middle school essay length

How Long Is an Essay? The Ultimate Essay Length Guide

It’s safe to say that most students struggle with the word limit within an essay. Sometimes, it’s hard to find ideas for a text and meet the word requirement for every part of the paper. With so many factors influencing essay length, it’s easy to get confused.

Luckily, our custom-writing team has your back. In this article, our custom-writing experts will answer all your questions regarding essay length. We will also help you write papers with an ideal number of words!

📜 Is Essay Length Important?

📏 essay parts: recommended length.

• 🤔 How to Make Essays Shorter or Longer
• 📑 Essay Length & Formatting
• ❓ Different Academic Levels FAQ
• 📚 Essay Length: Different Types
• ⭐ Other Aspects
• 📝 Essay Examples

🔍 References

Often, the phrase “word limit” causes panic among students. After all, if an essay is too long or too short, your grade will be lowered. However, in reality, there’s nothing to worry about. When it comes to words, limitations are beneficial for both the students and the professors.

Let’s see what exactly it means.

Many people believe that the longer an essay is, the better. However, according to Frontiers, research shows that it’s a bias that couldn’t be further from the truth. A perfect-length paper is one that allows students to express their ideas and showcase their knowledge fully while keeping it clean and simple.

What Influences Essay Length

Various factors determine the length of an essay. Here are the most important ones:

Let’s start with the essentials. Usually, assignment length is given as a number of words rather than pages. Unless your supervisor or instructor mentions any specific limitations, it’s acceptable to be 10% below or above the word limit.

It’s also worth knowing the 80/20 rule . According to it, the body should constitute 80% of the text, while the intro and the conclusion take up the remaining 20%.

Keep reading to learn more about the recommended length of each essay part. The main numbers are shown in the table below:

How Long Should an Introduction Be?

An introduction is the first section and the face of your essay. For that reason, it needs to be compelling and well-thought-out. Usually, it consists of 3 to 5 sentences or 50 to 80 words .

An introduction must have a hook, some background information, and a thesis statement. While the attention grabber and the thesis are usually brief, you may need 2 to 3 sentences for the background. To avoid going overboard, try to stay on topic and don’t add any filler.

How Long Is a Body Paragraph in an Essay?

The length of a body paragraph may vary. Sometimes, it can be limited to a single sentence. In other cases, it may take up a whole page. Usually, it’s recommended to have between 80 and 200 words (5-8 sentences) per body paragraph.

Since the paper’s body contains the most information, it’s necessary to explain and support your ideas properly. That’s why it’s no big deal if your body paragraphs go slightly over the word limit.

How Many Body Paragraphs Should Be in an Essay?

Like the word count, the number of paragraphs is determined by the type of paper and its topic. The minimum is 1. Generally, however, the body consists of 3-5 paragraphs , 1 for each argument.

To improve your paper’s structure, ensure that there are as many paragraphs as there are points in your thesis statement. Each one should have a purpose and support your arguments. If there’s any fluff, it’s better to get rid of it.

How Long Should a Conclusion Be?

Like the introduction, the conclusion consists of 50-80 words . It’s essential to keep it simple and only mention the central ideas. A weak concluding sentence may affect the reader’s understanding of the topic and spoil the overall impression of your paper.

🤔 How to Make Essays Shorter or Longer: Best Tips

Undoubtedly the essay’s content is more important than the number of words you use. But there are times when students go more than 10-15% below or over the limit. Is there a solution to this problem?

Yes, there is! In this section, we will share the most useful tips to help you stay on point with your paper’s word count.

How to Make Essays Longer

Since having enough words is essential for a good grade, we’ve collected the best tips that can help you lengthen your essay without teachers noticing:

• Use relevant quotations.  You don’t need to litter your essay with citations, but using them whenever appropriate is a great idea. For instance, if you’re working on a book analysis, referencing a couple of direct quotes from the source text will make your essay more credible and increase the word count.

• Give examples.  Go through the claims in your paper and provide additional evidence where possible. It will make your essay longer and more informative.

• Use transitional expressions.  Adding transition words and phrases is a natural way of increasing the number of words. It will also improve your essay’s readability. 

• Add more references.  Providing references is always a good idea when writing a formal essay. That way, you will increase the number of words and make your paper more credible.

• Work on your descriptions.  If you struggle to develop new ideas, go over what you’ve already written and consider adding some descriptive words. It’s a great idea for creative essays to include more imagery. 

How to Shorten an Essay

Another struggle of academic writing is cutting down the number of words in your essay to meet a set limit. We are here to tell you that it’s not that hard. Writing straightforwardly and keeping your sentences short is a key to concise content. Here are several strategies you may use to tighten a lengthy essay:

• Choose the active voice.  It takes up less space than passive voice. Using it also makes your writing more professional and compelling.

• Remove needless transitions.  Transitions can indeed maintain the flow of the paper. But some transitional phrases can be easily removed.

• Get rid of unnecessary adverbs and adjectives.  Some students tend to overuse adjectives and adverbs. It adds wordiness to their writing.

• Avoid running starts.  Some students like to start their sentences with long phrases like: “there are,” “it is believed,” or “the fact that.” Getting rid of them makes texts much more concise.

• Delete “that.”  In most cases, the word “that” can often be easily removed from texts.

Another cool trick is to use our summarizing tool as essay shortener. Try it out!

📑 How Long Is an Essay Depending on Formatting?

As we mentioned earlier, the essay’s length is usually limited by the number of words. But sometimes, a teacher may ask you to write a specific number of pages. This is trickier because the amount of text you can place on the page depends on the formatting. By using the font size and spacing properly, it’s possible to make the paper visually longer or shorter. Let’s discuss it in more detail.

Essay Spacing: How Does It Affect the Length?

• Adjusting the spacing between lines.  Try to make the changes as slight as possible. For instance, if you were asked to double-space the paper, use 2.1 or 2.2 spacing instead. Another option is to slightly extend spaces between paragraphs.
• Extending the margin size.  You can increase the right and bottom margins by a quarter to make very subtle changes in length. For example, if the margins are 1 inch , you can set them at 1.25 inches instead. 
• Increasing the spacing between characters.  It is less noticeable than the line spacing. Still, try not to overdo it and keep the numbers between 1.2 and 1.5 . 
• Adjusting the footer.  Add a footer with page numbers to stretch the bottom margin even further.
• Lengthening the header.  You can extend your header by adding your name, e-mail address, or other relevant information. Another option is double-spacing it.

Length of an Essay: Font and Size

• Using the right type of font.  If your instructor didn’t specify which font you should use, go for the bigger ones. We suggest Arial, Bangla Sangam MN, Cambria, or Quicksand. They will make your text look longer without being too on the nose.  
• Using a bigger font size.  This is another technique that can come in handy. However, be careful and don’t increase your font by more than 0.1-0.5 pt.  
• Increasing the size of periods and commas.   This is one of the less noticeable tricks you can use. For instance, if your paper’s font is 12 pt. , increase it to 14 pt. only for punctuation marks. Italicizing periods and commas will also add several lines of length to your essay. 

What to Do if There Are No Length Guidelines

Sometimes a teacher sets no word limit for a written work. What to do in that case? Well, first, you can ask your professor to confirm if they have simply forgotten to mention it. But if that’s not the case, here are a couple of helpful solutions:

• Think of the paragraph number.  Sometimes, you may be given the number of paragraphs instead of words. In that case, you can decide on the number of words depending on how many paragraphs you have. 
• Think about the topic’s complexity.  The length of your paper is also directly dependent on the theme. If the topic is simple, 4-5 paragraphs will be enough. A more complex issue may require an in-depth explanation, so your essay can be 6-8 paragraphs long.

❓ Essay Length for Different Academic Levels FAQ

The length of the elementary school essay is usually short. Usually, a paper needs to have around 3-5 paragraphs, with 4-5 sentences per paragraph. Primary school essays can be 1-2 paragraphs long.

The word limit for a middle school essay is usually between 300 to 1000 words. The most common essay length is 500 words, which is about 5 paragraphs. However, it may differ from school to school.

The length of the high school essay may differ depending on the school and the complexity of the task itself. Usually, however, a paper can be between 300 to 1000 words long.

The length of the undergraduate college essay often falls within the range of 1500 to 2100 words. It translates into roughly 5-7 pages. 5 pages is the most common essay length at this level.

When it comes to the graduate school admission essay, the word limit is usually between 500 and 1000 words. It’s possible to go slightly over or below the set limit; however, it’s best to stick to the requirements as close as possible.

📚 How Long Should an Essay Be: Different Types

Now, let’s talk about different types of essays. How long should they be? Keep reading to learn about the length of college essays, short and extended ones, scholarship essays, and research papers.

How Long Is a College Essay?

When it comes to a college essay, it’s more important to stick to the word limit than with any other paper. Some teachers may refuse to read it unless it meets all the requirements.

The shortest limit for a college essay is about 250 words which is the shortest length of a Common App personal statement. It’s also rare to see a good college essay with over 650 words . So, an average piece usually has between 150 and 650 words ; you can go over or below the limit by 50.

How Long Is a Paragraph in College Essays?

A college essay usually consists of 4-5 paragraphs . One paragraph takes about 1/3 of the page, which is roughly 5 sentences . Each sentence corresponds with one of the following components:

• Topic sentence.
• Explanation.
• Transitions.

College Essay Length Requirements: Top 5 Schools

To understand the requirements for a college application essay even better, take a look at the table below. It showcases the top 5 schools and their length criteria for personal statements. Keep it in mind when writing your college essay:

How Long Is a Short Essay?

A short essay is usually 500 words long. Using 12pt Times New Roman font with standard margins and double spacing should result in about 2 pages of text.

Extended Essay Length

An extended essay is different from a short or a standard one. It requires extensive research and thorough explanation. That’s why the upper limit for this kind of essay is 4000 words . In this case, a typical essay length is 3500 words or 18 paragraphs .

Scholarship Essay Length

Generally, scholarship papers have a limit of 500 words , which is 1 page in length. Most scholarship programs provide additional requirements that indicate the minimum number of words or pages. If there are no set limitations, you can stick to the limit.

How Long Is a Research Paper?

Typically, a research paper is between 4000 and 6000 words long. Sometimes, there are shorter papers, which have around 2000 words, or in-depth ones with over 10000 words.

⭐ Other Aspects of Essay Length

When it comes to essay length, many different aspects come into play. Here, we’ve gathered all the essential information regarding an essay’s number of pages, paragraphs, words, and references.

How Many Paragraphs Are in an Essay?

Sometimes, it is more convenient to count paragraphs rather than words. Let’s now figure out how many paragraphs are in essays of different lengths. You may also check out the examples to see what such an essay looks like:

How to Count Paragraphs in an Essay Based on Word Count

You can also count the number of body paragraphs for your essay using the formula below:

Number of body paragraphs (average) = (TWC – TWC*0.16)/100

• TWC – total word count
• 0.16 – an average percentage of total word count for introduction and conclusion
• 100 – an average number of words per paragraph

How Many Pages Are in an Essay?

The number of pages in your essay may vary from subject to subject. But it’s still possible to determine the number of pages based on word count. Check out the numbers below to see the conversions with bonus examples:

You can also use a specialized calculator such as Word Counter to determine a number of pages in your essay.

What Does an Essay Look Like when Typed?

You might be wondering: what do essays of different lengths look like when typed? Well, here’s the table where you can find out the metrics for single- and double-spaced papers.

How Many Pages Are in a Handwritten Essay?

In case you need to turn in a handwritten paper, you should check out the table below.

Counting Words in a Handwritten Essay

If you don’t have enough time to count the words in your handwritten essay one by one, here’s what you can do:

• Count how many words there are in one line. Take the first and last lines and a line in the middle of a page. Let’s say there are 15, 14, and 15 words in them. Then, the average number of words per line is 15.
• Next, count how many lines there are on one page. Let’s say there are 17 lines on a page.
• Take the number of words per line and multiply it by the number of lines per page. In our case, we multiply 15 by 17. So, there are 255 words per page on average.
• Finally, multiply the number of words per page by the number of pages. If your essay has 3 pages, it is approximately 765 words long.

How Long Does it Take to Write an Essay?

It is crucial to know how long writing will take you, especially if you are working on an exam essay or just short on time. Note that you need to consider the time for typing and researching necessary to complete a piece. Research time may vary. Usually, it’s 1-2 hours for 200-250 words .

Below, we’ve gathered the average writing time for average and slower writing speed:

And here are the results in pages:

How Many References Does an Essay Need?

Another essential part of any composition is the reference list. Different academic levels require different references. You’ll find out how many of them should be in your paper in the table below!

📝 Essay Examples: Different Length

Finally, we’ve gathered some excellent sample essays of different lengths. Make sure to check them out!

We also recommend you check out our free essay samples sorted by pages:

• 1-Page Essay Examples
• 2-Page Essay Examples
• 3-Page Essay Examples
• 4-Page Essay Examples
• 5-Page Essay Examples
• 10-Page Essay Examples
• 20-Page Essay Examples
• 30-Page Essay Examples
• 40-Page Essay Examples
• 50-Page Essay Examples

Now you know all about essay length, word limits, and ways to lengthen or shorten your text. If you know other interesting tricks, make sure to share them in a comment! Good luck with your writing assignments!

You may also like:

• How to Write a Process Analysis Essay: Examples & Outline
• How to Write a Precis: Definition, Guide, & Examples 
• How to Write a Critical Analysis Essay: Examples & Guide
• How to Write a Narrative Essay Outline: Template & Examples
• How to Write a Formal Essay: Format, Rules, & Example
• Word Limits and Assignment Length: Massey University
• The Paragraph in the College Essay: California State University, Long Beach
• Introductions & Conclusions: The University of Arizona Global Campus
• How Long Should a Paragraph Be?: Daily Writing Tips
• Paragraphing (Length Consistency): Purdue University
• Hitting the Target Word Count in Your College Admission Essay: Dummies.com
• How Long Should Your College Essay Be? What is the Ideal Length?: College Vine
• Writing Personal Statements Online: Issues of Length and Form: Penn State University
• Pen Admissions: Essays: University of Pennsylvania
• Essay Questions: University of Michigan
• Essay Structure: Harvard University
• Components of a Good Essay: University of Evansville
• Write Your Essay: UNSW Sydney
• College Writing: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• 21 Helpful and Easy Tips to Make an Essay Longer: Seventeen
• How to Make a College Paper Longer: ThoughtCo
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Bell Ringers

3 types of essays your middle schoolers need to practice.

Writing can be a real headache for ELA teachers. Writing is layered with skills – from grammar to analysis – so it’s not a walk in the park for teachers or students. It’s really common for students to struggle to apply what they’ve learned, think deeply and critically, and write independently. There are several types of essays that middle schoolers need to learn, but if the thought of teaching them makes you want to run for the hills, stick with me. We’re going to talk about three different types of essays middle schoolers need to practice, and I’ll share some resources to help you out.

Types of Essays for Middle Schoolers

There are various types of essays out there, but there are three types I want to specifically look at: argumentative, literary analysis, and narrative. These types of essays cover both creative and critical thinking – and help push literary skills to the next level.

Argumentative Writing

Writing argumentative essays requires that students know how to defend a stance. Students are great at taking stances, but defending them requires deeper thinking.

When writing an argumentative essay, there are a few key things students need to know. To start, students need to be able to select a topic and take a position on that topic (or they can take a position on a topic assigned to them). Students will also brainstorm a list of logical reasons to support their stance, use clear and convincing evidence to support their points, and share counterclaims. 

Of course, that’s where things get tricky. Students really struggle to build solid arguments and find great evidence. Inside the Argumentative Writing Booklet, I included information about credible sources, logical reasonings, and relevant evidence. I referred to these a lot when in the classroom, and it’s likely you’ll need to teach them over (and then over again).

Another important part of an argumentative essay is counterclaims. This requires that students step into someone else’s shoes and think about how someone could break down their stance. Inside the Argumentative Writing Booklet, I included some key points for students to remember about counterclaims and sentence starters to help with essay writing.

If you are looking for a resource to make the process of teaching students to write argumentative essays a total breeze, check out my free Argumentative Student Reference Booklet! Inside, you’ll find reference pages for –

❤️ how to craft an argument

❤️ the elements of writing an argumentative essay

❤️ writing a counterclaim

❤️ the types of credible sources

❤️ how to ensure you are using logical reasons

❤️ and more!

Literary Analysis

Another important skill for middle schoolers is learning how to write a literary analysis essay . Literary analysis goes much deeper than just a simple summary. In fact, when writing a literary analysis essay, students can make an argument, dig deep into specific literary elements, or explore a theory they have about the text. 

In order to know how to write a literary analysis essay, students need to know how to analyze a text and find evidence to support their analysis. (I know, it’s easier said than done.) For example, students might notice a frequent symbol or craft that the author uses and decide to explore what it means or its purpose. Inside the Literary Analysis Booklet, I included pages on symbolism and author’s craft as a jumping-off point for students to brainstorm and analyze.

Another area I’ve seen students struggle with is the thesis statement. Because students often want to write literary analysis like a summary, they get stuck here. In the Literary Analysis Booklet, I give examples of thesis statements, along with a thesis formula and mistakes to avoid.

If the thought of teaching how to write a literary analysis essay is overwhelming to you, check out the Literary Analysis freebie! Inside, you’ll find –

❤️ summarizing vs. analyzing

❤️ literary analysis elements

❤️ how to annotate literature

❤️ in-depth overview of author’s craft

❤️ thesis statement guide

Narrative Writing

The final type of essay I want to focus on is narrative writing . Learning to write narrative essays is the way that students become really comfortable with their own storytelling voice. Personal narratives are often some of the first writing exposure students have in elementary school. As students get older, it’s tossed to the side for more analytical writing. Narrative essays provide the perfect opportunity for students to practice skills like adding details, vocabulary, and imagery. It allows them to give a touch of their personality and imagination.

One big perk to narrative writing is that you’ll have tons of examples to pull from. You can easily slip it alongside your reading unit. Students can use a book club or whole class text as an example of narrative writing – and then try to create their own.

My favorite part of narrative writing is that it reinforces what students have learned in their reading units. They will have to understand the plot and how a plot unfolds. This also involves students dipping into author’s craft by choosing a point of view, using figurative language, and developing character motives. It also means creating believable characters and dialogue. It can be tougher than it might first appear!

In my Narrative Writing Reference Booklet freebie, I’ve included all the foundation information students would need + examples of narrative essays for students to refer to. Inside the freebie, you’ll find –

❤️ elements of narrative writing

❤️ developing the plot of narrative writing

❤️ sensory details + examples

❤️ how to use dialogue

❤️ ways to start and end narrative writing + examples

I know that essay writing can be a head-banging experience (for both you and your students). My hope is that with the Writing Toolkit, you can make it easier for students to write independently and build a strong foundation for writing.

• Read more about: Middle School Writing

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Get your free middle school ela pacing guides with completed scopes and sequences for the school year..

My ELA scope and sequence guides break down every single middle school ELA standard and concept for reading, writing, and language in 6th, 7th, and 8th grade. Use the guides and resources exactly as is or as inspiration for you own!

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How long should an essay or research paper be?

These tips on how long an essay, research paper or writing assignment will help you make good grades and take your papers and essays from just ok to an A+ paper. Keep reading to finds some tips on essay writing such as how long an essay should be and how to make your essay longer or how make a research paper shorter.

How do you know how long an essay should be?

Many times an instructor will tell you how long an essay or a research paper should be or give you a page number range, such as saying the paper should be between 5-7 pages. If you don't have a page range, the length of your essay can depend on a lot of things. When in doubt, ask for guidance. If you can't get help, you'll have to guess.

During an essay test, usually one or two paragraphs will answer short essay questions.

For big essay tests, where there is only 1 question for a whole hour-long test, you will be expected to compose an entire essay. In that case, write 5 paragraphs including all the parts of a composition of between 1-2 written pages.

For high school papers , usually teachers want normal essays or research papers to be between 3-5 pages, and they expect more like 5-7 pages for final papers. In middle school or junior high school , normal papers will probably be 1-2 pages in length and final paper 2-4. Naturally, you should go by what your teacher tells you and only use this as a guide if you don't have more information.

In college , it depends on what level the class is and the level of importance of an assignment. Early in the semester or to review reading assignments, you will only have to write maybe 1-3 pages, or 5-7 for more important tasks.

For an final paper in an intro or 100-level college class, professors don't usually ask for more than 10-12 pages. For a final research paper at a 300-400 level or upper level course, you can be expected to produce papers of 15-20 pages. Naturally, this depends on the university you're attending, the professors' preferences and your field of study. Math majors will not have to write long papers. History majors will write lots of lengthy papers.

How long is each part of an essay?

If you are wondering how long each part of an essay (the introduction, the body and the conclusion) should be, here are some ideas of how to balance the length. The overall length of an essay will often depends on how big the topic is.

The list below will give you a rough idea, but the main point is that each part should be in proportion to the other parts. As an essay gets longer, the body should become longer than the corresponding introduction. The below outlines can give you a rough idea. Most teachers will not fault you for going too long, but they will dock your grade for writing too short of an essay, so err on the side of too long if you have to go one way.

How long should each section of a paper be?

For a 1 page essay or to write an answer to a long essay test , make each section one paragraph. 1. Introduction with thesis statement, 1 paragraph 2. Body point A, 1 paragraph 3. Body point B, 1 paragraph 4. Body point C, 1 paragraph 5. Conclusion, 1 paragraph For a 5 page essay: 1. Introduction, about 3/4 to 1 page 2. Body point A, about 1 page 3. Body point B, about 1 page 4. Body point C, about 1 page 5. Conclusion, about 3/4 to 1 page For a 10 page paper: 1. Introduction, about 1 page or 1 and a 1/2 pages 2. Body point A, about 2 and a 1/2 pages 3. Body point B, about 2 and a 1/2 pages 4. Body point C, about 2 and a 1/2 pages 5. Conclusion, 1 page or 1 and a 1/2 pages For a 15 page paper: 1. Introduction, about 1 and a 1/2 or 2 pages 2. Body point A, about 4 pages 3. Body point B, about 4 pages 4. Body point C, about 4 pages 5. Conclusion, about 1 and a 1/2 or 2 pages

More information : We hope this page was helpful and provided you with some information about how long an essay or research paper should be . Check out our main page for more articles here Can U Write .

All materials on this page are under the copyright of canuwrite.com These speech and letter sample materials may be re-used for free but may not be reprinted or redistributed without attribution to canuwrite.com

How Long is an Essay?

10 August, 2021

12 minutes read

Author:  Donna Moores

Making sure that you stick to the recommended amount of words is important for your academic performance. Even the slightest deviation from requirements might reduce your grade. But why let such a nuisance spoil your mark when you can just know what word count for each specific essay type is? So, how long is an essay? This question seems to be the talk of the town among students. As all students know from experience, the higher the academic level and the more specific the study area is, the stricter the course requirements are and the longer the essay should be. In the following guide, we will discuss how essay length varies depending on the academic level and what to do to find out what a proper essay length should be.

Essay Length Tips

Try to stick to the 80/20 rule.

The 80/20 rule indicates that an essay should have the following structure: 80% of the text should be covered in the main body, and only 20% – in the introduction and conclusion. If you want to make sure that your text is easy to comprehend – make use of this rule. Structuring the paper in such a way makes sure that the reader does not lose the key idea of your essay.

Cover a single topic sentence in one body paragraph

Another valuable tip covers the composition of body paragraphs. Namely, keep in mind that each paragraph should reveal only one topic sentence, one point, and one argument. It is inappropriate to discuss two points in the same body paragraph since the whole essay loses its coherence this way. If you feel like you have some extra points to add, it is always better to create a new paragraph for this purpose.

Take spacing into account

Spacing plays an important role in assuring you follow the word count. For instance, a single-spaced page contains 550 words, while a double-spaced page contains 275 words respectively. So, according to the spacing you choose, you can always keep track of your word count. But to make sure you are as accurate as possible, you can always check the number of words right in Microsoft Word or Google Docs.

Five – this is the minimum required number of paragraphs

A basic paper structure requires five paragraphs, where three paragraphs belong to the main body part, and the other two cover introduction and conclusion. Keeping the outlined structure in mind always proves helpful, especially when it comes to sticking to a suggested word count.

Different Essay Length for Different Academic Levels

As a rule, a middle schooler is expected to write way less than a university student. Although the essay length often depends on the assignment type rather than academic level, the difference still exists. Below we will discuss what a recommended essay length for school and university essays is.

How Long is a Middle School Essay?

Middle school is where essay writing skills are being tested professionally. How long should a college essay be? Normally, essays length for middle school students varies between 500 and 1000 words. A typical middle school essay follows a well-known essay structure: introduction, body paragraphs, and summary (five paragraphs). Main body is usually the most informative part of a school essay and takes 80% of the word count. So if your teacher asks you to deliver a 1000-word essay, keep in mind that they expect you to write 800 words of main body text. But how long is a 500 word essay, for example? Well, this wordcount equals a page and a half. Based on this length, you can count the number of pages required for your essay.

How Long is a High School Essay?

There are several things that you, as a high schooler, might want to keep in mind. First of all, the essay structure remains exactly how it was in middle school. The only difference is that your tutor will expect a more profound analysis as well as a bigger essay length. Students need to show a more professional attitude to the topic and write approximately 2000 words for each essay.

How Long is a University (Undergraduate level) Essay

Apparently, the essay length will gradually extend as soon as you enter higher academic levels. At the university stage, students are challenged with complex subjects and are asked to reflect on the knowledge they gained during the course. Usually, Bachelor students write 5-10 page papers.

University essays imply demonstrating not only the knowledge and skills obtained during the course but also showing your writing skills. Students usually get long time frames to write such papers as they require research and extensive analysis.

If you are an undergraduate student, you may expect your professor to assign a couple of 1500 -word essays that explore a particular topic.

How Long is a University (Graduate level) Essay

A graduate level essay is similar to an undergraduate one. Although it often depends on the topic, university, and course, there are a lot of similarities between university essays for students of all academic levels. For a graduate-level student, the word count is somewhere between 3000 and 6000 words. However, courses that also imply other kinds of assignments, such as lab reports or practical exercises, might have looser essay length requirements.

Other requirements apply for those who are about to write their final dissertation or a master thesis. These are assignments that ask you to write 100,000 words or even more. For this type of assignment, you will be given a couple of months to research and write a paper.

How long is each part of an essay?

The length of each essay part usually depends on the general word count for the entire paper. How long is a 1000 word essay then? If the suggested essay length equals 1000 words, then you need to devote roughly 80% of the word count to the main body part, 10% for introduction, and 10% for a conclusion. However, if you are about to prepare a 10-page paper, this does not mean that final remarks and introduction should be proportionally big. Instead, it is always a plus when you keep your introduction short and up to the point. The same concerns the conclusion part. Always make sure you use only the most relevant information and avoid pouring water just to make the text look massive.

How to Manage Essay Word Count

Trying to achieve the suggested essay length might sometimes turn out to be quite a challenge. Here are some tips to make it easier for you:

Create an outline

Creating an outline before starting to write a final draft can do you good. First of all, having a clear plan indicates how many words you should write for each essay part. This approach will prevent you from extra editing work as well as give your text a transparent structure and message. You will get an idea of how to use the space that you have and avoid adding unnecessary information throughout the text.

Review the extant literature

To write better papers, it is always recommended to acknowledge the topic you’re working on. The reason why a lot of essays get poor grades is hidden in the insufficient topic understanding, so make sure you do solid research.

Make use of examples

Using examples in the text always proves to be a good idea. First, this approach enriches the text and gives it a lively tone. Additionally, referring to examples helps a lot when it comes to extending the word count. If you need to write 100 more words but have no idea of  what to add – add examples! Also, you may include some facts, data, or basically any evidence.

Revise your paper

Revising proves helpful when it comes to reducing the essay length. If you wrote 1500 words instead of 1000 – simply review the text and search for the information which sounds extra. Once you take a fresh look at your essay, you will certainly find entire sentences that do not fit in or just don’t make a lot of sense.

Can I go under the suggested length?

Going under a suggested length isn’t a crime as long as you’re close to the suggested word count. In other words, it is fine to write 900 words if the suggested length is 1000, but writing less than 900 words might affect your grade. Nonetheless, we suggest that you try to get as close to the required word count as possible – your tutor will appreciate it. If you are struggling to extend your text, here is what you can do:

• Take a look at your essay points and try to provide more clarifications on their regard.
• Use new paragraphs to shed light on the problem but from a different perspective.
• Search for evidence and add it to body paragraphs.

Can I go over the suggested length?

As a rule, no one expects you to fit into exactly 500, 1000, or 2000 words. The standard acceptable deviation usually equals 10% of the text. This means that if the paper’s instructions ask you to write 2000 words, it will be fine if you go up to 2200 words.

However, this rule might not hold true in some cases, which is why we advise you to consult your professor on this matter.

We also recommend all students make the word count as close to the required one as possible. Exceeding the standard length always equals more time spent on evaluating the assignment, so try to compress your essay by using the following techniques:

• Check whether your arguments are in line with the thesis statement and don’t. hesitate to get rid of extra information.
• Make sure each body paragraph reveals one point only.
• Reduce sentence length so that each sentence fits in a single line.

What if there are no length guidelines?

It might be the case that your paper does not provide any writing instructions at all. In this case, you can manage the situation in several ways:

Simply search for the requirements online

If no strategy seems to work – just google it. You will easily find social media posts and forum answers on how to write a specific kind of essay. Besides, you can visit your chair’s website and look for essay length requirements there. It sometimes happens that professors don’t indicate any word count because the information about it is available on the website.

Make conclusions based on the paper description

Take a look at your essay instructions. If they say that you should write a paper with three brief body paragraphs, it means that each paragraph should equal 150-200 words. If the paper asks you to develop your ideas in well-developed paragraphs, you will certainly need to write at least 400 words for each.

If you aren’t sure – contact the administration

If you couldn’t find the information regarding world limits but still feel like it is important to stick to rules, get in touch with the admissions office. They might not tell you exactly how long your paper should be; but they will tell you what an average, acceptable word count is.

How Can Handmadewriting Help You?

If you’re having a hard time coming up with an optimal word count or just don’t know how to fit all your ideas into a single essay, we are glad to help! At Handmadewriting essay writer service, we care about your grades as much as we care about the quality of our service. If you need to write a small 500-word essay or a 10-page report, we can help you achieve your academic goals. Place your first order and explore all the benefits of college essay writing!

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How Long Should an Essay Be? Essay Length Guide & Tips

Table of contents

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Have you ever wondered how long is an essay? The simplest answer is that it should be as long as specified in the requirements. However, when it comes to practice, everything isn't so easy. The length of an essay can vary greatly depending on its purpose, level of education, and specific assignment instructions.

How many pages or words do you have to write to achieve the perfect essay length? How to keep your writing clear, structured, and logical staying within the specified word limit? What is the length of different types of essays and how to achieve a perfect match of the paper content and length? Find the answer to these essential questions and discover real-life examples in this ultimate guide. If you need to write your essay and there are no instructions, StudyCrumb essay writers will guide you.

Importance of Essay Length

An essay length and word count are important because they help you achieve your goals. If you're writing a paper to impress an admissions committee, it should be long enough to give the committee the information they need. At the same time, it shouldn't be too long. Otherwise, it may seem boring or uninteresting. 

In addition to helping you achieve your goals, the length of an essay and word count can also help make sure your paper is easy to read and flows well. You also have to stay compliant with the specific writing requirements to get full credit for the paper. Staying within the word limit is one of them. You can use our free tool to count how many words your paper is to make sure you stay within limits.

What Impacts Essay Length?

So, how long your essay should be? The trick is that it depends. In general, academic papers are divided into three categories:

• School essay
• College essays
• University papers.

Depending on the educational level, the length requirements will be different. In addition, there are 4 essential factors that determine the volume of an academic essay.

• Essay type Different types of essays have different requirements regarding length and content, which are usually listed in your professor's syllabus or instructions.
• Educational level For example, college students are generally expected to write longer papers compared to middle school essay.
• Essay topic If your professor gives you a topic that requires research (like "How has technology impacted education?"), chances are your paper will go beyond the limits of a 1000 word essay . But if they want you to share your impressions on a movie, you can fit it into 275 words well.
• Specific requirements your professor may have For instance, if they want a piece that's three pages, double-spaced, and includes footnotes, then those are the parameters you'll need to work within.

Essay Length Recommendations

It's important to know the length of your essay before you start writing so that you can decide on the word count for each paragraph and stay compliant with other recommendations of your professor. So, after we have discovered the main factors influencing the essay’s length, let’s find out how long should an essay be depending on the type of paper and educational level.

Average Essay Word Count and Page Count Directions

Feel free to use our converter to find out how many words fit on a page.

High School Essay

500-800 words are usually enough for a typical 5 paragraph essay in high school. This is the space you can use to fully express yourself and your ideas at a high-school level. The most important thing is that you have a clear thesis statement and a good introduction that draws the reader in. Make sure your conclusion is also solid and makes a strong point while tying everything together. If you're asked to submit a high school essay that is shorter than 500 words, it's likely that the teacher wants you to focus on a very specific part of the prompt.

>> Read more: How to Write an Essay?

College Admission Essay

The length of a college admission essay is often shorter than those written for high school. With this type of task, you have to stay within 650 words on average but it depends on the type of college you’re applying to, so make sure you check with the school directly before writing your essay (they will have recommendations on length). College admission papers can be either analytical or narrative—the length doesn’t change based on what type of essay it is.

Undergraduate College Essay

An undergraduate essay in college should be between 500-650 words, but it still depends on the paper type and topic to cover. The length of an undergraduate college essay varies depending on the type of paper being written as well as what type of school you're attending (public vs private). It also depends on whether you're writing an essay of any specific type – an argumentative piece or a narrative piece. In terms of writing style, this type of essay is more formal than what would typically be expected from a high school essay.

Graduate School Admission Essay

Graduate school admission papers should be between 500-1000 words, depending on what type of graduate program you're applying for. This essay is just the paper that matters most to the admission committee, so it's important to make sure that it's clear, concise, and well-written. The admissions committee will be looking for a strong introduction, a compelling thesis statement, and an effective conclusion. The introduction and conclusion paragraphs can be a little shorter than the body ones. To get an idea of graduate school admission essays length and logic, take a look at successful sample papers. 

>> Learn more: How to Write an Essay Fast?

Graduate School Essay

The general rule of thumb for all graduate school essays is that you should keep it under 1000 words. This is because the admissions committees are looking for a comprehensive review of your background and experiences that includes information about your academic, professional, and personal life. 500-1000 words for a graduate school essay is the academic average. Use up to four pages to fully explain your reasoning and express your ideas. Also, keep in mind that the length and content requirements are usually set by the school itself.

How Long Is Every Part of an Essay

As you know, every paper consists of an introduction, body, and conclusion. But how many words should you write for each section? Keep in mind a simple yet general rule of 80/20. It means that your essay’s body should contain 80% of all your content. This is also the room for explaining your “why” and “how”, citing relevant studies, and providing argumentation. 

Now, let’s find out how to write each of the parts while keeping an average essay length and the required word count in mind. 

To ease your essay writing process, we advise preparing a draft. If you have never done it before, take a rough draft example .

Average Length of Essay Parts

How Long Should an Introduction Be for an Essay?

The introduction is the first paragraph of an essay. It serves as the opening for your essay. The introduction should provide a brief summary of the topic, point out the significance of your topic, and give a preview of what you will discuss in your paper. If you are writing a normal essay with up to 550 required words count, your introduction should take approximately 100 words. Most general essays will have one or two paragraphs in their introduction section.

>> Read more: How to Start an Essay

How Long Should an Essay Body Paragraph Be?

An average length of a body paragraph is up to 150 words. It means that each you should take up four to six text lines (Times New Roman 12). Build up your body paragraphs in the next way to achieve the right lengths, keep your flow logical, and follow a word limit within an essay. Around 5-7 sentences are usually enough for a short essay paragraph, so:

• Write a topic sentence to every paragraph.
• Present a research-supported statement.
• Offer your argumentation.
• End with a transition phrase.

>> Learn more: How to Write a Good Body Paragraph

Deciding on the Number of Body Paragraphs in an Essay

So, how many paragraphs should you write to create a full-length essay that’s also compliant with your professor’s requirements? The answer is simple: You should write as many body paragraphs as it takes to get your point across. That means that if you have a lot of information to share, then you might want to add more paragraphs. If you don’t have much information, then you can keep the number low. Below is the average number of paragraphs (including into and outro) depending on the word count:

• 275 words - 3 paragraphs
• 550-words - 4-5 paragraphs
• 1100 words - 6-8 paragraphs.

How Long Is an Essay Conclusion Supposed to Be?

As you know, a conclusion in an essay is its final part and it should never be longer than your paper’s body. Generally, it is necessary to write one paragraph for simpler and typical essays and two paragraphs for longer papers.

But the important thing is not to overdo it. If your conclusion is too long, the professor is likely to lower your grade — just because you failed to follow the academic writing standards (even if there are no complaints about your outro content). That’s why on average, a conclusion of an essay should be up to 100 words long.

Tips to Achieve the Required Length

So, at this point,  you know how long general essays should be and how many words in an essay are depending on its type. Now, let’s deal with the most challenging task and find out what you can do to make your essay longer or shorter, improving its quality along the way.

Making Your Essay Longer

Use the next 5 tips to transform a short essay into a longer one.

• Add examples. You can use your own experiences. Use examples from other people or books that relate to the topic.
• Add facts, statistics, and citations. Adding these kinds of details will help prove how well-informed you are on this topic and help back up some of your claims.
• Use transitions but don't overdo them. They're useful for helping readers follow along with your paper. But too many transitions may sound just like an attempt to extend the paper’s volume.
• Double-check your argumentation. Providing a clear argumentation is difficult. That's why you have to double-check your reasoning and make sure you hadn't combined two different arguments in a single paragraph. To fix such a mistake, add one more section to your paper’s body for each of the arguments you have. Such a simple tip will make your writing clearer too.
• Read sample papers on the topic to grab more ideas. Chances are you've missed some important points. The papers of other students will help you fill the gaps and reasonably extend the word count.

Making Your Essay Shorter

Some students tend to write significantly more than an average essay word count. It may sound paradoxical but writing longer essays is easier than short ones. In the latter case, you should be as concise as possible. Here is how to make your essay shorter without losing the main ideas and disrupting the flow.

• Remove irrelevant examples. You don't need to give several detailed examples for every point you make. Look at your thesis and ask yourself if every example supports that thesis. If not, cut it.
• Make your paragraphs 4-sentences long. In this way, you will achieve a shorter essay volume and improve clarity at once.
• Remove repetition. If something has already been said in the paragraph before, but it doesn't fit in the current context, get rid of it.
• Make your introduction and conclusion shorter. An introduction is supposed to be interesting enough that readers want to keep reading. A conclusion is supposed to summarize everything you said. Don't reinvent the wheel in these sections.
• Use a readability check tool. Transforming long and difficult-to-read sentences into shorter and clearer ones. It is one more way to make a long essay fit into the provided requirements.

Mistakes to Avoid When Adjusting the Length of an Essay

When adjusting the length of a paper, there are a few mistakes to avoid.

• Adding unnecessary details. It's easy to think that you need to add more information when trying to make your piece longer. In reality, this is often not the case. Try balancing your explanations and keep them to the point in every sentence.
• Cutting the necessary details. If you have too much information and need to cut it down, do so carefully. For example, if you have several suitable citations to include, use the most relevant or the most recent one instead of adding them all.
• Writing “one more paragraph” for the sake of volume. This is a mistake because you can end up with a poorly-argued and too-watery piece.
• Missing essential research. Missing essential research can be a big mistake because then you won't have enough information to write actually on the topic. In this case, your paper is likely to be too short.
• Adding irrelevant citations. Irrelevant citations make your paper look like it was written by someone who doesn't know what they're talking about. They also make your essay look less credible than it truly is.

How Long Should an Essay Be Depending on Format?

So, how long are essays and how many pages should you write, depending on the formatting style you are required to follow? The trick is that different formatting styles may require you to use different fonts, sizes, and spacing. For example, if you write in MLA, you have to use Times New Roman 12, while APA usually requires you to use Arial 11. Both styles imply using double spacing. Now, let's discover how spacing and font size affect the paper’s length.

• 275 words (Times New Roman 12, double-space) – 1 page
• 550 words (Times New Roman 12, double-space) – 2 pages
• 1100 words (Times New Roman 12, double-space) – 4 pages
• 275 words (Arial 11,  double-space) – 1 page
• 550 words (Arial 11, double-space) – 2 pages
• 1100 words (Arial 11, double-space) – 4 pages

If your professor specifically required to use single spacing, it will take two times less space than when using double spacing.

Font and Size

Using the right font and size is important for getting the full grade for your paper and staying compliant with the professor's requirements. Agree, it will be disappointing to get a lower grade just because you've used another font that your professor asked you to use. Fortunately, the requirements for font and size aren't too diverse or complicated. So, here is a list of commonly used fonts and sizes for MLA, APA, and Chicago formatting styles.

APA style format :

• Font: Times New Roman or Arial

MLA format essay :

• Font: Times New Roman

Chicago format :

What to Do if There Are No Essay Length Requirements?

If you're writing an essay and there are no essay length requirements, don't panic! There are still some guidelines you can follow to make sure your essay has the right length.

• Be guided by general academic writing rules. Generally speaking, it's a good idea to keep your papers between 500 and 1,000 words. If you're writing an essay for school or university, it should also be double-spaced, with one-inch margins on all sides of the page.
• Consider paper type. Get back to the chart with essay types and recommended length we've provided above. Use this volume as a starting point.
• Suggest the right volume depending on the topic. Some topics require several pages to be fully researched and explained. Others require stating your personal opinion that may fit well in two-three paragraphs.
• Ask your professor. As for the simplest but still right solution, ask your professor for help determining what length would be best for your essay. If they give you some guidelines but don't specify exactly how long an essay paragraph or sentence should be, then follow those guidelines instead of worrying about word counts or page numbers.
• Take a look at sample papers on similar topics. See how those students organized their thoughts into paragraphs and sections. You might even consider using their format as a starting point for your own piece.

Using Length to Determine an Essay Scope

It may seem that the length of your paper is just a formal requirement. In practice, it is a framework that helps you organize your essay sections. If you're writing a short essay, it's likely that you have a narrow focus and are only looking at part of the issue in question.

For example, if you are required to write a 550-words paper, you can immediately understand that you have to write an intro and conclusion (100 words each). Then, share the remained 450 words between three-four body paragraphs (100-150 words each). 

Next, everything becomes even easier. Outline the core ideas for each of the paragraphs. Support them with studies and citations and add your vision.

Bottom Line on How Long Is an Essay

So, now we have covered everything that matters for determining the right essay length and writing a full-credit paper following the requirements. In most cases, your professor will kindly provide you with a precise number of words you have to write. Otherwise, be guided by general academic writing rules for an essay type you are about to create. And keep the rule of thumb in mind. 

Regardless of your paper volume, it should be well-researched, clear, logical, structured, and reasoned.

If you don't feel like sticking to instructions, we will always help you. Our professional college essay writers will write excellent work of any length. Just fill out an order on our website and get your essay done quickly.

FAQ About Essay Length

1. how long is an essay in middle school.

A middle-school essay is usually up to 550 words. An essay in middle school is typically short because the students are learning how to write, and they're not yet comfortable with long-form writing. These papers are typically short because they're meant to answer one question or dwell on a single subject being studied.

2. How long is an essay in sentences?

The length of an essay in sentences depends on the type of essay and the amount of information you have to cover. A 550-word typical essay usually consists of 15 sentences, given that the length of each sentence is approximately the same. However, if you are used to writing longer or shorter sentences, their total number may vary. So, the best tactic is to write sentences without clauses to keep them clear and understandable.

3. How long should a short essay be?

A short essay should be no longer than 550 words. The point of a short essay is to convey an idea in a precise and focused way, so it's important that you don't waste any words on unnecessary details. The best way to match the necessary word count is to write an outline before writing a final draft. In this way, you will know how much space each section will take up, at least approximately.

4. How many pages are in an essay?

The answer to this question depends on the topic, scope, and depth of your essay. In general, an essay of 2-3 pages is considered short; 4-6 pages is average; 7-10 pages is long. The amount of pages also depends on the spacing you are required to use. Using double-space between paragraph extends the page count twice.

5. How many words are in an essay?

There's no one answer to the question of how many words are in an essay. It depends on the type of essay you're writing and the formatting style you use, as well as your professor’s requirements. A standard word count for college essays is between 550-1100 words. However, some professors may request that you write more or less than this amount.

6. Can I go over the expected essay length?

The more compliant you are with the professor’s requirements, the more chances of getting full credit you have. So, don’t go over the expected length. Still, you can write up to 50-100 words more if the point you would like to add really matters for your reasoning.

Daniel Howard is an Essay Writing guru. He helps students create essays that will strike a chord with the readers.

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How Long Is An Essay? A Guide To Essay Length

Learn the length of six different essays and the factors that affect the essay length.

The length of an academic essay varies depending on your academic level, your field of study, your department’s policies, and the requirements of your particular course. In most cases, the length specifications are listed on your assignment sheet. It can be expressed as a range of words, paragraphs, or pages, or as a specific number.

In college, the majority of professors will provide you with a general outline of how long your essay should be. Please continue reading if you want to learn more about essay length.

Table of Contents

How Long Is An Essay?

An essay is typically a brief composition that aims to be clear and concise. In the academic setting, essays can be useful in demonstrating your knowledge and in presenting an idea, but they are not as in-depth as a thesis or research paper.

A higher education assignment will typically include instructions on the expected number of pages or words. Typically, this will be a range, say between 2500 and 4000 words.

Verify the assignment’s specifics and any guidelines your teacher may have before you begin formulating a plan for “how to write my paper.” Here are a few quick reminders:

• Every essay must have a beginning, a body, and a conclusion. This means that in order to cover everything, your essay must have at least three sections.
• Typically, a basic paper will have a five-paragraph essay. The introduction and conclusion paragraphs in this essay are typically much shorter.
• One of your essay’s main ideas should be covered in each body paragraph.

The best thing you can do when submitting an essay, whether it’s for a college application or an academic assignment, is to carefully read the instructions. Most of the time, you should gain a basic understanding of the word count required of you.

The fact that you don’t have to lengthen your essay to reach the highest number should be noted if you are given a “range” for your essay’s word count. Simply use the language you need to support your position. And here is the information about the essay length in 6th grade , 7th grade , and 8th grade .

• High school essay: 300-1000 words
• Essay for college admissions: 250-650 words
• Essay for college students in their first year: 1500-5000 words
• Essay for graduate school admission: 500-1000 words
• essays for graduate school: 2500-6000 words

Essay Length Tips

The advice provided below is relevant to academic essays that are assigned as writing assignments. The following section will cover every topic related to admissions essays.

• For essays, there should be a minimum of three paragraphs—an introduction, a body, and a conclusion.
• An essay with five paragraphs is the most typical format for a basic paper.
• The opening and closing sentences are always proportionately shorter in length.
• Only one main idea, which is your topic sentence, may be covered in each body paragraph.
• About 275 words typically appear on a page of Times New Roman (12pt) text that is double-spaced.
• Double that, or about 550 words, can fit on a single page.

How Long Are The Six Types Of Essays?

Here are the six types of essays you should know:

The One-paragraph Essay

The one-paragraph essay, which is typically between 150 and 250 words in length, may be given by academic tutors simply as practice for the fundamentals of paragraph writing, or it may be used for specific purposes like practicing summarizing an article that has been read in class or writing an extended definition of a concept.

One-paragraph essays can be used as a diagnostic tool to quickly assess a student’s writing ability. For the one-paragraph essay, you must combine at least some of the introduction, body, and conclusion into a single paragraph, unlike other essay lengths.

The Three-paragraph Essay

The three-paragraph essay, which is typically 500 words long, is used to introduce students to the idea that all essays should have an introduction, a body section, and a conclusion if the writer wants to produce coherent and logical writing.

The first and last paragraphs will be the introduction and conclusion, which are typically a little shorter in length. The central body paragraph will contain the essay’s content or argument.

The Five-paragraph Essay

The five-paragraph essay is typically set by teachers who are satisfied that their students understand the introduction-body-conclusion essay structure and who want to give them more freedom to elaborate on the ideas and arguments the writer has presented in the body section of the essay. It is typically 1,000 words long.

With an essay of this length, the introduction and conclusion are still each given one paragraph, but the body of the essay can have three paragraphs devoted to the discussion of the theme. Now that the essay has reached this length, it is acceptable to use certain essay types, like cause and effect essays, and compare and contrast essays.

The Extended Essay

While it’s uncommon for such essays to be longer than 5,000 words, the extended essay is the most typical type of essay that’s assigned during a bachelor’s or master’s degree. It may be any length. With a plus or minus 10% word count tolerance, the most typical lengths for an extended essay are 1,500, 3,000, and 5,000 words.

Such essay types may also start to follow more complex structures, such as those found in dissertations and theses, rather than just adhering to the introduction-body-conclusion structure of shorter essays, which will undoubtedly require research and referencing skills.

The Dissertation

Generally assigned as the final project for both bachelor’s and master’s degrees, the typical length of an academic dissertation is 10,000 or 15,000 words. Unlike shorter essay types, dissertations have more complex structures and are almost always based on primary research (original research that the writer has conducted themselves).

Last but not least, the thesis is the longest style of academic essay and is only used by Ph.D. candidates. The doctorate thesis, which is typically between 40,000 and 60,000 words long, may include all the components of a dissertation, but in much greater detail and with more thorough research.

Such essays are almost certainly original and are based on primary research, with a larger focus on the accuracy of the literature review, data collection, and data analysis. Many students will never write an essay of this kind.

How Long Does Each Essay Section Need To Be?

Each paragraph in a short essay (400–1000 words) usually contains 100–200 words. Shorter than the total number of words in the body section, the introduction and conclusion should be about the same length.

For a 1000-word essay, the introduction and conclusion should each be 4–5 sentences long, according to Jennifer Duncan from The Writing Centre at the University of Toronto at Scarborough. The length of these sections can be several paragraphs or even entire pages if your word count must be higher.

You may have seen conversion charts that state, “This number of words equals this number of paragraphs.” They are all based on fixed paragraph lengths and are therefore not very accurate.

Yes, you can convert an essay that is 400–800 words long in this way. But, when your paper is bigger than a thousand words, your paragraphs can scale along, which means their number won’t grow exponentially with the overall essay size.

A long essay (2000 words) won’t necessarily have fifteen paragraphs, for example, if a 700-word essay has five paragraphs.

How Long Is The Introduction In An Essay?

Typically, your introduction, or first paragraph, is referred to as a hook. Here, you should catch the attention of the reader and introduce the topic of your essay. When choosing a length, keep it brief and sweet whenever possible.

It’s usually a good idea to do some planning ahead of time to make sure every section of your essay is the proper length. A seasoned essay writer will carefully read the instructions to make sure you comprehend the task.

Your essay’s complexity and depth should be apparent from the recommended word count. Give a high-level overview of your topic if your essay is only supposed to be a few paragraphs long. You can delve more deeply into the details in longer essays.

You must be as clear and concise with your argument as you can in short essays. When you’re given a higher word count, however, you shouldn’t use this as an excuse to “waffle”. Follow the outline you create for your essay and stay on point.

When deciding how much information and support you should include in each section, an outline should serve as a road map.

How Long Is A Paragraph In An Essay?

As mentioned above, the answer to “how long should a college essay be?” usually starts with a base answer of “at least five paragraphs”. This makes it possible for you to introduce your thesis or commentary, follow it with three supporting paragraphs, and then end with a summary.

Your essay will have a range of paragraph length s. In the majority of academic essays, the main body of the argument should occupy the majority of the paper. Here, you should develop your ideas and support them with examples.

Generally speaking, the introduction should match the essay’s overall length. The introduction can be one or two paragraphs long if your text is only about 3,000 words. A longer, more detailed introduction that provides background information and context may be necessary for complex essays.

A single paragraph should typically serve as your essay’s conclusion. A paragraph might not be enough to summarize everything you’ve said, especially if your paper is longer and more involved.

How Long Is The Conclusion In An Essay?

The last section of your essay is the conclusion . For shorter essays, it is typically one paragraph. In this section, you should restate the main ideas from the body and summarize your analysis. Depending on how long the essay is, the conclusion may be 300–700 words long.

How Long Is The Outline In An Essay?

For a university-level essay or argumentative essay, you’ll need a more thorough outline with the same elements as a simpler outline, but with more specifics that include evidence and justification for your supporting points. The length of an outline should be no longer than 1 to 2 pages .

What Influence An Essay’s Length?

The length of a typical essay is influenced by a variety of factors. The word count of your paper depends on

Academic Level

In terms of presentation and length, essays written for high school and primary grades differ from those written for universities and colleges. Before beginning an academic essay, it is crucial to read the guidelines for each level.

Depending on the subject, different essay length requirements apply. Long and short essays are common in papers in the humanities, social sciences, and law. The length of the long essays can be anywhere between 20 pages and 6 pages, double-spaced, while the short essays are between 500 and 875 words long.

Essay lengths can also vary depending on the instructor and the subject matter, including English literature, composition, linguistics, leadership, and business. You will see different length requirements for essays depending on the subject you are studying.

Departmental length requirements for essays vary between universities and colleges. The length requirements of the department should be understood because they can guide your decision regarding how many words to use in your essay.

Essay Prompt Or Tutor’s Instructions

The guidelines provided in the essay prompt are another important factor in determining the number of pages or words you must use. The essay prompt not only specifies the essay topics, but also how many words, lengths, or pages your essay should be.

Spacing Of The Sentences

Pages in a typical academic essay are double-spaced due to the essay’s typical structure. The essay instructions may, on occasion, demand that you write your essay using only single spaces.

A single-spaced page has about 550 words on it, compared to about 275 words on a double-spaced page. By this analogy, a single double-spaced page would have twice as many words as a single single-spaced page. An essay that is one page long and single-spaced contains the same number of words as an essay that is two pages long and double-spaced.

Other times, teachers will instruct students to write 1.5-spaced-line essays. The length of your essay in this situation should be determined by the word count per page.

As a result, even as you read the assignment instructions, pay attention to the kind of page spacing that your professor or instructor requires. The preferred word count, which is always plus or minus 10%, is made easier to stay within.

Fonts Used In The Essay Paper

Papers are typically written in font 12 for academic writing. Most academic institutions have adopted this size as the standard for essays.

Making the font larger results in more pages, but fewer words. Always write your essay using the font size and style suggested by the teacher in the essay prompt, given the wide variety of fonts available.

Paragraph Lengths And Formats

150 words or so would be considered a typical paragraph length. It will depend on how many pages you are writing and how many paragraphs you will have. For instance, as we shall see later, a 6-page essay with double spacing will contain a total of 1650–1800 words.

10% of the word count is allocated to the introduction and conclusion paragraphs, which means that they each have between 165 and 180 words. You will have the final word count to balance the paragraphs at your discretion because the other body paragraphs will split it.

Using Length As A Guide To Topic And Complexity

The suggested word count not only helps you determine how long your essay should be but also makes it easier for you to determine how much complexity and information you can fit into the available space.

The creation of your thesis statement, which establishes the parameters of your overall argument and identifies the primary subject of your essay, should be guided by this.

A focused, narrow topic and an obvious, unambiguous line of reasoning are requirements for a short essay. A longer essay should still have a clear focus, but it may also need to take a more comprehensive approach to the subject or make a more complex, ambitious argument.

Make sure you have a clear understanding of how much evidence, detail, and argumentation will be required to support your thesis as you create the essay’s outline.

Consider revising your thesis to be more general or more specific if you discover that you lack the ideas to fill out the word count or that you require more space to present your case effectively.

The amount of time you will need to spend editing and proofreading the essay will also depend on how long it is.

What To Do If My Essay Is Too Long Or Too Short?

It’s usually best to stick to the range you’re given if you’ve taken the time to determine how long your essay should be for high school or college. You should try to write an essay that is at least as long as what was asked of you in the assignment.

If you’re struggling to hit the suggested word count, you can consider:

• To make your points stronger and more credible, add more examples, supporting data, and in-depth analysis to each paragraph.
• Ensure that you thoroughly analyze and clarify each of your points without leaving any room for doubt.
• additional research is being done in order to examine a subject from a different perspective.

Don’t add any filler to simply increase the word count. Aim to avoid becoming overly fixated on a particular number and stick to simple sentences whenever possible. Get as much useful information as you can into your essay—that’s the key.

Notably, just as you should reach at least the minimum word count, you should avoid exceeding the maximum word count. You may occasionally go 10% over the maximum word count. You might be able to use 3300 words for an assignment with a word count of up to 3000, but it’s best to double-check with your instructor to be sure.

If the additional words are irrelevant to your argument, exceeding your suggested word count won’t impress your professor. You should probably proofread your writing to make sure everything is accurate and as brief as possible.

Get rid of extraneous words and keep in mind that it will take longer for your instructor to grade an essay the longer it is.

Always strive to write your assignment for the minimum amount of time specified. In the event that you have trouble writing enough words:

• To strengthen or clarify your points, include more examples and supporting data in each paragraph.
• Aim to elaborate on your points more fully and make sure each example has been fully explained or analyzed.
• In a new paragraph, elaborate on a different aspect of your subject. In order to make a more ambitious argument, you might need to revise your thesis statement.
• Don’t use filler; doing so will weaken your essay and obscure your argument.
• Keep your focus off on a precise figure. It’s more important that your argument is compelling and sufficiently developed for an essay of the advised length than whether you use 50 or 100 words to convince your reader of your point of view.

What Is The Ideal Essay Length For College?

Here, “college essays” imply essays written for admissions. Compared to the ones you write for homework, admissions essays are very different. They usually want to convince the committee that you are a deserving candidate.

The appropriate section of the college website should have all the information about such essays available to the public. However, you still have some options if you don’t know the word count requirement and can’t find it. Below is a quick answer to the “how long is a college essay” question.

An essay for college typically has 500 words.

Admissions Essay Length Tips

• Once you open the college’s site, look for phrases like “essay questions,” “information about supplemental essays,” “application instructions,” etc.
• Because board officers must read a large number of them every day, admissions essays are typically brief (250–600 words).
• Keep the length within the specified range; for example, if it says 500–550 words, the maximum length would be 600.
• Don’t go over the word limit because it might prevent someone from reading your essay all the way through.

What If There Are No Restrictions On Length?

College essay prompts occasionally don’t specify a maximum length. But don’t worry just yet; there are a number of ways to handle this circumstance.

A Sample Of Your Writing Must Be Submitted

Potential candidates may have a variety of options. Amherst College offers you two options: (Option A) compose a response to one of the quotations on the list, or (Option B) turn in a graded essay that best demonstrates your writing abilities.

The final option implies that your options are constrained by the number of words in the papers you can pick from. However, there is usually a page with instructions for paper sample submissions.

The Description Makes It Clear How Long It Should Be

Wellesley College does not specify a word count or a number of pages in the instructions for the essay prompt. Instead, it says, “in two well-developed paragraphs.” So, paragraphs can be as long as 450–500 words, which is a reasonable maximum. Therefore, this is when you’ll need to make an estimate or even a little guess.

You Must Look For The Length Specifications

It can happen that the essay length requirements are not listed on the same page as the prompts. But if you Google it, you can discover posts on social media sites and forums that cover these essay writing requirements.

You can also try searching “long” or “length” within the college site by typing “site:yourcollegewebsite.com” with those words.

Call The Admissions Department Right Away

Call the admissions office if you can’t find the word limit guidelines anywhere. Even if they don’t have a precise figure, they can estimate the length of your essay based on the ones they have already read.

Why Is Adherence To Expected Essay Length Important?

Remember that the length of the essay the professor expects will vary depending on the student’s academic standing. Even if you are unsure of the precise word count requirements for an essay for a particular class or university course, follow the general guidelines.

The tutor may conclude that the student did not submit the assignment with sufficient effort if the student writes an essay that is shorter than anticipated.

In fact, if the essay has a large word count, the student may have added unnecessary information without doing proper analysis or used wordy constructions.

Conclusion: Polish Your Essay

Most assignments include explicit instructions on how many words or pages you are required to write. Instead of being a precise number, this is frequently a range (for instance, 2500–3000 words or 10–12 pages). Finding the ideal essay length can seem like a challenging process.

Fortunately, using the aforementioned advice, you ought to be heading in the right direction. Don’t forget to share this post if it helps you.

How Long is a Short Essay?

Short essays usually involve answering a question related to course content and could be anywhere from 200 words to 750 words long, depending on the professor’s guidelines. Writing a short essay can be difficult because you have to decide what information is most crucial to include and what can be skipped.

How Long is a 200-word Essay?

A 200 words essay will be 0.4 pages single-spaced or 0.8 pages double-spaced . 500 words make up one standard single-spaced page.

Is a 500 Word Essay Too Short?

In general, 500 words or so is pretty safe for a college essay . In fact, the word limit is pretty typical.

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Home ➔ Essay Length Questions ➔ How Long Is a Typical Essay?

How Long Is a Typical Essay?

The word count of your essay mostly depends on your educational level, subject, department, course, and tutor’s instructions. This piece of writing is normally shorter than research papers or dissertations. But how long should an essay be exactly?

Generally, the length requirements are indicated in your assignment sheet. It can be words, paragraphs, or pages given as a range (300–500 words) or a particular number (5 pages). If you are not sure about your essay’s length, the number-one tip is to clarify it with your tutor. Also, if you’re not sure how to write an essay , we have a detailed guide on that topic, just follow the link.

We will review all the factors you must consider when it comes to an essay’s length, but here’s a quick answer to questions like, “How many words in an essay or how many paragraphs does an essay have?”

An essay is five paragraphs long on average, which is around 400–700 words.

Essay Length Tips

The tips below relate to academic essays that are given as a writing assignment. Everything that concerns admissions essays will be discussed in the following section.

• Three is the minimum number of paragraphs for essays (intro, body, and conclusion).
• The most common structure for a basic paper is the five-paragraph essay.
• The length of the introduction and conclusion paragraphs is always proportionally smaller.
• Each body paragraph must cover only one central idea, which is your topic sentence.
• A double-spaced page with text written in Times New Roman (12pt) usually contains about 275 words.
• A single-spaced page can fit double the amount, which is about 550 words.

How long should each essay part be?

If it’s a short essay (400–1000 words), each paragraph usually contains 100–200 words. The introduction and conclusion should be roughly the same in length and shorter than the overall word count of the body section.

According to Jennifer Duncan from The Writing Centre (the University of Toronto at Scarborough), for a 1000-word essay, its introduction and conclusion should be 4–5 sentences each. If your word count must be bigger, the length of these sections can be several paragraphs or even pages.

You might have seen conversion tables that say, “This number of words equals this number of paragraphs.” They all are based on a fixed length for each paragraph and are not very accurate. Yes, an essay that’s 400–800 words long can be converted like that. But, when your paper is bigger than a thousand words, your paragraphs can scale along, which means their number won’t grow exponentially with the overall essay size. For instance, if a 700-word essay comprises five paragraphs, a long essay (2000 words) won’t necessarily have fifteen paragraphs.

How long should a college essay be?

Here, “college essays” imply essays written for admissions. Admissions essays are quite different from the ones you get as homework. Usually, their chief goal is to show to the board that you are a worthy applicant. All the details about such essays should be publicly available on the college’s website in the appropriate section. But, if you don’t know the word count requirement and can’t find it, you still have some options. Below is a quick answer to the “how long is a college essay” question.

An average college essay is about 500 words long.

Admissions essay length tips

• Once you open the college’s site, look for phrases like “essay questions,” “information about supplemental essays,” “application instructions,” etc.
• As a rule, admissions essays are short (250–600 words) because board officers have to go through a lot of them daily.
• Do not exceed the given range by too much: if it says 500–550 words, the maximum length would be 600.
• When exceeding the word limit, your essay may not even end up being read to the end, so be mindful.

What if there are no length guidelines?

Sometimes colleges will not indicate a length limit for their essay prompts. But, don’t worry just yet because there are several ways to deal with this situation.

1. You need to send a sample of your writing.

They might have several options for applicants. Amherst College provides you with a choice: you can either (Option A) write a response to one of the quotations from the list or (Option B) submit a graded paper that best shows your writing skills. The last option implies that you have a set of papers to choose from, so you’re limited by their word count. But usually, there’s a page that contains guidelines for paper samples.

2. You can understand how long it should be from the description.

In its essay prompt guidelines, Wellesley College doesn’t give you a range of words or pages. Instead, it says, “in two well-developed paragraphs.” That means paragraphs can be quite long but within a reasonable limit, which is about 450–500 words. So this is when you’ll need to estimate or even guess a bit.

3. You need to search for the length requirements.

It can happen that essay length guidelines are not on the same page as the prompts. However, once you google, you can find posts on forums and social networks that discuss these essay writing requirements. You can also try searching “long” or “length” within the college site by typing “site:yourcollegewebsite.com” with those words.

4. You must call the admissions office.

If word limit instructions are nowhere to be found, you should call the admissions office. Even if they don’t have an exact number, they can tell you how long an essay should be based on the ones they had received before.

Sentence length will vary based on the paper type you’re working on. In narrative essays , you have to tell a story, which means sentences can be very long (up to 50 words). But general advice would be to keep sentences shorter than 25 words. Considering that, a 500-word essay would have somewhere between 20 to 45 sentences.

In short, you do. Unfortunately, the education system is “lazy” in this regard. Even though minimum length requirements force students to stretch their writing by adding fluff and verbose phrases, if those restraints were no more, some students would abuse that and submit essays far too short. Although some educators give a small margin over or under the word count, it’s better to write within the given range.

Your introductions and conclusion are usually smaller than body paragraphs. Hence, they will contain fewer sentences. For a 300-word paper, the first and last paragraphs will be about 3–5 sentences each, and every main paragraph will consist of 5–7 sentences.

The list of references

Here, you may find additional information on the topic:

• Paragraph Length — Aims Community College
• Writing Introductions and Conclusions — the University of Toronto at Scarborough

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How Long Should My Academic Essay Be?

When you're given an academic essay assignment, it's easy to feel overwhelmed—especially if English is your second language or you have limited experience with academic writing. Academic essays can range from a few paragraphs to book-length dissertations, so the scope of expectations varies widely based on the school you're attending, the class you're taking, the departmental expectations, and (most especially) the professor giving you the assignment.

However, if you're new to academic essay writing and are stressing over the length it should be, keep in mind that in most situations, your questions will be answered by your professor or the admissions committee assigning you the essay in the first place. When an assignment is given, some professors are very specific on their expectations, including what they expect the word count to be.

For most assignments, you'll likely be given guidelines based on word count (for example, 1,000 to 1,200 words) or page count (3 to 5 pages, double-spaced). You might also be given guidelines on the citation format to use, how many sources you should have, and even the publication date range of those sources. Some professors like to be extremely specific on their expectations for each academic essay assignment, while others might be more lenient and less structured in their guidelines. And of course, these guidelines will vary based on the type of academic essay and its purpose.

General guidelines for essay length

Middle school.

Academic essay assignments typically start in middle school in the American education system and fall within the range of 300 to 800 words. In these grades, you'll be learning the basic 5-paragraph essay structure, which includes an introduction, a thesis statement, the body, and a conclusion. In the typical 5-paragraph essay format, the first paragraph should be the introduction, the second through fourth paragraphs should be the body of the essay, and the fifth paragraph should be the conclusion. In very rare instances would your introduction or conclusion take up more than one paragraph for these types of essays.

High school

In high school, you'll still likely need to write a 5-paragraph essay, although some teachers (especially English and Language Arts) will start to require longer essays (3 to 5 pages). This is to prepare you for the rigor of academic writing that you'll be fine-tuning in college. In these essays, you will still have the basic format of introduction, body and conclusion; however, you'll expand the body to more thoroughly explore or explain a topic. The conclusion of your 3 to 5-page essay will likely still fall within one paragraph, although the introduction might be more than one, depending on the topic.

University (Undergraduate level)

Once you get admitted into an undergraduate program, the length of your academic essay assignments will vary significantly, depending on the classes you take and the departments you take them in. You'll also encounter classes that require academic essays of varying length as the semester progresses, with a longer essay due as the final assignment for a greater percentage of the class grade. In most cases, these longer academic writing assignments will be structured in such a way in that parts of the essay assignment must be turned in at different times, with all sections being put together as a final paper.

For example, in an advanced-level English class, your professor might assign multiple shorter essays of 5 to 7 pages (or 1,500 to 2,100 words) and one final essay that explores a topic in more depth at 8 to 10 pages (or 2,400 to 3,000 words). Another class, such as a core curriculum survey course, might require fewer essays or more journal prompt-type writing assignments.

University (Graduate level)

Much the same as the undergraduate level of college, graduate-level academic writing assignments will vary based on several factors, such as the professor, the course, the department, and the program of study. One university program might require extensive writing while another might be more lab-based or hands-on experience.

Graduate level is also where you're likely to first encounter "thesis" and "dissertation" academic writing assignments, which can go up to 100,000 words or more. These types of assignments obviously require extensive planning, research, and writing time, but you'll likely be given very specific word count and citation requirements when being assigned the paper to write.

Graduate level writing is significantly more involved than the 5-paragraph essay format and contains elements such as sections related to a review of literature, background of the topic/theoretical framework, methodology of research, and your specific findings. These separate sections might have their own word count limits and requirements, with some requiring significantly more time and writing than others. As with some undergraduate assignments, you might be asked to submit these academic writing assignments in stages or sections, including a proposal, a list of your sources, etc.

Beyond word and page count

Even if you stay within a certain word or page count that is required for an academic writing assignment, you could still receive a poor grade for not using that count wisely. For example, it's possible to write a 3 to 5-paragraph paper that is disorganized and illogical, in the same sense that an 8-page essay might have the same faults.

Here are some important guidelines to follow when writing an academic essay, regardless of the word count required:

• Always carefully outline before you begin writing. An outline will help you cover everything that should be covered and ensure that you've included all of the required parts of the essay (introduction, thesis statement, etc.)
• Never allow your academic essay writing style to appear rambling, off-topic, or full of "filler" words. While the topic you're writing about might be new to you, your professor will likely know it extensively and will be able to tell if you're writing just to fill space.
• Do your best to avoid hedging. Hedging is when you essentially dance around a topic with vague statements but never have an actual stance on it. In most forms of academic writing, you're expected to make a clear assumption or thesis statement and then back up your claim with solid research and/or data.

So, can I go over or under word count?

Ultimately, it will always be in your best interest to stay within word count requirements given to you on assignments. Word count or page count limits are given to you for a reason—your professor knows exactly how in-depth you can explore a topic or topics given that word count restriction. If you find that you are significantly under word count when you've completed your writing assignment, it's likely that you haven't explored the topic to the depth expected of you by your instructor. A poor or failing grade might be the result, as it will be clear to your professor that you either didn't understand the topic or didn't take the time needed to research it correctly.

Some professors will allow word count that is over suggested limits a lot more readily than word count that is under them. However, keep in mind that if you have gone significantly over word count in your academic essay assignment, it's always a good idea to ask your teacher if this is acceptable. He or she might have such a heavy student and research load that they are simply unable to read hundreds of essays that are over the suggested word count limit, and might be forced to stop reading once you've reached it. This means that important parts of your writing will not be read and could affect your teacher's grade choice for the assignments.

This is also true for college admissions essay assignments. Admissions committees might be reading the essays of thousands of applicants and need those writers to stay within word count restrictions for the sake of time and logistics. Allowing one applicant to write extensively more could also put that applicant at an unfair advantage, so word count restrictions should always be followed. For a more in-depth look at what you should and shouldn't do on your college admissions essay, check out this article on writing a college admissions essay that stands out from the crowd .

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by Michelle Boyd Waters, M.Ed.  

A Plethora Of Writing Examples For Middle School (& High School)

October 14, 2014 in  Pedagogy

When I started my first job as a professional newspaper reporter (This job also served as an internship during my junior year in college — I just didn’t leave for about 6 years.), I quickly realized that all my experience, and all my years of journalism education had not been enough to help me write stories about drug busts, fatal car accidents and tornadoes. All the theoretical work I’d done, and all of the nifty little scholastic and collegiate stories I had done, did not prepare me for real world writing.

At that point, I had to find a solution quickly. After all, I had a deadline to meet, and it was only a few hours away.

One of my colleagues, who also served as a mentor, had the solution. She introduced me to the newspaper’s “morgue.” This was a room filled with filing cabinets in which we kept old — dead — stories arranged by reporter. Whenever I wasn’t’ sure how to write a story, all I had to do was check the morgue for similar stories. If I needed to write a story about a local drug bust, for example, I’d find another story on a similar incident, study its structure, and mentally create a formula in which to plugin the information I’d gathered.

Once I’d gained more experience, and had internalized the formula for that particular type of story, I felt free to branch out as the situation — and my training — warranted.

I do the same thing when I want to write a type of letter, brochure, or report that I’ve never written before.

This is what writing looks like in the real world.

Of course, if you’re a new teacher like me, there is one problem with providing mentor texts to my students: I have a dearth of middle school level writing sitting around in my file cabinets.

Fortunately, the Internet is full of sources, so I scoured the bowels of Google to find examples. I know how busy you are, so I’m sharing.

Expository writing examples for middle school

Below are several sources of expository writing samples for middle school students.

• The Write Source Expository Writing Samples
• Holt, Rinehart, Winston Expository Essay Models

Finally, here is an article in the New York Times that will help you teach your students  real-world expository writing skills .

Descriptive writing examples for middle school

• Descriptive Writing Samples from Novels
• Milwaukee Public Schools Descriptive Essay Samples (p. 137)
• Holt, Rinehart, Winston Descriptive Essay Models

Narrative writing examples for middle school

• Writing Samples by Steve Peha (PDF)
• The Write Source Narrative Writing Samples
• Oregon Department of Education Scored Writing Samples (Ideas and Organization)
• Oregon Department of Education Scored Writing Samples (Sentence Fluency and Conventions)
• Oregon Department of Education Scored Writing Samples (Voice and Word Choice)
• Oregon Department of Education High School Scored Narrative and Argumentative Writing Samples
• Holt, Rinehart, Winston Narrative Essay Models

Argumentative/persuasive writing examples for middle school

• The Write Source Persuasive Writing Samples
• Holt, Rinehart, Winston Persuasive Essay Models

Reflective writing examples for middle school

• Reflective essay examples from Lake Washington Girls Middle School

If you know of any other online writing example sources, please feel free to share them in the comments below.

Related topics: Argumentative Writing , Informative Writing , Mentor Texts , Narrative Writing

About the author 

Michelle Boyd Waters, M.Ed.

I am a secondary English Language Arts teacher, a University of Oklahoma student working on my doctorate in Instructional Leadership and Academic Curriculum with an concentration in English Education and co-Editor of the Oklahoma English Journal. I am constantly seeking ways to amplify students' voices and choices.

This is very, very helpful. Thank you for sharing!

As a new middle school teacher (coming from elementary) this was very helpful and encouraging.

Thank you very much for letting me know. I’m glad that I was able to help you!

Thank you! I’m glad I can help.

Your welcome

This is super helpful. Thank you!

These links are a fantastic help. Thank you!

This helped me BUNCHES! Thanks so much!

thanks so much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! XD

These links are now dead 🙁

Thank you for notifying me! I have updated the post to include new (live!) links. Some of them are geared towards high school, but I think we can still use them as exemplars of what we want our students to aim for.

Comments are closed.

How Many Words Should Your Essay Have for Grading High?

How many words are in an essay?

This question bothers all students, whether in middle school or college. Two reasons:

They don’t have word count guidelines to know how long their essay should be to grade high. Or, they struggle with the word limit within a paper and wonder if they can go under the suggested length.

The essay length varies, depending on many factors: subject, purpose, and academic level. Essays are usually shorter than dissertations or research papers. The thesis is the longest one.

In this article, I’ll answer two popular questions: How long is an essay? How many paragraphs are in an essay?

Also, let’s learn how long each essay part is and if it’s okay to go beyond or under the suggested length.

How Long is an Essay, Depending on the Type?

The above rules are average. They may vary at different educational institutions. It stands to reason that elementary-level students write short essays. And their papers get longer in their middle 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th grades, etc.

Often, there’s no exact word number or page count for academic papers. Guidelines usually prescribe a supposed range: 500-850 words, 5-7 pages, and so on. When in doubt, you can ask your instructor.

How Many Paragraphs is an Essay? 6 Main Lengths

You won’t find any rule prescribing a set number of paragraphs for an essay. Five-paragraph essays are a standard, but it doesn’t mean ALL papers should follow it.

Each essay consists of three parts:

• Introduction . Often, it’s one paragraph introducing your topic and thesis to readers. When writing complex papers like dissertations, your intro section can be 2-3 paragraphs.
• Body. It’s a core section discussing the topic in detail. The number of paragraphs here depends on your paper’s type and complexity. This part is 1-4 paragraphs unless you write extended research papers.
• Conclusion. Like intros, this section is often one paragraph summarizing the essay.

Below, I’ll cover the six main lengths to show how to balance a word count in essays.

One-paragraph essays

Three-paragraph papers

Five-paragraph essays

Extended papers

Dissertation

Frequently Asked Questions:

Is essay length important.

Yes, it is. Prescribing a length, instructors understand if you can organize thoughts and arguments. An essay of 1,000 words requires more research and effort than a 350-word paper, agree? The specified length also helps you understand how complex your work should be to grade high. Longer essays teach you to write cohesive texts, choose arguments, and think critically.

Don’t write essays for the sake of count. Quality matters, so please focus on arguments, evidence, and analysis. Avoid placing too many transitions, generic words, and lengthy expressions. Make your every word and sentence count.

How many words are in an essay sample?

350 words at least.

It depends on the essay type you write. Thus, a high school essay sample will be 350 words at least. If you need a college application essay, consider personal papers of 250-650 words. Check essay samples of 800-1,000 words if you need a standard college paper. More complex works like graduate school essays or dissertations will be 3,000+ words.

How long is each part of an essay?

Stick to the 80/20 rule when calculating the length of each essay part. An essay body is the core section of academic papers: Make it 80% of the text. The remaining 20% goes to an introduction and a conclusion.

Say you write a 1,000-word essay. It means you will have 800 words in the body; 100 words go to the introduction and 100 words — for a concluding paragraph. You can go 10% below or above the prescribed limit. (Unless your instructor sets specific limitations.)

How many sentences are in an essay?

21-34 sentences for a standard 5-paragraph essay.

It depends on your essay type and the required word count. I’ll take a standard 5-paragraph college paper as an example:

You have one introductory paragraph, which is 3-5 sentences average. Other 3-5 sentences go to your conclusion. The body consists of three sections, 5-8 sentences each (1). So, here we have it: 21-34 sentences in an essay.

How many words are in an essay introduction?

Take 10-15% of the total length required. Thus, if you need to write a 1,000-word essay, your introduction will be 100-150 words.

For advanced research papers, where intros are longer than one paragraph, stick to 100-150 words per paragraph average. Such texts are usually above 3,000 words, so you’ll follow the 80/20 rule anyway.

Can I go under the suggested length?

It’s not advisable. Please do your best to meet the minimum word count given in the assignment. If the guidelines say “350-600 words,” write at least 350 words in an essay. Sometimes, a 10% deviation is acceptable, but don’t take this rule for granted. Most instructors won’t appreciate your 315-word paper if they ask you to write 350 words at least.

How to make your essay longer?

• Add more examples and evidence to the body paragraphs. 
• Explain and analyze every argument in detail. 
• Mention counterarguments if applicable.

Can I make my essay longer?

Yes, you can exceed the word limit by 10% if allowed by your course instructor. For example, if you get an assignment of 500-700 words, it’s okay to submit a 770-word essay for a review.

Important! Always ask your instructor if the 10% rule is available in their course. And exceed the word count only if you have critical information to add.

Academic writing is all about rules and instructions. Essay length isn’t an exception:

Every college paper has a prescribed, approximate word count to follow. When asking, “How long is an essay?” remember the answer will depend on several factors:

• Academic level. (Middle and high school students write short essays. Undergraduates and graduates craft longer and more complex papers.)
• Type and purpose. (Research-based essays are longer than reflective stories you write for college admission officers.)
• Instructions you get from a teacher. (Check them: The supposed essay length is often there.)

How many words are in an essay? You can answer this question now.

References:

• https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/academic_writing/paragraphs_and_paragraphing/paragraphing.html  
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• How Long Should An Essay Be? 6 Different Essay Lengths

• Justin McGill
• May 23, 2024

The length of an essay can vary greatly depending on the type of essay being written and the purpose for which it is being written. While there is no strict rule on how long an essay should be, some general guidelines can help you determine the appropriate length for your essay. In this article, we will discuss 6 different essay lengths and provide tips on how to write a strong essay at each length.

What is an Academic Essay?

Before we dive into the different lengths of essays, it’s important to understand what an academic essay is. An academic essay is a piece of writing that presents and defends an argument or point of view on a specific topic. It is commonly used in higher education as a way for students to demonstrate their understanding and critical thinking skills.

An academic essay should be well-researched, well-structured, and well-written. It should also follow a specific formatting style, such as MLA or APA, and include citations and a bibliography. The length of an academic essay can vary depending on the type and purpose of the essay.

6 Different Essay Lengths

1. the one-paragraph essay.

The one-paragraph essay, typically 150 to 250 words, acts as a learning exercise for students to grasp the basics of paragraph writing.

Academic tutors may assign it for various purposes, such as summarizing an article or giving an extended concept definition.

Furthermore, one-paragraph essays can be a diagnostic tool to evaluate a student’s writing proficiency.

This type of essay incorporates introductory, body, and concluding elements within a single paragraph.

2. The Three-Paragraph Essay

The three-paragraph essay is commonly used to introduce students to essay structure. It typically consists of around 500 words.

The essay includes an introduction, body section, and conclusion. The purpose is to teach students how to write cohesively and logically.

The introduction and conclusion, which are usually shorter, serve as the first and last paragraphs of the essay.

The central body paragraph contains the content or argument of the essay.

3. The Five-Paragraph Essay

Tutors often assign a five-paragraph essay to assess students’ grasp of essay structure.

The body section benefits from the added flexibility to expand ideas, typically spanning approximately 1,000 words.

This type of essay dedicates one paragraph each to the introduction and conclusion while allotting three paragraphs to explore the essay’s theme.

This length allows essay types like cause-and-effect or compare-and-contrast essays to be effectively utilized.

A simple diagram can illustrate the allocation of paragraph lengths in a five-paragraph essay.

4. The Extended Essay

The extended essay is commonly assigned for undergraduate and postgraduate degrees.

It can vary in length but typically does not exceed 5,000 words.

Common word lengths for an extended essay are 1,500, 3,000, and 5,000 words, with a 10% allowance.

These essays require research and referencing skills and may follow more complex structures like dissertations and theses.

They are not limited to the traditional introduction-body-conclusion structure of shorter essays.

5. The Dissertation

Dissertations are usually assigned as the final project for undergraduate and postgraduate degrees.

The typical length of an academic dissertation is around 10,000 to 15,000 words.

Unlike shorter essay types, dissertations have more complex structures.

Dissertations are almost always based on primary research, which means conducting original research.

Dissertations require the author to conduct research rather than rely solely on existing sources.

6. The Thesis

The thesis is the longest type of academic essay, typically written by doctoral students studying for a PhD.

It is considerably longer, ranging from 40,000 to 60,000 words, compared to other types of essays.

While similar to a dissertation, a thesis delves into greater detail and involves more extensive research.

These are typically based on primary research, emphasizing the accuracy of the literature review, data collection, and data analysis.

Not all students will come across this essay type during their academic journey.

However, it requires an immense amount of time and dedication to complete.

In addition to these types, essays are classified into 5 other types: High School Essays, College Admission Essays, Undergraduate College Essays, Graduate School Admission Essays, and Graduate School Essays.

Let’s have a look at the table below to understand the suggested lengths for these essays:

The length of an essay can vary depending on the type and level of education. Knowing the lengths of essays can help students effectively plan and manage their assignments. However, it’s important to remember that the length should not be the sole focus when writing an essay.

It’s equally important to focus on the quality of content and meeting the assignment’s requirements. A well-crafted essay with cohesive arguments and supported evidence is more valuable than simply meeting a specific word count. Students should prioritize developing their writing skills to effectively convey their ideas and arguments rather than solely focusing on meeting a certain length requirement.

1. How long should an essay be?

The length of an essay can vary depending on the type and level of education, ranging from 250 words for a short essay to 60,000 words for a thesis.

2. Can I exceed the recommended length for an essay?

It is generally not recommended to significantly exceed the recommended length for an essay as it may indicate a lack of conciseness and focus. However, ensuring that all necessary points and arguments are adequately addressed within the essay is important.

3. How long should each paragraph be in an essay?

The length of each paragraph can vary depending on the content and purpose of the essay. Generally, paragraphs should be at least three sentences long and focus on one main point or idea. It’s important to balance too short and too long paragraphs for cohesion and clarity in the essay.

4. How do you increase or decrease the length of an essay?

To increase the length of an essay, students can expand on their arguments and provide more evidence to support their points. They can also include additional examples, quotes, or analysis to add depth to their ideas. Students can eliminate unnecessary details or repetitions to decrease the length and ensure concise writing by avoiding filler words and phrases. However, it’s important not to compromise the quality and coherence of the essay in the process.

How Long is an Essay

How Long is an Essay?

High school essays typically range from 300-1000 words, focusing on a 5-paragraph structure. College admission essays are brief, 200-650 words, showcasing personal interests. Undergraduate essays vary, spanning 1500-5000 words, depending on course and institution specifics. Graduate admissions require more detailed essays of 500-1000 words, while graduate-level essays often extend from 2500-6000 words, reflecting deeper research and analysis.

The question of how long should an essay be– whether you are a pro or not–should come from something OTHER than your liking 💯. 

Sure, you can always follow your heart whenever you want to put your sentiments and purpose into words. It is, however, another truth that there is an external factor that always determines how effective you are as an essayist: the WORD COUNT.

Let us not all lie. No matter how good or bad we are at writing things, word count always matters. This factor may come into play when it becomes one of the criteria for judging one’s written output or a measure of someone’s writing prowess if it is made out of a career. Thus, one thing is for sure: even if it sucks, we always consider how long should an essay be.

But just like any other factor influencing good writing, managing an ideal word count for essays can be quite a breeze. All you have to do is pan out your purpose, know your audience, and be strategic in monitoring your word count. All of the know-how, and many others, will be discussed thoroughly in this blog, so stick around to see the magic!

How Long is an Essay Considering the Factors that I Have to Follow?

Factors everywhere. A good result cannot be determined well and objectively without these factors. Sure enough, good writing, while considering its word count, can be a walk in the park if one considers the following factors that regulate an ideal (or sometimes, required) word count.

Academic essay varies depending on multiple factors. Asking the “WHY” on something provides you with a clear way how you can finish it. In writing, this “why,” which represents your intention or purpose, gives you an outline of how you may navigate the entire process– and manage your word count as well.

Once you have set your writing goals before the writing process, you can prepare the right information that you will inject into the sections of your manuscript, as well as an approach (more than two is fine; do not be shy!) that will serve as your structure. Writers have different purposes– dictated or not, explicit or implicit, thus producing different preferences for word count.

One may have many demands in its purpose, making the word count a bit overboard. Some do not demand that much, translating to a permissible count. One thing is for sure, though: purpose drives your writing journey, so whether you measure your essay length or not, it must be clearly stated on the paper!

When we say that your feelings matter so much in your writing, that has to be minimized considerably because maintaining word count and determining how many words should an essay be sometimes depends on the people who read and use it.

A specific group of people always know what they want in a writing piece– either they like it long and extensive or short yet succinct. With this reality (arguing about it will not give you good marks) in mind, you have to be a sucker for their preferences.

The good thing about this, though, is you already have some ideas on how you will create your piece (versus thinking about it from scratch), and your horizons will widen since you will craft a piece that reflects other people’s liking. A little note when considering the audience as one of your considerations for word count is that they are already giving you a favor.

Nature of the Writing Task

Along with the wish to maintain an average essay word count, you must know WHAT you are writing about. Mostly common among academic institutions, the nature of a writing task may come off as explicit through the name itself (is it a traditional expository essay? A narrative report? A critical essay?) or implicit through the specifications of the task (Should there be an outline to adhere in the task? Should one use a specific structure or approach to the creation of a text?).

Determining how many words should there be in an essay will largely depend on what you are writing about, and the elements and features of these various tasks may shorten or lengthen the word count.

In Studyfy, however, you can see these factors come into play and create a concoction of a text like no other. With a tailor-fit custom essay writing service that offers a variety of academic, business, and personalized research papers that vary in word count depending on your purpose, you can yield personal success in your sheer convenience. 

How Long is an Essay in High School?

In high school, essays typically vary in length based on the assignment type, ranging from 500 to 1500 words for narratives, 800 to 1500 words for expository essays, 500 to 1000 words for reflective essays, and 600 to 1200 words for process essays. Always follow your teacher's guidelines.

High school is the period in education where students’ lower and higher-order thinking skills (LOTS/HOTS) are put into practice, and essays and other related written tasks are manifestations of their learning of these skills.

Although there is a tendency for students to ask someone “to write an essay for me ” because of being overwhelmed with too much information, writing an essay in high school is the best starting point for students to practice writing and presenting information by counting what is important and relevant.

The following is the list of common essay types and their ideal word count:

Narrative Essays

Its primary purpose is to narrate a specific event or describe a scenario using quotations, vivid descriptions, and imagery to convey the situation in writing accurately. Although adjectives, literary devices, and other strategies for vivid conveyance may mean a considerable amount of words to be injected into the piece, the essay length of a narrative text may range from 500-1500 words. 

Expository Essays

Typically following the traditional and rigid 5-paragraph format, these essays present information about a topic or clarify a particular concept, phenomenon, or entity. While some sources may put the count range from 300-1000 words, the extensiveness of this essay type may enlarge the range from 800-1500 words.

Reflective Essays

Also known as reflection entries, these essays are beneficial for developing students’ metacognitive skills, as they are expected to recall personal thoughts and experiences about a certain topic. A typical reflective essay falls within the range of 500-1000 words, depending on how downright or deep your reflection is. 

Process Essay

These kinds of essays are pretty common in Science courses, such as Biology, Chemistry, and Physics. Sometimes, coupled with a diagram or chart, a process essay explains how a certain practice, concept, or phenomenon happens step-by-step.

While some process essays may be words because some steps have to be elaborated for clarity, most are straightforward and do not need to be intricate since they are practical and mass-oriented. Because of this, process essays range from 600-1200 words.

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How Long is an Essay in College? Ideal Essay Length and Word Count

In college, essay lengths vary widely. Admission essays are typically 200-650 words, undergraduate essays range from 1500-5000 words, graduate admission essays are around 500-1000 words, and graduate-level essays can span 2500-6000 words. Always adhere to your assignment's specific word count guidelines.

To say that the essays in college get a lot more difficult than in high school, well– it is more complicated than that. Now that you are expected to have harnessed the necessary skills to process and interpret certain information, you now have to deal with types of writing tasks that are often extensive and time-consuming, to say the least.

Admission Essay

Impressing the admissions committee with a personalized essay is the number one goal, and guess what: You do not need a long string of words to do that. How long should essays be without using too many words in a college acceptance letter?

An admission college essay can be as short as a word count of 200-650 words, while graduate admission letters are more detailed with 500-1000 words. A quick tip: Show your personality and make an impact by clinching them with a few yet powerful or attention-catching quips. 

Critical Review Essay

Critiquing a text, film, book, or any other body of literature may require every bit of your research effort and HOTS. You have to dissect the subject into components and make sense of these components while making sure that you find gaps, associations, and relevance to a particular “lens” that helps a seemingly oblivious observation to become apparent.

It is thus safe to say that your word count may go bonkers, with an ideal range of 1500 to 3000 words, depending on the structure of your paper and the approach to criticism.

Persuasive Academic Essay

A persuasive college essay may land you a good harnessing of marketing and sales skills. This essay enables you to take a stand and advocate something for your audience to do the same thing by presenting credible and evidence-based claims and arguments.

A unique thing about persuasive college essays is that they use the technique called “Call to Action” to magically turn readers’ attention to your claim realistically and feasibly. Considering the elements that must be included in this essay, an 800-1500 word count is preferred.

Comparative Analysis Essay

Comparing and contrasting two ideas, phenomena, or concepts may take a while to provide total comprehensibility. Since the points of comparison may exceed the usual threshold, the word count may also swell up. Still dependent on the elements being compared in this analysis essay, the ideal word count is 1800-3000 words.

This writing task encapsulates the various documentation, research, and analysis of a specific case or scenario, most preferably something peculiar or novel. When creating a case study, it is somewhat impossible to be concise in describing the locale of the scenario.

You have to exhaust your vocabulary and presentation skills to convey the case into analysis effectively. With that being said, its ideal word count is 2000 to 3500 words, depending on the case’s complexity.

College Essays: Help is Near

College writeups can be difficult to do, and to pay for an essay may take a bit of shame and courage. However, the feeling of shame will change to relief if you know that a custom writing service that serves personal writing style and needs like Studyfy gets everything covered.

All of the specifications you need to be in the write-up, plus the necessary information that is pivotal to the success of your paper, will be yours if you sign up for a Studyfy service!

Did you like our article?

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FAQs: How Long Should An Essay Be?

How long is a typical essay if you will be using the ibc format.

IBC format, for starters, is the basic “Introduction-Body-Conclusion” format conventionally used for essays. Just like the IMRAD format in research papers, this format is standardized and widely accepted in academic institutions and other fields.

To determine the typical word count of an essay following this format, you must understand the weight of relevance each section holds. For instance, it is typical for an introduction to weigh less than the body, which should habituate the most significant information in the essay.

The same goes for conclusion. If the IBC format follows a 20-60-20 ratio and you aim for a 150-word minimum count per section, the entire count can be 750 words minimum.

How long are essays in college, considering that it will be a lot more difficult to write one?

Difficulty may translate to a longer word count, and we understand if it has been kept as a notion in your experience as a current or future college student. If you keenly noticed the type of essays presented at the collegiate level, the minimum word count is 250 (for admission essays) while the maximum is 3500 (mostly common among case studies).

Regularly, however, typical essay writing tasks range from 800-1000 words, especially if you are talking about concept, term, or research papers that are being done at the end of a unit of work or as a terminal course requirement.

Whether an undergraduate college essay, research paper, graduate school essays, or any type of academic writing, it's important to adhere to a specific word count and word limit. As college essays tend to be lengthy, an additional challenge is to incorporate all relevant information in a clear and succinct way.

Maximize your chances of admission with our expert admission essay writing service . Take action today to secure your academic future!

‍ How many words should an essay have if I wanted to fill an entire page?

Although this question is a bit practical and unhinged at the same time, we are also guilty about this, as we seldom check the word count of our paper when we finish a page. From our experience, you can fit 500-700 words in a page, but the count still depends on the font size, spacing, justification, and other formatting elements of your document. 

How long is an essay supposed to be in one paragraph?

The answer is invariable since we have to consider lots of factors about the purpose and nature of the writing task. From a general approximation, however, an essay paragraph can be within a hundred words. Exceeding it may render it lengthy and too tiring to read.

How many words should a high school essay be if no one provided an outline to adhere to?

When there is no explicit instruction about the word count of a high school essay task, you might find the 150-word minimum rule per section handy, in consonance with the 20-60-20 rule discussed briefly in the first question (although this is widely used if you are following the IBC format). You may adjust the minimum word limit depending on the difficulty or nature of the task.

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How long is an Essay? A Guide to Appropriate Essay Length

Table of Contents

How long is an essay ? The length of your article is determined by several factors. These include level of education, course of study, departmental guidelines, and tutor’s requirements.

Compared to a research paper or dissertation, an essay is a shorter piece of writing. This article provides general guidelines for the length of different types of essays.

Since there are several essay types, it is crucial to understand the length required of your assignment. On average, an essay should be at least 700 to 1,200 words. It shouldn’t be too long or too short.

Usually, when an instructor hands out a project, the number of pages to be written will be given alongside. The instructor will often give the word count for the assignment, which will be more helpful than just telling the number of pages. This will mostly be a range (e.g., 500-800 words).

Most important in writing an essay is to prioritize quality over quantity. The focus should be on making a solid argument about the subject rather than hitting the specified word count. However, writing an essay according to the specified length is possible without compromising quality.

The specified length of your essay gives you a sense of how much information and complexity you can fit into the given space. This will determine how you outline your ideas and structure your argument.

The time needed for editing and proofreading also varies by the length of the essay.

A few tips to keep in mind when writing an essay include:

• An essay should have a minimum of three paragraphs. The paragraphs should contain the introduction, body, and conclusion, respectively.
• For an introductory paper, a five-paragraph structure is typical.
• The conclusion and introduction paragraphs are generally shorter.
• Each central idea should occupy a separate body paragraph.

There is a standard essay length for most high school, college, graduate, and professional schools. Although it is usually difficult to determine the length of an essay by words, working within the specified range is generally good. The following guidelines will help you determine how long your essay should be.

1. High School Essay

The recommended word count for a high school essay is 300 to 1000 words. It may vary, but you’ll often need to write a 5-paragraph essay that contains an introduction, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion.

2. College admission essay

College admissions essays are much shorter than any other. They range from 200 to 650 words and contain a few paragraphs that express your motivations and interests.

3. Undergraduate college essay

The length of undergraduate essays varies depending on the institution, course of study, and course levels.

However, no matter the length, every undergraduate college essay must include the following:

• Introduction
• Body (containing the subject arguments)

The word count of a typical undergraduate essay ranges from 1500 to 5000 words.

4. Graduate school admission essay

A typical graduate admission essay contains about 500–1000 words detailing your statement of purpose and highlighting some of your academic achievements.

5. Graduate school essay

Graduate school essays are usually more detailed and comprehensive, which means they tend to be longer. A typical graduate school essay ranges from 2500 to 6000 words.

First, you need to decide how many words your essay requires. Afterward, you can break it down into paragraphs. A short piece of 600-800 words will require that each section contains 100-150 words.

The introduction is one of the essential parts of an essay. The introduction is usually the same length as the conclusion and is shorter than the body. It should be just one paragraph and should match the length of the essay. For example, an essay with a length of 500 words would have an introduction of about 100 words.

The essay’s main body is usually the longest part and should take up the most space. It would be best to put each argument and idea in a separate paragraph. The paragraphs in the main body should be roughly the same length.

The conclusion of the essay is often a single paragraph. It should sum up the main points in a convincing way.

Writing your essay according to the specified length is essential, especially when your instructor recommends it. However, the length of your essay should not compromise its quality .

Creativity and originality are crucial factors in writing a well-structured essay, but it’s also vital that your essay is well-written.

Essay length can vary depending on the requirements of the forum you are submitting your work to. If the length is not specified, the specifications in this article should help you determine the length.

Pam is an expert grammarian with years of experience teaching English, writing and ESL Grammar courses at the university level. She is enamored with all things language and fascinated with how we use words to shape our world.

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What is the best length for an essay?

Most students can’t understand why they need to write an essay, how to write an essay and importantly, they always want to know how long is an essay in college. How long should an essay be, especially since they are written for different purposes? Usually, a n essay is between 500 and 700 words . You can use an essay word counter – they count words and characters for you, but there is also an online editor that detects plagiarism and grammar mistakes too. Generally, essays are shorter than research papers, and your tutor should provide guidelines on the number of words or pages to be expected.

The basic structure of an essay is always the same – it has the same basic format.

• A topic you want to write on
• Ideas to prepare an outline of your essay
• A thesis statement
• An introduction
• The body with sub-points
• The conclusion

What Is an Essay?

Essay writing for students is important so that teachers can gauge whether the student knows their topic and whether they can write cogently. How long is an essay is a debatable question too, but the essay needs to be long enough for the student to:

• demonstrate an understanding of the topic and theoretical framework
• to construct a written report with intro, body, and conclusion
• to show that they can construct proper sentences to persuade a reader
• to convince someone that they know what they’re talking about

What Is The Best College Essay Format

For essay format, the Modern Language Association or MLA provides guidelines, from using the right font to using the right line spacing.

• Font. 12-point Times New Roman
• Line Spacing. Double line spacing throughout the entire essay
• Indentation.  The first line of each paragraph is to be indented 5 spaces or ½ inch.
• Heading. First page, upper left corner. Type name, class, date, and instructor’s name
• Margin. One-inch margins left and right and top and bottom
• Page numbers. Your surname and page number should be in the upper right corner of every page. An example is Jones 2. Insert as a header.
• Title. This must be centered on the top of page one.
• Align Left.  The text should be lined up against the left margin.

The same rules are applied to MLA dissertations and research papers.

Lenght For an Essay in Middle School

Middle school students should be able to produce coherent sentences and essays, have a good command of standard American English, be able to organize their ideas, and write the standard 500-word essay with ease. How long are 500 words? It is one page in single spacing or 2 in double spacing if you use Arial or Times New Roman 12-point font.

Lenght For an Introduction Paragraph for an Essay?

There is no hard and fast rule, and the length of your paper will dictate the intro length. With a 5-page essay, your introduction would be half a page, whereas a paper of 50 pages will have an introduction of a couple of pages.

How long is an essay if you’re writing a college admissions essay? Generally, they’re between 500 – 700 words . The SAT essay is for college admissions. Some colleges require the SAT essay, others do not. An SAT essay length of 400 or 500 words essay will suffice .

How long should an essay be is determined by certain criteria? Are you in school, college, or university? The length will depend on guidelines and the subject of study. Essay lengths might be between 500 and 1000 words for a high school essay, while an undergraduate college essay can be between 1500 words to 5000 words.

With a short essay, you need to be clear on your points. Short essay length has a limited word count and should be a minimum of half-page and not more than one page. Short essays are usually about 400 words max.

How many Pages are 800 Words?

It is important to demonstrate your ability to meet the word requirements. An 800-word essay is about 1 and 3/5 of a page if the essay is typed in single spacing. A double-spaced article will be 3 and 1/5 of a page.

How long is an essay supposed to be in single- or double-line spacing and typed in Times New Roman font?

• A 250-word long essay in single line spacing will be half a page and in double line spacing, it will be one page.
• 500 words in single line spacing are 1 page. Double line spacing is 2 pages.
• 2000 words in single line spacing are 4 pages. Double line spacing is 8 pages.
• 10 000 words in single line spacing are 20 pages. Double line spacing is 40 pages.

Parts of an Essay have Different Lengths

With an academic essay, the main body takes up the most space. How long should a paragraph be? A reputable source like Grammarly says 100 to 200 words long. Sentences too should be between 15 to 20 words in academic papers. This makes the text easily readable.

How Long is a College Essay?

Nothing is written in stone about the average college essay length but it needs to have a certain number of paragraphs. Some experts say 3, others say 5.

If you just can’t reach your required number of words for your essay, remember that you can order an essay with the right amount of words, and it can save you time and you can be sure of your results.

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14 Types of Essays: Writer's Guide with All Classifications and Tips

Updated 30 Aug 2024

All students, regardless of their age or level of knowledge, are continuously asked to submit different types of essays that relate to the topics they study in books. It could be a narrative essay that tells a story, a descriptive essay that paints a mental picture, an expository essay where you explain your personal response or feelings or a persuasive essay where you are trying to convince the reader with your point of view. Your goal or purpose of your work determines your essay type. Understanding the main features of each type and the distinctive characteristics that set them apart help you submit a flawless piece of writing that attracts attention.

4 Main Types of Essays

Narrative essay.

A narrative essay belongs to essay types, which reminds a short memoir ; you are relating a personal experience of yours in a few pages. This experience can be anything ranging from the story of driving your first car to a description of a trip you took to England with your family two years ago.

Most writings are supposed to be written in the third person, but this is one of the few cases where your professor will allow you to use first person pronouns . By using these types of pronouns, you make the story more vivid and real to your audience.

In order to create good narrative essays, be sure to incorporate imagery and descriptive adjectives. Not only this will doing your essay good, but it can also improve your creative writing skills if you want to become an author of fiction in the future.

Descriptive Essay

A descriptive essay is very close to the narrative essay in the respect that you use imagery extensively in your writing, and that it can prepare you for creating fiction. Here you can describe the characteristics of any person, place, or thing, and you can communicate meaning and symbolism with your words. Doing this stimulates the emotions and sensory receptors in your readers, making them feel like they are actually in the story.

One way to improve your technique is to go outside, find an interesting object, and record every detail you see in an artistic, literary manner.

Read also:  How to Write a Hook like a Pro

Expository Essay

You have seen expository writing before if you’ve ever picked up a newspaper or read something on your favorite website. All of these forms of writing are meant to inform, which is the purpose of expository writing. This essay genre provides a fair and balanced analysis of a subject , providing the reader with facts, statistics, and examples so that the reader can form his own opinion. Remember that when writing an expository paper, you are writing to inform, not persuade. Nothing is more dishonest than an op-ed disguised as an exposition.

Expositories cover several different types of writing:

Compare and Contrast: The purpose of this type of writing is to make an argument by noting the differences and similarities between two or more different subjects . This composition is very useful for analyzing historical events separated by decades or different literary works from different literary movements, as well as a host of other topics.

Cause and Effect: This type of paper examines why an event occurred by investigating the factors that started it, and determining the long term consequences that stemmed from it. Explain what exactly caused this effect, how did it happen, and why . These essays involve a lot of analysing where students need to focus on the reasons why certain things happen the way they do. They can relate their studies to historical or scientific topics where they can identify patterns and trends.

Process Essay: These writings are useful for when you are trying to teach another person how to perform a specific task , such as building a transmission, installing software on a computer, or field-stripping a rifle. If you plan on becoming an engineer, machinist, or a specialist in some of other technical field, you should definitely learn how to write a process essay .

Process Analysis Essay:  This type focuses on explaining how something is done or how it works . If you are asked to do a process analysis essay, you should have a detailed outline that illustrates the steps of a particular process. These steps are listed in a sequential order to give readers an understanding of how something happens. Students who study applied sciences often write these essays to explain different scientific processes or how a certain machine works. Your reader should always be able to follow the simple and clear directions that describe the process in details.

In order to draft a good expository essay, you must be informed on the topic you are writing about. Select source material related to your topic, take notes on them, and use these notes to form the basis of your paper. This tip will help you with many different types of essay writing.

Persuasive Essay

Unlike in an expository paper, you are not writing to inform, but to change the mind of a person who is already relatively well-informed on the subject being discussed in your composition. You persuade the reader by presenting him with a sound argument that is supported by facts and hard data. Not only must you present your own point-of-view, but you must also present that of your opponent so you can refute his assertions.

When writing a persuasive essay  or  writing an editorial , remember that those papers, that get good marks avoid logical fallacies, such as ad hominem attacks, red-herrings, and straw-man arguments. If these are in your text, your professor, or any other reader for that matter, will not take your work seriously, and you will get a poor grade as a result. Avoid fallacies by only using sound reasoning supported by hard facts and analysis. Avoid name calling, appeals to ignorance and circular arguments.

Learning how to write logically will not only help you with different types of essay writing, but it will improve your rhetorical skills, which you definitely need when you don't know how to write a rhetorical analysis .

6 Different Types of Essays Which You Will Write While Studying

Critical essays.

Like persuasive and expository essays, critical thinking essays allow you to present a reader with informative content, and they are often used for literary, art, and film analysis, the object of this type being to focus on the characteristics of what is being studied, such as the characters, symbolism, and plot-line.

A good critical essay on a book or film requires you to be well-informed on not only literary and cinematic elements, but also on the lives of the authors, directors, and producers. This gives you a powerful insight into their creation.

Definition Essays

A definition essay defines the meaning of a term or a concept. Some of these words, such as flower, nail and suitcase, have concrete definitions, while words such as friendship, love and hard work are abstract concepts that have different meanings for every person. As a writer, whether the word you are defining is concrete or abstract, it is your job to expound upon the meaning of the word.

A good definition essay makes use of simple sentences to paint a picture of a word to a reader. Make sure that you can be understood by your audience.

Admission or Scholarship Essay

Either you decide to complete this type of essay yourself, or consider choosing an MBA admission essay writing service , this task is known to be the most crucial part of your college or university application. The admission committee looks for interesting and inspiring candidates who can create value. You should be able to state your opinion logically and support it with relevant evidence that shows your critical thinking skills. This type of essay also shows what kind of person you really are. It is an excellent opportunity to prove that you are a hardworking individuality who has a promising future.

Cultural Identity Essay

In this type, a writer focuses on his cultural identity and the group of people he or she identifies with. There are a lot of factors that can have an impact on your identity:

• Place of birth and upbringing
• Family dynamics
• Social status
• Economic status

All these factors should be taken into consideration when you are doing an essay that describes who you really are. This paper could be used as an assessment of your logical thinking or related to several academic disciplines that high-school and college students usually have to study.

Informative Essay

If you are a student, chances are you need to do some informative essays regarding different subjects and facts. These pieces of writing are meant to provide the reader with relevant information about a certain subject, place, historical event, person or phenomenon. There is a question that the writer asks on behalf of the reader, and the answer should be provided and explained in different parts of the text.

Research Paper

This paper focuses on how you interpret your research about a specific academic topic. As a student, you have to study the problem, run a few experiments and write down your findings in an interesting way that shows your effort. Research papers are either based on reading or investigation and can be submitted at the end of the term to conclude and cover your studies on a certain topic.

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Common Types of Essays for Middle School

Middle school essay writing involves focusing on various types of essays that aim at improving students’ thinking and writing skills. Students usually create expository essays, analytical essays, persuasive essays and argumentative essays.

These kinds of essays are simple compared to the ones submitted at higher academic levels. They should focus on exciting topics, trends, and issues that younger students find tempting and intriguing.

Creating these essays is a challenge for some students because it involves a lot of hard work. Here is a plan of the necessary steps:

• Have a clear understanding of the topic and try to draw an outline that includes all the relevant ideas that should be discussed. This will help you stay on track.
• Gather information about the topic and write down notes to be able to compose interesting paper. You can refer to these notes while creating the draft.
• The first draft is your first attempt to do your paper. After you are ready, reread it and check for mistakes and errors. Make the necessary adjustments and write your assignment one more time. Make sure that you divide it into 3 parts: an introduction, the main body, and a conclusion.
• Avoid using unnecessary words to increase the word count.

Often Written Types of Essays in High-School

Writing essays in high-school is important training that helps you improve your skills. In addition to the previous ones, high-school students create several different types of essays: narrative essays. descriptive essays, cause and effect essays.

High-school students are given a chance to express their feelings and personality in a safe environment through narrative and descriptive writings. They are more likely to enjoy this type of writing where there is more room for creativity. In some cases, a teacher gives them the opportunity to pick their own topic as long as it is related to the main theme.

Since high-school papers are more complicated, students spend more time doing research and looking for useful sources. Only academically approved sources should be used to avoid unnecessary penalties. Here is how to write a flawless essay for high-school:

• State the topic of your essay. It should be clear so readers won’t get confused. If you are working on descriptive or narrative papers, explain the setting. This helps put the reader in the mood.
• Use all the senses to describe a specific event or phenomenon. This creates a mental image that keeps your audience focused and engaged.
• In cause and effect papers, get extra deep to explain how such case happens in a specific way and why.
• Write your conclusion. This is a summary of the topic that you have analyzed, explained or interpreted in your assignment. It serves as a written wrap-up that helps readers understand the real goal of your task.

High-school assignments are naturally more difficult. However, they help you improve your study skills as you express your opinion which will help you later in college and after graduation.

Types of Essays in College

College writing is different from one academic institution to another. In college assignments, following the right format and outline is of huge importance in all essay types. Plagiarism is intolerable, and you should cite all your sources correctly. Here are some of the most common types of writing for college and university students: admission essays, scholarship essays, comparison and contrast essays, definition essays and reports.

Different kinds of essays are usually linked to various college majors. You will need to write argumentative, persuasive and descriptive papers as a part of your college education. Since students struggle with finishing all their academic assignments, you should always follow a strict plan to finish your tasks on time:

• Make a schedule of all due assignments . Check the time and start working on the nearest one.
• Explore the topic of the assignment deeply and use relevant sources.
• In some cases, you can think out of the box . In others, you should follow a certain outline . Check with your professor and see how you can finish an excellent task.
• Brainstorm for relevant and unique ideas that make your paper stand out.
• Use the required number of sources as proof of your careful work.
• Cite your sources properly. Follow the correct citation format as required by your professor.
• Follow the essay format as set by your college; otherwise, your task might be rejected.
• Create the structure : title page, introduction, main part, and conclusion of the task. Don’t forget to list your references at the end.

Adequate research and practice enable you to write different essay forms flawlessly. Spend time reading your tasks and identify your mistakes. Proper editing is the key to submitting excellent assignments.

Tips for Writing Different Essay Structure Types

Stay informed.

A good essayist always keeps informed of news, events and the latest trends of whatever he/she writes about, whether it be fashion, sports or politics. Pick several books, newspapers, magazines and websites to read and peruse through them regularly to search for topics that might be relevant to your interests.

Reading is the best way to improve your writing skills, because you see the techniques of different authors being successfully applied. You can find a style that you like and copy it, or you can incorporate the elements of many writing styles into your work.

Keep a Journal

Many famous authors, like George Orwell and Leo Tolstoy, left behind diaries and journals detailing their everyday lives and thoughts. Why not emulate them? This will help you to better your writing by forcing you to reflect on thoughts and issues that concern you.

Coming up with ideas for your writing project is not an easy thing to do. For days, it seems like, you sit in front of a blank piece of paper and, for the life of you, you can’t come up with anything meaningful to jot down. This is what we call writer’s block. There are ways to overcome this hurdle, though, with what we call pre-writing.

To pre-write, all you have to do is get a piece of paper and record down every single thought and phrase that comes to mind. Do this for as long as you feel necessary, and pretty soon you will have a big list of concepts and ideas for your composition.

An outline is a plan for your essay that helps you to structure your composition so that it is organized and comprehensive.

Many essayists believe that they are too good to create the outline, but the fact is that all authors, no matter how skilled they are have to do this, because outlining an essay keeps you organized. Those who neglect to outline their works often find themselves wondering off topic frequently, going down what are called “rabbit trails.”

You Will Master These Writings

All of these types of essays might seem overwhelming, but trust us, learning how to do them is not as difficult as you might think. However, if you have a part-time job or not enough free time, and you want someone else to do your essay for you, contact the English language experts of EduBirdie in order to get high-quality assistance. Our typers are waiting to provide you with the best essay writing help!

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What are the six different essay lengths?

This is the second of three chapters about Essays . To complete this reader, read each chapter carefully and then unlock and complete our materials to check your understanding.   

– Discuss why essays might vary in length

– Outline the six major lengths of academic essay

– Provide defining features for each essay length

Chapter 1: What is an academic essay?

Chapter 2: What are the six different essay lengths?

Chapter 3: What are the seven different types of academic essay?

Before you begin reading...

• video and audio texts
• knowledge checks and quizzes
• skills practices, tasks and assignments

The length of essay you’re assigned will likely depend on where you are exactly in your academic course. Generally, assignments at the start of a bachelor’s degree will be shorter than those required in a student’s final years, just like master’s  and doctoral-level essays will continue to increase in both length and difficulty.

1. The One-Paragraph Essay

Generally about 150 to 250 words in length, the one-paragraph essay may be assigned by academic tutors simply in order to practise the basic concepts of paragraph writing, or it may also be used for specific purposes such as to practise summarising an article that’s been read in class or to write an extended definition of a concept. Additionally, one-paragraph essays may also be used as a diagnostic to quickly determine the level of a student’s writing. Unlike other essay lengths, for the one-paragraph essay, you’ll need to include at least some introductory, body and conclusive elements within the same paragraph.    

2. The Three-Paragraph Essay

Usually around 500 words in length, the three-paragraph essay is generally used to introduce students to the concept that all essays should maintain an introduction , body section and conclusion if the writer wishes to produce cohesive and a logical writing. The introduction and conclusion will be the first and last paragraphs and tend to be a little shorter in length, while the central body paragraph will contain the essay’s content or argument. A simple table explaining the balance of content in a three-paragraph essay has been provided below:

3. The Five-Paragraph Essay

Around 1,000 words in length, the five-paragraph essay is generally set by tutors who are content that their students understand the introduction-body-conclusion essay  structure and wish to allow more freedom to expand the ideas and arguments presented by the writer in the body section of the essay. This length of essay still only dedicates one paragraph to the introduction and conclusion , but allows three paragraphs to be dedicated to the exploration of the theme in the essay’s body. At this length, certain essay types such as cause and effect essays or compare and contrast essays may now be utilised. The following is a simple diagram of the balance of paragraph lengths in a five-paragraph essay.

4. The Extended Essay

The extended essay is the most common type of essay that’s assigned during a bachelor’s or master’s degree , and it may be of any length – although it’s unusual for such essays to be above 5,000 words. The most common lengths for an extended essay are 1,500, 3,000 and 5,000 words, with a word count allowance of plus or minus 10%. Such essay types will most certainly require research and referencing skills , and may also begin to follow more complex structures such as are found in dissertations and theses rather than simply following the introduction-body-conclusion structure of shorter essays.

5. The Dissertation

Generally assigned as the final project for both bachelor’s   and master’s degree , the typical length of an academic dissertation is 10,000 or 15,000 words. Unlike shorter essay types , dissertations have more complex structures and are almost always based around primary research (original research that the writer has conducted themselves). The following table demonstrates some of the key parts of a dissertation as well as the rough word count  percentages for each section:

6. The Thesis

Finally, the thesis is the longest academic essay type and the one that’s reserved for doctorate students studying PhDs. Generally between 40,000 and 60,000 words in length, the doctorate thesis may contain all the elements of a dissertation but in much more detail and with more careful investigation. Such essays  are almost certainly original and are based on primary research , with a larger focus on the accuracy of the literature review , data collection and data analysis . Many students will never encounter this essay type. 

Once you can recognise which essay length you’ve been assigned, the next question covered in Chapter 3 is about determining the type of essay you have to write. This is because each essay type will require particular styles, structures, foci and language.

To reference this reader:

Academic Marker (2022) Essays . Available at: https://academicmarker.com/academic-guidance/assignments/essays/ (Accessed: Date Month Year).

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Your chance of acceptance, your chancing factors, extracurriculars, college essay lengths: what's the norm.

Writing my personal statement and not sure how much I need to write. What seems to be 'the norm' for the length of most college application essays? Are there guidelines on this or does it depend on the college?

As a general rule, the Common Application essay recommends a word count between 250 and 650 words. The online system won't let you submit anything under or over these limits. The prompt you choose to respond to will likely inform the length of your essay, since some questions might require a more thorough response than others.

It's important to note that there are other application platforms which may use different word limits. For example, the Coalition Application platform suggests an essay length of between 300 and 650 words.

In addition to the general personal statement, some colleges may also require supplemental essays. The length for these can widely vary from short answers of around 50-150 words, to longer responses around 250-500 words, depending on the prompt and the particular college.

The key is to make sure you're fully answering the prompt while keeping your writing concise and compelling. Avoid over-explaining or including unnecessary information. Ultimately, what matters most is not the exact word count, but the quality of your essay and the clarity with which you communicate your experiences and goals.

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How Long Should a College Essay Be? | Word Count Tips

Published on September 29, 2021 by Kirsten Courault . Revised on June 1, 2023.

Most college application portals specify a word count range for your essay, and you should stay within 10% of the upper limit. If no word count is specified, we advise keeping your essay between 400 and 600 words.

You should aim to stay under the specified limit to show you can follow directions and write concisely. However, if you write too little, it may seem like you are unwilling or unable to write a thoughtful and developed essay.

Table of contents

Word count guidelines for different application types, how to shorten your essay, how to expand your essay, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about college application essays.

Each university has a different suggested or required word count depending on which application portal it uses.

Some application portals will allow you to exceed the word count limit, but admissions officers have limited time and energy to read longer essays. Other application portals have a strict limit and will not allow you to exceed it.

For example, in the Common App , the portal will not allow you to submit more than 650 words. Some colleges using the Common App will allow you to submit less than 250 words, but this is too short for a well-developed essay.

For scholarship essays , diversity essays , and “Why this college?” essays , word count limits vary. Make sure to verify and respect each prompt’s limit.

Don’t worry too much about word count until the revision stage ; focusing on word count while writing may hinder your creativity. Once you have finished a draft, you can start shortening or expanding your essay if necessary.

Prevent plagiarism. Run a free check.

On some application portals, you can exceed the word limit, but there are good reasons to stay within it:

• To maintain the admissions officer’s attention
• To show you can follow directions
• To demonstrate you can write concisely

Here are some strategies for shortening your essay.

Stay on the main point

It’s good to use vivid imagery, but only include relevant details. Cut any sentences with tangents or unnecessary information.

My father taught me how to strategically hold the marshmallow pierced by a twig at a safe distance from the flames to make sure it didn’t get burned, ensuring a golden brown exterior.

Typically, my father is glued to his computer since he’s a software engineer at Microsoft. But that night, he was the marshmallow master. We waited together as the pillowy sugary goodness caramelized into gooey delight. Good example: Sticks to the point On our camping trip to Yosemite, my family spent time together, away from technology and routine responsibility.

My favorite part was roasting s’mores around the campfire. My father taught me how to hold the marshmallow at a safe distance from the flames, ensuring a golden brown exterior.

These college essay examples also demonstrate how you can cut your essay down to size.

Eliminate wordiness

Delete unnecessary words that clutter your essay. If a word doesn’t add value, cut it.

Here are some common examples of wordiness and how to fix them.

Use a paraphrasing tool

If you want to save time, you can make use of a paraphrasing tool . Within the tool you can select the “short” mode to rewrite your essay in less words. Just copy your text in the tool and within 1 click you’ll have shortened your essay.

If you’re significantly under the word count, you’re wasting the opportunity to show depth and authenticity in your essay. Admissions officers may see your short essay as a sign that you’re unable to write a detailed, insightful narrative about yourself.

Here are some strategies for expanding your essay.

Show detailed examples, and don’t tell generic stories

You should include detailed examples that can’t be replicated by another student. Use vivid imagery, the five senses, and specific objects to transport the reader into your story.

Reveal your feelings and insight

If your essay lacks vulnerability or self-reflection, share your feelings and the lessons you’ve learned.

Be creative with how you express your feelings; rather than simply writing “I’m happy,” use memorable images to help the reader clearly visualize your happiness. Similarly, for insight, include the follow-up actions from your lessons learned; instead of claiming “I became a hard worker,” explain what difficult tasks you accomplished as a result of what you learned.

If you want to know more about academic writing , effective communication , or parts of speech , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

Academic writing

• Writing process
• Transition words
• Passive voice
• Paraphrasing

 Communication

• How to end an email
• Ms, mrs, miss
• How to start an email
• I hope this email finds you well
• Hope you are doing well

 Parts of speech

• Personal pronouns
• Conjunctions

Most college application portals specify a word count range for your essay, and you should stay within 10% of the upper limit to write a developed and thoughtful essay.

You should aim to stay under the specified word count limit to show you can follow directions and write concisely. However, don’t write too little, as it may seem like you are unwilling or unable to write a detailed and insightful narrative about yourself.

If no word count is specified, we advise keeping your essay between 400 and 600 words.

If you’re struggling to reach the word count for your college essay, add vivid personal stories or share your feelings and insight to give your essay more depth and authenticity.

If your college essay goes over the word count limit , cut any sentences with tangents or irrelevant details. Delete unnecessary words that clutter your essay.

You can speed up this process by shortening and smoothing your writing with a paraphrasing tool . After that, you can use the summarizer to shorten it even more.

There is no set number of paragraphs in a college admissions essay . College admissions essays can diverge from the traditional five-paragraph essay structure that you learned in English class. Just make sure to stay under the specified word count .

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