Episode 89 – Listen to This If… you are over the word count

Over the word count on an assignment? It can be stressful trying to trim the writing you’ve put so much effort into. Luckily in this week’s episode, Jen and Michael have some handy tips to wriggle down those words while keeping your writing sharp and relevant to the task. Tune in now!

Transcript

Jen (00:01)
Hello and welcome to another episode of ‘Listen to This If..’ where Michael and I, the team from Let’s Talk SciComm, try and help you with a little quick pep talk to help you with whatever you are currently stuck with.
Michael, right now we’re going to talk about what do you do if you are over the word limit in your assignment or your manuscript, whatever it is that you’re writing.

Michael (00:22)
Yeah, such a common thing to happen.
It always happens to me, and it’s always so difficult to get rid of the hard work that you’ve done putting pen to paper.
But here’s my one tip that I’d like to pitch.
See what you think.
So, it’s called reverse outlining, which is, you know, when you’re planning to write a document, you might do an outline and you’ll write bullet points, and each bullet point might be, you know, a different subheading.
Well, reverse outlining is going, OK, I’ve written all of this stuff.
It’s on the page.
Uh, you know, hopefully it’s in paragraphs.
Um, it’s about, um, reading each paragraph and going, OK, what is the main idea of this paragraph?
And just writing that out in a bullet point.
And then what you can kind of do is see, uh, is there any irrelevant fluff in those paragraphs?
Is everything in this paragraph related to that idea, or is there some other stuff that’s not related to that idea?
And it also maybe gives you an opportunity to kind of step back and have maybe a bit more of a high level, um, think about whether, uh, you know, there’s some repetition there between paragraphs. Can you cut out entire paragraphs? You know, that’s always the quickest way to do it, rather than kind of cutting out a few words or or letters from each sentence.
So you should always try and look for the speedy option, right? Try and get rid of like a whole paragraph if you can.
So yeah, I really find reverse outlining helpful.
So maybe you might find it helpful. Have you used that before?

Jen (01:52)
Yeah, sort of. And look, I think what you just suggested meshes really well with what I want to pitch and I’m going to be naughty.
I kind of have two ideas, but the first one sort of meshes with yours and that is:
Whatever you’re working on, just go back to the guidelines to make sure that you haven’t ended up writing about stuff that isn’t actually relevant.
So if this is an assignment, go to the rubric and read the task description.
If it’s a manuscript, you know, read the instructions to authors, whatever it is.
If it’s a grant application, read the guidelines.
You know, just that first step of, as you say, seeing: can you cut out whole big bits?
Because that’s going to be a much faster way of dumping words.
But assuming you’ve done all that and you’ve followed your advice, Michael, and you’ve just done what I’ve suggested and you’re still over, my next suggestion is that you just have to spend the time reading your writing aloud.
I just think it’s the only way.
Because if you’re just kind of, if your eyes are glossing over something that you’ve read over and over and over again, and you’re just kind of accepting it as a fait accompli, that that’s the best way to write it.
And in fact, when you read it aloud and listen to it, often you discover that there are much more concise ways of saying whatever it is you’re saying.
And yes, it takes longer for sure, going through sentence by sentence and rewording things and kind of stripping out words here and there.
Absolutely. It’s not as effective a way as taking out whole paragraphs or whole sections.
But if you’ve got to the point that you’re sure everything that’s there needs to be there and you still need to get rid of, you know, 50, a hundred, 200, whatever words it is, then I find reading it aloud is a really powerful way to find where sentences could be just written differently and in a much clearer way.
I don’t know, we always tell our students you’ve got to read everything you write aloud.
Do you?
Do you do that, Michael? Cause I actually do.

Michael (03:47)
Yeah, I don’t do it all the time to be honest.  But every time I do, I always find it beneficial.
It’s a bit of a win-win, isn’t it?
Because it helps you be more concise.
But then perhaps you might change your word choice or your language a little bit, and the words that you choose when you speak are often a bit more compelling and engaging.
Like, you know, you might cut out a few ‘moreovers’ because who says moreover, you know, down the pub?

Jen (04:11)
And ‘whilst’ and all the ‘thuses’ and the ‘therefores’ and the ‘howevers’ and. Yes, often it’s that whole idea of we’ve sort of been trained to write in quite a formal academic way.
Uh, and particularly, you know, if you’re writing in passive voice, passive sentences are way longer than active sentences.
Just turning it into something that’s more accessible and written in plain English and shorter and clearer.
That is often a way to get rid of excess words for sure.

Michael (04:41)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, definitely.
And that’s all part of the process, right?
You know, you initially write excess words and then these are some tips to try and, you know, try and edit that down and get it into something really polished.
So hopefully you’ve, uh, found that useful.
I am gonna make sure I read all of my writing aloud today.
Um, but we’d love to hear from you as well.
What tips do you have for cutting down the words, getting down to the word count and being really concise with your writing?