions about the reader’s speculations given your audience (e.g. asking in an article about debt, ‘Tired of having to nix that vacation in fear of not having enough to pay off the electric bill?’), and it also includes making specific references that take a shot at your reader’s situation or what they’re aiming to get out of your work. It makes your reader feel comfortable with you as the educator, in knowing what you’re talking about.
Take a stab at them, put down ”their” biases and common misconceptions in your ‘you’-references, don’t be afraid to take chances by referring to ”those” or ”that” whatever-it-is that’s giving your reader a problem or raising some questions.
Statements such as “you will” or “you should” will give the reader open, humanly, confidence-boosting instruction that doesn’t make them feel like they’re reading a strict, cold manual on how to build a car. With practice, you will (See what I mean?) eventually find it easier to talk from a familiarized perspective rather than one that speaks from a distance, and you will find yourself having more to say.
Throwing in one or more of these tactics may very well work wonders for your article, even if you are writing technical articles or research papers.
There are ways to draw out the word count of your work, and not just for show, but these tactics will also help you organize your ideas in better formats and will help you enjoy writing your article and being able to sell it. You will be able to build your own voice for your works, rather than a cold, factual, statistics-spitting old professor that knows nothing of the consumer/reader’s actual situation.
Be familiar, casual, project with the tone that’s yours and one that you know your audience will enjoy. Back up what you say with general explanations for whatever confusing researched jumble you’ve conjured- use big words that leave the mind wondering, yet not feeling too challenged.
Remember that you are human and your audience is as well, and there are manipulation tactics to win your audience over and provide a sense of being well-educated and that you are indeed an eligible, enjoyable perpetrator of your product or the information you may want to get across. Soon, “One thousand words?!” will become, “Only one thousand words?”.