Figuring out the length of your undergraduate college essay is the most challenging task. Even once you have read the essay topic and researched a lot, you might wonder: how many words should I write on this subject? Will you blow your chance of getting an A+ by writing too much on the topic? These thoughts take birth in the minds of students, and getting rid of them is not easy at all. So, how long should a college essay be?
Well, today’s topic is all about this. In this post, I will try to answer all of your essay-length questions so that you can get an A+ grade easily. Along with the essay-length answer, I will also discuss strategies to shorten the length of your essay if you accidentally exceed the given word count limit. Hence, let’s start with the following question.
How long is an undergraduate college essay?
A college essay is a piece of academic writing that you submit as part of your coursework and semester assessment. To get to the desired position, you must remain within the specified length of your essay. What is the standard length of an essay? Well, as far as this question is concerned, I can only give you a rough idea. After checking and exploring hundreds of students’ work, I can give you an estimate that the average length of an undergraduate college essay is 1500 to 3000 words. However, the length of your essay can vary based on the following things:
- Word count requirements. The length can vary if your teacher or academic supervisor sets specific word count requirements for you. For example, your teacher wants you to write a 5000-word essay on climate change.
- Essay topic. The length of an essay also depends pretty much on the topic of your essay. If the topic is too broad to cover in 500 to 600 words, the total length of the essay can go up. If the topic is too narrow and focused, you can also fall below the standard undergraduate college essay length.
- A number of paragraphs. The information that goes into your essay or the number of paragraphs also affects the essay length. For example, you are to write an essay on the causes, consequences, and solutions of climate change. In this essay, obviously, the number of body paragraphs will be more, and the length can go up.
- University requirements. Sometimes universities around the world set guidelines for students regarding essay length. Students need to match those guidelines no matter what happens. Hence, in this case, your standard essay length can go up and may jump to an additional 1000 words.
How to shorten the length of your essay?
Normally, after researching, you get so much information that you go over the line and cross the asked essay length. Teachers do not like to read such essays and only examine the essay up to the required length. In this process, you may lose some marks too. So, there is a need to learn undergraduate college essay shortening strategies. Hence, a brief description of those strategies is as follows:
Stay on the main point
The first strategy to shorten the essay length is to remain on the main point. It means that you should not get distracted and leave the actual path of your college essay. Cut a piece of information that is not relevant to the main topic or looks unnecessary to the context of your essay. For example, in the climate change essay, you cannot talk about pollution issues. The reason is that it is irrelevant. Hence, remain focused and stay on the main point.
Trim wordy phrases
It is a known fact that the writing skills of students are underdeveloped at the undergraduate level of studies. They just do not know how to make short and meaningful sentences. What do they do? They rely on passive voice, which makes their essay wordier and causes an increase in the length. In this case, as a student, you must trim the wordy phrases. If you feel that you do not have enough skills, hire a cheap essay writing service.
Revise needless transitions
Transitions are phrases or combinations of words that help you move from one paragraph to another easily. It is a potential thing that increases the word count of an undergraduate college essay by manifolds. To remain in the required length and word count, make sure that you get rid of the needless transitions in your essay. Such transitions serve no purpose in the essay.
Conclusion
Conclusively, the standard length of an undergraduate college essay should be between 1500 to 3000 words. However, this length is an estimate. The length or the word count of your essay can go up from this limit or down, depending on the factors mentioned above. The strategies to shorten the essay length discussed above can help you a lot if you have exceeded the set word count limit.
