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Cutting Down the Words - Read first post before asking about word count!


Afterglow

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mine was exactly 4,000 words - first draft was about 7,000.

Still I´d say I did not cut that many Ideas out.

First of all - instead of e.g. "Freedom of the Press" , I used "Press Freedom" , and "the owner of the company" became "the owner´s company".

Then, I omitted "that" and "the" wherever it was possible, and "due to" became "because".

Then I tried to change the structure of the respective paragraphs - maybe you repeat sth in your 'short summary sentence at the end' that is unneccessary?

Lastly, I tried to stick words togehter like "backroom-deals", or "mega-companies" - words that can go together, even if they normally don´t.

When it got really bad and I was still about 400 words over the limit, I started to omitt these nice introductory phrases like "When", "Additionally", "Furthermore", but that kind of hurt and i don´t recommend it.

In the end, I put some quotes in the appendix and instead of writing "Frederic Remington, a painter, was requested" I put a footnote after his name and then the sentence was only "Frederic Remmington(1) was requested".

Good luck you all!

Í´m soo glad mine is done.. expecting an A or B

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One way that hasn't been mentioned earlier, to be used if you are indeed that close/desperate, is MLA in-text citations. Citations done in parenthesis do not count to the word count, and English EEs using in-text can end up cutting up to 50 "words" from a final count depending on how much quoting was done.

For her, sexual intercourse was their “duty to the Party” (77).

In the above example, most word processors will count the "(77)" as a word, when in reality it does not go to the IBO's word limit for EEs.

An additional way one can cut down on words is by moving an author into the citation itself; this is helpful if you're writing on two or more authors, and especially if your paper is structured point instead of block.

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  • 5 months later...

They give you an extra 200 words for an over limit. But they really want it to be 4000 words.

Look at how many main points you have, can you cut one out? Do you have over 3 relevant ones explained? Maybe, pick the 2 or 3 that you think are most essential.

Cut down run-on sentences, re-used words too many times? Is there a better way to integrate or shorter way to analyze a point.

Also are there any "awkward" sentences. When you read it out loud, does it seem awkward sounding to you? Maybe just touch up on it along with bring it together more with short flowiness (I know that's not a real word).

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Afterglow

Posted Sep 19, 2007 - 23:28

The word limit for the EE is 4000 words. If you go over this limit you lose marks. There is no minimum but for most subjects, you should expect to go above 3500 words. For experiment based subjects like sciences or math you can go as low as 2500 if there is sufficient formulae working (math) or data (sciences) or other things not included in the word count but suffices to show that you've done work on the essay.

The word limit for the Abstract is separate and is 300 words.

The following are not included in the word count: footnotes, appendices, abstract.

Any direct quotations included in the body of the essay are included in the word count. If you don't want to include long quotes in the word count, put it in an appendix.

~Ruan Chun Xian

Okay so. Does anyone have any ideas, advice, tips or hints on how to cut down the words in an Extended Essay?

Mine is about 6,300 words which means that I am in big trouble and MUST cut it down so it is below 4000 words. My topic isn't that broad. It's just that I have a lot to say surprisingly. I'm doing it in Literature and when I read the book for the first time and come up with the title, me and my supervisor were both sure it would be below the world limit. However, once I did my analysing, reading critism and re-reading the novel, I came up with so many relevant arguments and examples, many of them original. Me and my supervisor both though most of my essay was relevant but the world limit is in the way. I really need advice on how to cut down :blush: I know I have a habit of writing long sentences but I honestly can't figure out how to solve it and be more concise :P

Hey, so am also kinda in the same line, i might go overword, and mine is on ITGS. i apparently kept some stuff in textboxes and not in paragraphs..does that cound into wordcount as well?

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Is is specified in any way how many words the introduction should have? :/

There is no specific amount of words your introduction should have, because the amount varies from person to person based on their topic. One EE might need a 500 word introduction and another might need 800. Just make sure your introduction has all the required parts and effectively introduces your topic for the rest of the essay, defining any concepts the reader needs to know and providing relevant background information. What's your subject?

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Do titles, sub titles, etc. count?

I have about 80 words in those alone. >_<

Unless they're in the table of contents or something like that then yes they do count.

If you're over the word count can you make them more precise/take out a few/combine a few sections?

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  • 2 months later...

My Geog IA was supposed to be 1500 words and when I finished the draft it had nearly 4000 words and everything was needed. Somehow I managed to cram stuff into diagrams, footnotes and such but I still had to stretch the truth a bit tongue.gif with my word count.

Anyway. The thing about cutting down words is that it can be hard to do it yourself since you wrote it and you think everything's needed. But it's doable.

1. Look for unecessary words like saying stuff like: "return back" - where just "return" would be fine.

2. Cut long phrases such as "On the other hand" and replace with synonyms that are shorter such as "Alternatively".

4. Change wordy phrases such as "the personality of character" to something like "character's personality".

3. As luami said, change sentence structures around a bit to make them more concise.

The thing is, even if you cut 1 word per line, at the end it adds up to rather a lot.

If after trying it, you're still really desperate, I could look over it for you and try to cut down some words for you. It's easier from an outsider's point of view to see how the word count can be reduced. Don't worry, I won't cut any ideas. tongue.gif And I'm free after Friday (midsession break! yaay!) so I'll have time to do it...

...though I've just realised, it's not in English is it? Darn. biggrin.gif

For a geography EE if I include things like statistic do they count as a word?

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hi i have about 4060 words do you think they will mind? thanks!

Some people try to be devious and hide the fact that their word count is higher than the limit, but if the reader suspects that you are over they may check and if in fact you are over the limit, you will lose points for formatting and they don't have to read past it. Are you absolutely certain you cannot remove 60 words from your EE? It's not like you have to remove 1000 words.

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3500 is a solid word count for an EE

In your subject area: Literature here are possible helpful tips

1. Books, are used as references. Try "analysing" literary works, instead of describing or telling a story.

2.Be CAREFUL with quotes. Dont add same details quotes on the same paragraph. Some are just too wordy. You can paraphrase the quotes as well

3.Check the introduction and the conclusion of the essay especially carefully. A lot of repetition and unnecessary detail show up in these two spots, and many people ho and hum a bit before they get to the point. Can you pull the reader into your subject more quickly or sum up the point in fewer words?

4. I know this is obvious but PLEASE, Remove repetition. Try to make each of your points just once. Making your point effectively and succinctly the first time eliminates the need to repeat yourself. This takes practice but it's a skill worth honing; you'll appreciate this skill throughout your life.

5.Play “Kill the Paragraph”

One seemingly scary — but sometimes very useful — editing technique is to tell yourself, “Okay, I have one minute to decide which whole paragraph in this essay has to get cut. Start chopping!” Almost certainly, every paragraph will seem like a must-have, but eventually you’ll pick the least important one. Then, go back and find what one or two ideas from that paragraph you wish you could add back in, and then find a way to succinctly work them back into the essay in another place. This technique might sound crazy, but it’s another effective way to trim the fat. It works best when you have an essay with multiple similarly-sized paragraphs… Simply cutting out a two-sentence conclusion paragraph normally won’t be enough.

**** If you want I can revise you Extended Essay.

Remember two heads are better than one. We can all help you. :gathering:

I'm as well available, and I personally have a professor, whom has recieved the IB Diploma, and is a research teacher.

Notify me if you need anything.

GOOD LUCK!!! :julie:

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  • 9 months later...

Hey! Below is a quote from another thread (http://www.ibsurvival.com/topic/26386-history-ee-any-tips-for-reducing-the-word-count-by-1000-wds/), where user alefal had some really good tips on how to cut down words! Thought I would re-post this here since this thread specifically deals with cutting down words on the EE.

Hey there!

I know the pain of cutting your word count, had to do quite a lot of that in my own EE. There were arguments that I considered as important that I wasn't able to include, even.

Firstly, you want to attempt finding words that can be abbreviated. For instance, The Soviet Union can be shortened to USSR, The People's Republic of China can be shortened to PRC, United States of America to USA, etc. Remember to put the abbreviation in brackets after the first mention of the entity. For instance:

As Professor James Kylan asserts in his journal article Communism and Capitalism: Two Evils, The Soviet Union (henceforth USSR) never truly recovered from Stalin's policies.

(Note: This is a fictional reference, and does probably not exist)

Secondly, you should look at your sentences. Are there adjectives you can remove (adjectives are in most cases redundant, and furthermore it makes your essay more prone to bias)? Can you rephrase the sentence into a more concise sentence? Do you use more words than necessary? Consider these two sentences:

(1) Stalin's horrendous policies can be understood to have a gruesome nature because, unlike Lenin and Trotsky, Stalin was a cynical bastard who liked to kill poor bastards that had not done anything wrong in the first case, which is completely preposterous.

(2) Stalin's policies may be understood as inhumane, as many innocent people were killed during his regime.

Whereas the first sentence is full of irrelevant and subjective comments, the second goes to the very core of the first sentence, is much more concise and without any irrelevance, assuming that both sentences attempt to describe how Stalin's policies may be understood by some people.

Thirdly, make sure that everything you mention is relevant to the argument, and that the argument answers the research question. If anything's irrelevant, cut it.

Fourthly, get some of your friends (who are not afraid of giving negative as well as positive comments) to read through and to note what they found redundant, overly complex or too wordy. Sometimes, it is hard to see what is redundant when you have written the text itself, and it is always good to have a second opinion on these matters.

Fifthly, leave the essay a few days, and return to it later on. A longer break is often essential for a person to be properly able to go through his or her own essay and to properly critique his or her own work.

As for what counts and doesn't count for the word count, the EE guide should make this pretty clear. You could also see this post: http://www.ibsurviva...ounts/?p=198092


Good luck!

So, again, the above tips are not mine but alefal's so all credit goes to him and his awesome EE word-cutting tips ;)

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Hei even though the EE has a word limit, i don't think so writing an over words for the essay is not loss the marks.

If I get what you're trying to say, that's not true at all. The EE has a word limit for a reason and you must stick to it. The IB doesn't want to read 10,000 word ramblings. It wants you to write a concise, analytic essay.You lose points for going over the word limit because you didn't follow the formatting instructions. It's a very simple concept and I don't know why people think that they can ignore it and still get a really high score. In addition, any content over the 4000 words doesn't have to be read, so if you put your entire conclusion past the 4000 word mark there goes all your conclusion points as well.

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