Tips to Make a Paper Longer (Word Count Standards)

If you’re on this page, it’s probably because my page count tips weren’t sufficient, or they didn’t apply to your situation. Unfortunately, these tips require a little more brain power and skill to execute without looking like you’re trying too hard. But, fear not! Hopefully you can pull it off and pass that class with a decent grade.

Tip 1: Restate everything

Teachers will tell you they don’t want you to be repetitive in your essay. They want you to state the point and move on. I’m telling you to be repetitive. It will actually help your paper if you do repeat things a couple times, you just need to learn how to do so skillfully. This is the most effective way to add on to your paper, and as you will see below with the other points I make, this is the foundation of almost every word count tip. This is because adding more words, whether necessary or not, is literally the only way to increase your word count.

Okay now stop. I want you to re-read that last paragraph. See what I did there? I repeated about 2 concepts numerous times, and I bet you bought it. The key to restating everything is just explaining it in a different way, while simultaneously switching up your techniques frequently enough that the techniques don’t get repetitive.

Tip 2: Use opposites

Let’s look back at that first paragraph under tip one. Let’s call this our example paragraph for the remainder of the post. The first two sentences are:

Teachers will tell you they don’t want you to be repetitive in your essay. They want you to state the point and move on.

I start out saying what teachers don’t want, but I followed it with the clarification of what they do want. Clarifying through opposites like this can be a little trickier with certain topics, but it gets easily over looked by graders because, hey, you’re just being thorough in making sure people think you know what you’re talking about.

Tip 3: Switch up your sentence types

This tip is kind of just for good writing in general, but it’s especially something to be aware of when you don’t know what to write. Vary between simple, complex, and compound sentences so you look like you know what you’re doing. It makes it seem like you have a point. Like you know where you’re going with this and it’s all leading up to something big.

See what I just did there? Those last two sentences in that paragraph were getting the same idea across as the last clause in the sentence before them. I’m just rewording things. I’m still doing it. I’m honestly just kind of hoping you’ll get more used to it the more I keep doing it.

This really does help though, even if you don’t know what you’re doing, at least be skillful and crafty at not knowing.

Tip 4: Adverbs and prepositions, not adjectives

Like tip 3, this is just kind of a general writing tip that simultaneously helps with word counts. One of the biggest mistakes I see with people trying to increase their word count is they’ll just toss in a few adjectives here and there and that’s it. It makes it really obvious what you’re trying to do because it’s too basic and unnatural. Take the following sentence for an example:

                The dog chased the ball.

Now, if you expand this with adjectives you have:

               The big, brown dog chased the blue and red ball.

You’ve doubled the word count, but it sounds like a kindergartener wrote it. Instead, try:

               The dog quickly chased the ball down the avenue and into the alley.

Now you have a far more interesting sentence, and an even higher word count. You can still add adjectives into this, like specifying it was a “dark alley,” but try to limit it or it’ll seem like you’re trying too hard.

Tip 5: Pretend your reader just doesn’t get it

If the paper is over a book, your teacher probably told you not to give a summary, pretend the person reading your essay has already read the book. Yeah, that’s good advice, but pretend the person reading your paper read the book and just doesn’t understand it. Really engrain every point into their head, and when you think they understand, through in another sentence explaining it. Be thorough and be specific. Re-read this post and look how many times I’ve done that here. How many times have I explained things more than once or beat you over the head with a concept? I did it at least twice in the last sentence alone.

This tip works well because instead of tossing in a couple redundant words, it just looks like you’re clarifying your concepts. Including one repetitive sentence will get you a lot further in meeting your word count than tossing in a couple meaningless words here and there.

Tip 6: Practice

I’m serious. All I’ve said in this whole post is to repeat yourself many times over, and I was able to drag like two words out into almost 900 words. I’ve been doing this for a long time and being an English major has definitely helped. But, if you don’t have to do this as often as me, try making a game out of it. When you’re bored, try taking a simple sentence of something happening around you and see how long you can make it. For example, my air conditioning is running. Let me now elaborate:

                My air conditioning is running in my apartment to keep my living spaces cool. It’s summer right now, so it’s pretty hot outside, and living in Texas doesn’t help. I have to keep my air running on high though, because I only have one window unit to rely on for cooling my living room, kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom sufficiently.

Tip 7: Know your limits

I could keep going with this post, but I won’t because I know when to stop. So should you—you don’t want to make it too obvious that you don’t know what you’re doing.