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Looking for an expert on the British Empire to help me cut down an essay!

Hey, i was wondering if anybody could help me cut down my essay to 3000 words, for A2 Edexcel history coursework. Im around 1500 words over and im struggling to see what i can cut out. This is a nightmare. General tips would be great also.

Cheers.
Reply 1
Avatar for HCD
HCD
16
I know your pain, my English coursework had the same problems.

First stage of cutting is to see if there are any cases where one word can do the same job as two, cut unnecessary adjectives, etc. That should shave a few hundred off.

After that, don't be afraid to cut chunks out. Sentences, paragraphs, whole ideas. You'll have to. It hurts, I know, but you will need to remove entire arguments from the essay and keep it tied together. Yes, this means cutting out good, even excellent, arguments and pieces of writing. At the end of the day, you've just got to take the plunge.

Good luck!
Reply 2
Avatar for Tiger_S
Tiger_S
OP
its so painfull, lol. I was foolish to think it would be easy when my teacher said all i have to do is cut down to make the word limit. I just keep thinking..."oh wait, this is too good to be taken out", and, "what if they would have really liked this bit.." .In history not to many adjectives, just plain facts. Il give it a go though thanks.
Facts aren't always guranteed of good marks if your throwing them in there. If they are directly used to support a point you have just made, then they are the ones that need to stay as it is the argument you are portraying which gets you the marks. Unnecessary detail can be scrapped, don't feel bad about taking out endless statistics, dates and events unless they are directly relevant to your argument - or the context of an explanation. :smile:
Reply 4
Avatar for Alasdair
Alasdair
14
I would actually say the opposite to HCD. One well-argued point will be better than five where you haven't managed to develop your argument because of word restrictions... So kill entire chunks first.

OR, be radical, and start with a blank sheet and build it up out of what you've got...
Stages in cutting down an essay:

-Print it out and go over it with a Big Red Pen (TM) to remove un-necessary words.

-Re-count.

-If still over, re-write it. Seriously, just open up a new document and copy accross the best bits.

I've managed to remove 6,000 words from my dissertation draft just through going through and deleting extraneous words and rewriting sentances to reduce wordcount; you should be able to do the same. :smile:
Reply 6
Avatar for Tiger_S
Tiger_S
OP
thanks for the encouragment, 6000 words..lol congrats on that! Gah looks like paragraphs will be sacrificed.:frown:
Reply 7
Avatar for *River
*River
15
You'll probably find that you've got a lot of unnecessary narrative in it, but in general I echo FadeToBlackout's suggestions, and the point about one well-argued point being better than 5 scant ones.

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