words to use to expand your essay

Save £500 when you enrol by 30th September!

• 40 Useful Words and Phrases for Top-Notch Essays

To be truly brilliant, an essay needs to utilise the right language. You could make a great point, but if it’s not intelligently articulated, you almost needn’t have bothered.

Developing the language skills to build an argument and to write persuasively is crucial if you’re to write outstanding essays every time. In this article, we’re going to equip you with the words and phrases you need to write a top-notch essay, along with examples of how to utilise them.

It’s by no means an exhaustive list, and there will often be other ways of using the words and phrases we describe that we won’t have room to include, but there should be more than enough below to help you make an instant improvement to your essay-writing skills.

If you’re interested in developing your language and persuasive skills, Oxford Royale offers summer courses at its Oxford Summer School , Cambridge Summer School , London Summer School , San Francisco Summer School and Yale Summer School . You can study courses to learn english , prepare for careers in law , medicine , business , engineering and leadership.

General explaining

Let’s start by looking at language for general explanations of complex points.

1. In order to

Usage: “In order to” can be used to introduce an explanation for the purpose of an argument. Example: “In order to understand X, we need first to understand Y.”

2. In other words

Usage: Use “in other words” when you want to express something in a different way (more simply), to make it easier to understand, or to emphasise or expand on a point. Example: “Frogs are amphibians. In other words, they live on the land and in the water.”

3. To put it another way

Usage: This phrase is another way of saying “in other words”, and can be used in particularly complex points, when you feel that an alternative way of wording a problem may help the reader achieve a better understanding of its significance. Example: “Plants rely on photosynthesis. To put it another way, they will die without the sun.”

4. That is to say

Usage: “That is” and “that is to say” can be used to add further detail to your explanation, or to be more precise. Example: “Whales are mammals. That is to say, they must breathe air.”

5. To that end

Usage: Use “to that end” or “to this end” in a similar way to “in order to” or “so”. Example: “Zoologists have long sought to understand how animals communicate with each other. To that end, a new study has been launched that looks at elephant sounds and their possible meanings.”

Adding additional information to support a point

Students often make the mistake of using synonyms of “and” each time they want to add further information in support of a point they’re making, or to build an argument. Here are some cleverer ways of doing this.

6. Moreover

Usage: Employ “moreover” at the start of a sentence to add extra information in support of a point you’re making. Example: “Moreover, the results of a recent piece of research provide compelling evidence in support of…”

7. Furthermore

Usage:This is also generally used at the start of a sentence, to add extra information. Example: “Furthermore, there is evidence to suggest that…”

8. What’s more

Usage: This is used in the same way as “moreover” and “furthermore”. Example: “What’s more, this isn’t the only evidence that supports this hypothesis.”

9. Likewise

Usage: Use “likewise” when you want to talk about something that agrees with what you’ve just mentioned. Example: “Scholar A believes X. Likewise, Scholar B argues compellingly in favour of this point of view.”

10. Similarly

Usage: Use “similarly” in the same way as “likewise”. Example: “Audiences at the time reacted with shock to Beethoven’s new work, because it was very different to what they were used to. Similarly, we have a tendency to react with surprise to the unfamiliar.”

11. Another key thing to remember

Usage: Use the phrase “another key point to remember” or “another key fact to remember” to introduce additional facts without using the word “also”. Example: “As a Romantic, Blake was a proponent of a closer relationship between humans and nature. Another key point to remember is that Blake was writing during the Industrial Revolution, which had a major impact on the world around him.”

12. As well as

Usage: Use “as well as” instead of “also” or “and”. Example: “Scholar A argued that this was due to X, as well as Y.”

13. Not only… but also

Usage: This wording is used to add an extra piece of information, often something that’s in some way more surprising or unexpected than the first piece of information. Example: “Not only did Edmund Hillary have the honour of being the first to reach the summit of Everest, but he was also appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire.”

14. Coupled with

Usage: Used when considering two or more arguments at a time. Example: “Coupled with the literary evidence, the statistics paint a compelling view of…”

15. Firstly, secondly, thirdly…

Usage: This can be used to structure an argument, presenting facts clearly one after the other. Example: “There are many points in support of this view. Firstly, X. Secondly, Y. And thirdly, Z.

16. Not to mention/to say nothing of

Usage: “Not to mention” and “to say nothing of” can be used to add extra information with a bit of emphasis. Example: “The war caused unprecedented suffering to millions of people, not to mention its impact on the country’s economy.”

Words and phrases for demonstrating contrast

When you’re developing an argument, you will often need to present contrasting or opposing opinions or evidence – “it could show this, but it could also show this”, or “X says this, but Y disagrees”. This section covers words you can use instead of the “but” in these examples, to make your writing sound more intelligent and interesting.

17. However

Usage: Use “however” to introduce a point that disagrees with what you’ve just said. Example: “Scholar A thinks this. However, Scholar B reached a different conclusion.”

18. On the other hand

Usage: Usage of this phrase includes introducing a contrasting interpretation of the same piece of evidence, a different piece of evidence that suggests something else, or an opposing opinion. Example: “The historical evidence appears to suggest a clear-cut situation. On the other hand, the archaeological evidence presents a somewhat less straightforward picture of what happened that day.”

19. Having said that

Usage: Used in a similar manner to “on the other hand” or “but”. Example: “The historians are unanimous in telling us X, an agreement that suggests that this version of events must be an accurate account. Having said that, the archaeology tells a different story.”

20. By contrast/in comparison

Usage: Use “by contrast” or “in comparison” when you’re comparing and contrasting pieces of evidence. Example: “Scholar A’s opinion, then, is based on insufficient evidence. By contrast, Scholar B’s opinion seems more plausible.”

21. Then again

Usage: Use this to cast doubt on an assertion. Example: “Writer A asserts that this was the reason for what happened. Then again, it’s possible that he was being paid to say this.”

22. That said

Usage: This is used in the same way as “then again”. Example: “The evidence ostensibly appears to point to this conclusion. That said, much of the evidence is unreliable at best.”

Usage: Use this when you want to introduce a contrasting idea. Example: “Much of scholarship has focused on this evidence. Yet not everyone agrees that this is the most important aspect of the situation.”

Adding a proviso or acknowledging reservations

Sometimes, you may need to acknowledge a shortfalling in a piece of evidence, or add a proviso. Here are some ways of doing so.

24. Despite this

Usage: Use “despite this” or “in spite of this” when you want to outline a point that stands regardless of a shortfalling in the evidence. Example: “The sample size was small, but the results were important despite this.”

25. With this in mind

Usage: Use this when you want your reader to consider a point in the knowledge of something else. Example: “We’ve seen that the methods used in the 19th century study did not always live up to the rigorous standards expected in scientific research today, which makes it difficult to draw definite conclusions. With this in mind, let’s look at a more recent study to see how the results compare.”

26. Provided that

Usage: This means “on condition that”. You can also say “providing that” or just “providing” to mean the same thing. Example: “We may use this as evidence to support our argument, provided that we bear in mind the limitations of the methods used to obtain it.”

27. In view of/in light of

Usage: These phrases are used when something has shed light on something else. Example: “In light of the evidence from the 2013 study, we have a better understanding of…”

28. Nonetheless

Usage: This is similar to “despite this”. Example: “The study had its limitations, but it was nonetheless groundbreaking for its day.”

29. Nevertheless

Usage: This is the same as “nonetheless”. Example: “The study was flawed, but it was important nevertheless.”

30. Notwithstanding

Usage: This is another way of saying “nonetheless”. Example: “Notwithstanding the limitations of the methodology used, it was an important study in the development of how we view the workings of the human mind.”

Giving examples

Good essays always back up points with examples, but it’s going to get boring if you use the expression “for example” every time. Here are a couple of other ways of saying the same thing.

31. For instance

Example: “Some birds migrate to avoid harsher winter climates. Swallows, for instance, leave the UK in early winter and fly south…”

32. To give an illustration

Example: “To give an illustration of what I mean, let’s look at the case of…”

Signifying importance

When you want to demonstrate that a point is particularly important, there are several ways of highlighting it as such.

33. Significantly

Usage: Used to introduce a point that is loaded with meaning that might not be immediately apparent. Example: “Significantly, Tacitus omits to tell us the kind of gossip prevalent in Suetonius’ accounts of the same period.”

34. Notably

Usage: This can be used to mean “significantly” (as above), and it can also be used interchangeably with “in particular” (the example below demonstrates the first of these ways of using it). Example: “Actual figures are notably absent from Scholar A’s analysis.”

35. Importantly

Usage: Use “importantly” interchangeably with “significantly”. Example: “Importantly, Scholar A was being employed by X when he wrote this work, and was presumably therefore under pressure to portray the situation more favourably than he perhaps might otherwise have done.”

Summarising

You’ve almost made it to the end of the essay, but your work isn’t over yet. You need to end by wrapping up everything you’ve talked about, showing that you’ve considered the arguments on both sides and reached the most likely conclusion. Here are some words and phrases to help you.

36. In conclusion

Usage: Typically used to introduce the concluding paragraph or sentence of an essay, summarising what you’ve discussed in a broad overview. Example: “In conclusion, the evidence points almost exclusively to Argument A.”

37. Above all

Usage: Used to signify what you believe to be the most significant point, and the main takeaway from the essay. Example: “Above all, it seems pertinent to remember that…”

38. Persuasive

Usage: This is a useful word to use when summarising which argument you find most convincing. Example: “Scholar A’s point – that Constanze Mozart was motivated by financial gain – seems to me to be the most persuasive argument for her actions following Mozart’s death.”

39. Compelling

Usage: Use in the same way as “persuasive” above. Example: “The most compelling argument is presented by Scholar A.”

40. All things considered

Usage: This means “taking everything into account”. Example: “All things considered, it seems reasonable to assume that…”

How many of these words and phrases will you get into your next essay? And are any of your favourite essay terms missing from our list? Let us know in the comments below, or get in touch here to find out more about courses that can help you with your essays.

At Oxford Royale Academy, we offer a number of  summer school courses for young people who are keen to improve their essay writing skills. Click here to apply for one of our courses today, including law , business , medicine  and engineering .

Comments are closed.

Improve your English. Speak with confidence!

• Free Mini Course

• Posted in in Writing

30 Advanced Essay Words to Improve Your Grades

• Posted by by Cameron Smith
• 12 months ago
• Updated 2 months ago

In this guide, you’ll find 30 advanced essay words to use in academic writing. Advanced English words are great for making academic writing more impressive and persuasive, which has the potential to wow teachers and professors, and even improve your grades.

30 Advanced Essay Words

• Definition: Present, appearing, or found everywhere.
• Example: The smartphone has become ubiquitous in modern society.
• Replaces: Common, widespread, prevalent.
• Definition: Fluent or persuasive in speaking or writing.
• Example: Her eloquent speech captivated the audience.
• Replaces: Well-spoken, articulate.
• Definition: To make less severe, serious, or painful.
• Example: Planting more trees can help mitigate the effects of climate change.
• Replaces: Alleviate, lessen, reduce.
• Definition: In contrast or opposite to what was previously mentioned.
• Example: Some believe in climate change; conversely, others deny its existence.
• Replaces: On the other hand, in opposition.
• Definition: Stated or appearing to be true, but not necessarily so.
• Example: His ostensible reason for the delay was a traffic jam.
• Replaces: Apparent, seeming, supposed.
• Definition: A countless or extremely great number.
• Example: The internet offers a myriad of resources for research.
• Replaces: Countless, numerous.
• Definition: Exceeding what is necessary or required.
• Example: His lengthy introduction was filled with superfluous details.
• Replaces: Excessive, redundant.
• Definition: To cause something to happen suddenly or unexpectedly.
• Example: The economic crisis precipitated widespread unemployment.
• Replaces: Trigger, prompt.
• Definition: Too great or extreme to be expressed or described in words.
• Example: The beauty of the sunset over the ocean was ineffable.
• Replaces: Indescribable, inexpressible.
• Definition: Having knowledge or awareness of something.
• Example: She was cognizant of the risks involved in the project.
• Replaces: Aware, conscious.
• Definition: Relevant or applicable to a particular matter.
• Example: Please provide only pertinent information in your report.
• Replaces: Relevant, related.
• Definition: Showing great attention to detail; very careful and precise.
• Example: The researcher conducted a meticulous analysis of the data.
• Replaces: Thorough, careful.
• Definition: Capable of producing the desired result or effect.
• Example: The medication has proved to be efficacious in treating the disease.
• Replaces: Effective, successful.
• Definition: Mentioned earlier in the text or conversation.
• Example: The aforementioned study provides valuable insights.
• Replaces: Previously mentioned, previously discussed.
• Definition: To make a problem, situation, or condition worse.
• Example: His criticism only served to exacerbate the conflict.
• Replaces: Worsen, intensify.
• Definition: The state or capacity of being everywhere, especially at the same time.
• Example: The ubiquity of social media has changed how we communicate.
• Replaces: Omnipresence, pervasiveness.
• Definition: In every case or on every occasion; always.
• Example: The professor’s lectures are invariably informative.
• Replaces: Always, consistently.
• Definition: To be a perfect example or representation of something.
• Example: The city’s skyline epitomizes modern architecture.
• Replaces: Symbolize, represent.
• Definition: A harsh, discordant mixture of sounds.
• Example: The cacophony of car horns during rush hour was deafening.
• Replaces: Discord, noise.
• Definition: A person who acts obsequiously toward someone important to gain advantage.
• Example: He surrounded himself with sycophants who praised his every move.
• Replaces: Flatterer, yes-man.
• Definition: To render unclear, obscure, or unintelligible.
• Example: The politician attempted to obfuscate the details of the scandal.
• Replaces: Confuse, obscure.
• Definition: Having or showing keen mental discernment and good judgment.
• Example: Her sagacious advice guided the team to success.
• Replaces: Wise, insightful.
• Definition: Not or no longer needed or useful; superfluous.
• Example: His repeated explanations were redundant and added no value.
• Replaces: Unnecessary, surplus.
• Definition: Unwilling or refusing to change one’s views or to agree about something.
• Example: The intransigent negotiators couldn’t reach a compromise.
• Replaces: Unyielding, stubborn.
• Definition: Characterized by vulgar or pretentious display; designed to impress or attract notice.
• Example: The mansion’s ostentatious decorations were overwhelming.
• Replaces: Showy, extravagant.
• Definition: A tendency to choose or do something regularly; an inclination or predisposition.
• Example: She had a proclivity for taking risks in her business ventures.
• Replaces: Tendency, inclination.
• Definition: Difficult to interpret or understand; mysterious.
• Example: The artist’s enigmatic paintings left viewers puzzled.
• Replaces: Mysterious, cryptic.
• Definition: Having a harmful effect, especially in a gradual or subtle way.
• Example: The pernicious influence of gossip can damage reputations.
• Replaces: Harmful, destructive.
• Definition: Shining with great brightness.
• Example: The bride looked resplendent in her wedding gown.
• Replaces: Radiant, splendid.
• Definition: Optimistic, especially in a difficult or challenging situation.
• Example: Despite the setbacks, he remained sanguine.
• Replaces: Optimistic, hopeful.

Using these advanced words in your essays can elevate your writing, making it more precise, engaging, and impactful.

As you work on your essays, consider the nuanced meanings and applications of these advanced words, and use them judiciously to enhance the quality of your academic writing.

Cameron Smith

Cameron Smith is an English Communication Coach based in Vancouver, Canada. He's the founder of Learn English Every Day, and he's on a mission to help millions of people speak English with confidence. If you want longer video content, please follow me on YouTube for fun English lessons and helpful learning resources!

Post navigation

• Posted in in ESL Conversation Questions

170 Small Talk Questions to Start a Conversation with Anyone

• September 12, 2023

• Posted in in Business English

60 Essential Business Idioms: Sound Fluent at Work!

• October 14, 2023

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

How to Expand Your Essay Without Losing Your Reader’s Attention

Table of contents

• 1 Essential Parts of an Essay
• 2.1 Illustrate Your Ideas With Examples
• 2.2 Include Quotations to Increase the Word Count
• 2.3 Build On Your Message
• 2.4 Make Sure the Notions Are Clear
• 2.5 Elaborate More Transitional Phrases
• 2.6 Provide Supporting Evidence To Achieve Required Word Count
• 2.7 Always Create an Outline to Fit the Paper’s Word Count
• 3 Tricks Which Can’t Work for Your Teacher

Is your essay word count not up to the mark? Each of us faced this problem when writing voluminous works. You have already outlined all your thoughts and developed your idea, but the length of writing is still insufficient. Don’t worry, there are some easy tricks to solve this problem. In this article, we will share with you working tips on how to make your essay longer. We will also warn you about techniques that should not be used to make your essay longer, not to put your assessment at risk.

Essential Parts of an Essay

Any essay consists of three main parts: introduction, body part, and conclusion . The first paragraph exists to interest the reader, attract his attention, and bring him up to date. A topic sentence is a common beginning for an essay. It briefly reflects the main narrative of the paper.

Then follows the main part, divided into one to three paragraphs, each presenting new ideas. In the central section, you present the bulk of the intended information. Be sure to follow the logic of the narrative, and remember to use linking words to transition between topics.

And finally, there are conclusions. You can find some examples of strong conclusions on  writing service PapersOwl . In this paragraph, you have to clearly and briefly lay down the thoughts that you came up with in the course of essay writing. In simple words, if the reader only gets acquainted with the introduction and conclusion, he should be able to clearly understand what the essay is about.

Tips on How to Make an Essay Longer

Well, you have already completed the basic requirements and written the three main sections of the paper, but still, there are not enough words to fulfill the minimum page count. This will never happen when you purchase custom essays  written by professionals. However, let’s point out the ways to improve your essay quality and get a perfect score.

Illustrate Your Ideas With Examples

The requirements for some essays include the obligatory use of examples to reinforce ideas. Adding visuals to your essay will not only help increase the word count but also make it easier for readers to understand. Give multiple examples to support your information. Provide an example from the lives of famous people, a convincing argument, your own experience, or even scientific experiment data. This will allow you to sound more convincing and also fill the paper’s word count.

Include Quotations to Increase the Word Count

Many worthy thoughts have already come upon the greatest minds of mankind. By using relevant quotations, you can expand the volume of your essay, filling it with deeper meaning. Choose  quotes for essay  papers that seem appropriate to you and integrate them into writing. Quotations may be presented as ideas that inspired you to create your paper. However, do not forget to read the citation rules and references formatting so as not to be accused of plagiarism.

Build On Your Message

Read your finished writing again and ensure you have expressed yourself clearly and haven’t missed any detail. Develop your points to share them with the public as unambiguously as possible. Give a few additional arguments, view the topic from new angles, and expand the backstory to immerse the reader in the context of the paper. Don’t forget about the counterargument section .

Make Sure the Notions Are Clear

If you have used professional vocabulary in your writing, do not forget to add an explanation. You can create a small glossary or simply explain the meaning of the terms in the general flow. Such important details should be available to the reader so that he has the opportunity to understand the key information.

Elaborate More Transitional Phrases

Having smooth transitions between one idea and the other, one paragraph and another, will ensure ease of reading. If you find yourself in a situation where you need to add length to an essay, you can enrich the text with transitional words and structures. And although this will not add extra information, it will help you keep the narrative coherent.

Provide Supporting Evidence To Achieve Required Word Count

Examine the data, and figure out information that can be supporting evidence for the thoughts you’ve outlined in your essay. The presence of visual indicators leads to an increase in the level of trust in you as a specialist. The trick of presenting more evidence can greatly increase the word count in your essay.

Always Create an Outline to Fit the Paper’s Word Count

Long-form essays require clear structure. Writing an essay outline will save you from the problem of not reaching the minimum word count. In the process of structuring your thoughts, you must indicate how many words you need to write in each section. What should you do if you have already written an essay without having developed an outline before, and now you need to expand it? You still have to create a plan yourself or resort to assignment writing help  online. Analyze the finished work, write down the main structural units, and calculate the number of words. This will give you an idea of which paragraphs to expand.

Tricks Which Can’t Work for Your Teacher

Sometimes, in a desperate desire to lengthen their essay, students resort to ineffective methods. As a result, they remain dissatisfied with their assessment. Let’s look at what mistakes you should avoid so as not to endanger your performance.

Do not try to enlarge your essay by formatting . Increasing line spacing or making the font size bigger won’t get you to the point. The problem is that the larger font is visible, so your teacher will notice your cheating straight away. Playing with standards of margin size and choosing larger font will undermine your reputation in the teacher’s eyes. It’s always better to provide more examples or simply make the header longer to poet some extra space for the research.

Shifting the responsibility to your trusted friend is not an option. Many people advise giving your paper to a friend for verification, but this is not at all a reliable solution. You can entrust the check to a professional writer, who will check if you missed something and if the font size and other formatting are correct. However, delegating paper verification to a friend if he is not a certified linguist will not bring results.

Adding more words by eliminating abbreviations does not require much work, but it greatly simplifies the content of your research. Don’t resort to a redundancy writing  strategy, but try to add a couple of sentences to the conclusion. This will not only increase the length but give you some extra points for interesting ideas.

Plagiarizing other writers’ thoughts and directly copying phrases and paragraphs is the worst idea of all. Your research paper is supposed to be original, and each argument you provide should be formulated creatively. However, there are still some tricks to beat Turnitin  that professional writers have shared with students. Still, don’t try to make your essay longer by copy-pasting.

The last point is not to double your own argument. We know it can be hard for students to come up with ideas on how to increase the length of the paper, but parroting your own points is not going to make your essay interesting for readers. Try to add a couple of sentences to each of the existing paragraphs instead.

Writing an essay is a difficult and complex task. Turning your thoughts into coherent and structured phrases is more of a challenge than it might seem. However, when you have wandered into a dead end, do not despair. Taking a fresh look at your writing will help you gather your thoughts and write a great essay. By following our simple tips, you can easily add length to your paper and get a high score.

Readers also enjoyed

WHY WAIT? PLACE AN ORDER RIGHT NOW!

Just fill out the form, press the button, and have no worries!

We use cookies to give you the best experience possible. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy.

10 Ways to Increase Your Essay Word Count (AI Included)

Table of contents

One of the biggest challenges students face is writing long-form essays of 2,000 words or more.

Someone brought this up at a recent webinar I attended, and I couldn't help but think back to my freshman year. Several years ago, I had to write a long essay on an interesting but unfamiliar subject. It took me a lot longer than it should.

After writing hundreds of articles, essays and reports, I've developed my own list of 'smart hacks' to help increase word count on any written piece. 

Let's dive into the word count expansion strategies I use today when I write various texts.

How NOT to increase word count

Adding fluff words.

Adding meaningless words only confuses the core arguments and distracts the evaluator. Whatever merit your actual content may have had will be obscured by a mountain of meaningless words.

The sentence in my essay read,

"Violent acts by adults are often caused by childhood exposure to violence.".  

If I try to forcedly add fluff words to expand the text, my sentence would sound stretched:

“Violent acts are often associated with the fact that adults who commit violent acts - acts that are seen as savage, harsh, rough, physically abusive, or otherwise unacceptable in society - have been exposed to similar harsh or extreme violence during their childhoods or when they were young”.

Voice and tone

Although passive voice makes a sentence longer, I have found that my writing is much sharper when I use active voice. Also, do not confuse the need to use a formal or academic tone with passive voice.

Quoting without context

This one is like digging yourself into a hole. I quoted so many out-of-context references that I found my essay running on all sorts of tangents. After spending hours trying to connect the dots between the tangents, I ended up having to rewrite the entire piece because I was unable to justify the distracting content. 

Mindless paraphrasing

You hear it from your professor, and spew it back at her. Mindlessly repeating content in different sections of an essay - as if your teacher wouldn't notice, won't really help you ace your courses.

Even more mistakes

After asking some of my classmates, I found out that some of them had resorted to even worse hacks that eventually got them in trouble:

• Using filler words - In order to fill more pages, some diverge from the specified format and increase fonts, margins, and spacing. You will lose credibility if you do this, and you will also lose points if you deviate from the writing style specified.
• Plagiarism - Plagiarizing large chunks from others' essays or research papers was not only seen as lazy, but it was a fast way from a not-so-great grade to a failed grade.
• Other sneaky tricks - These included whitening out gibberish text and increasing the size of periods. Teachers have seen it all and know every trick in the book.

The right way to increase word count

Eventually, my word count increased in a way that makes each word actually count (pardon the pun), and it turns out there are some pretty cool tricks to do that.

With the right tools and techniques, you spend less time on the heavy lifting, more time on the actual writing, and at the end of the day, you have a much more comprehensive essay that is a delight to read. =

1. Use an AI writing tool

Skip the manual paraphrasing and use a smart AI writing tool. For example, I added almost 50 words to a 125-word paragraph using Wordtune’s text expand feature .

How to add more sentences to a paragraph

One method to expand your word count is to find short paragraphs and adding more sentences that clarify what they mean. This task used to be pretty frustrating, but with the use of AI it's made simple. Start by going over the essay, and notice if there's a paragraph that stands out in terms of being lean and overly simplified. Paste that paragraph into the Wordtune editor, and click the 'Plus' icon.

You'll be able to expand the article in any number of ways, including adding an explanation, an analogy, a counterargument, or even a simple continuation of your idea. Then, simply scroll through the different suggestions that AI produces, and find the best one.

2. Take advantage of outlines

It may seem counter-intuitive, but completing your outline can help you meet your word count goal.

Say you need to turn a 200-word article into a 1,500-word essay. Make an outline of the article before trying to tackle this seemingly impossible task of writing the whole piece.This will give you a clearer picture of how your entire thesis works and how to logically support it.

As an example, suppose we're writing an essay on why kids shouldn't play phone games.

To begin, you need to summarize your message in a few sentences. For example:

‍ “Kids have susceptible brains, and games can change the whole chemistry of their brains in a bad way, causing them to go off on tantrums and screaming fits. Moreover, these games form addictive habits that will persist when the kids become older. By continuing to play phone games, the kids fail to develop emotionally, and may become unsocial introverted people. Moreover, there are signs that games make kids more violent and emotionally unstable. Since phones are always at reach, kids can continuously play throughout the day, not stopping even when eating lunch or when attending a school class.”

Before expanding it, write an outline to get a sense of its structure and flow. As a result, you can easily determine how much text is needed for each section, which ones require expanded text, and which ones can be kept brief.  This clarity not only helps me reduce anxiety, but also gives me a clear plan of action to finish this essay!

For example, for the paragraph on video games, my outline would look something like this:

Introduction (include statistics and research to argue that video games are harmful for kids) and state the thesis (250 words) Negative effects of video games on children: first build larger categories and then substantiate with smaller points, evidence and data within each point: - Effects on emotional development (200 words) - Effects on physical development (200 words) - Effects on social development (200 words) - Effects on intellectual development (200 words) Give counter-views Cite research that talks about potential positive effects of video games, if used the proper way and under supervision (250 words) Give solutions State why parents find it so hard to keep kids away from video games, especially mobile video games, and offer concrete solutions to set better boundaries with kids for video game usage (250 words) Conclusion Offer a strong conclusion that brings all of the essay together in a summary (250 words)

Note that I’ve planned to write a few hundred more words than the prescribed word limit, so I have scope to edit and tighten later on. 

3. Expand your text with intros and conclusions

I use this method all the time to get unstuck and write longer articles without worrying about word counts.

Let's say you finish expanding your outline, and the article is still short a few hundred words.

Two places you should consider expanding are the introduction and conclusion.

How does this work?

• In the introduction and conclusion, you can add free-flowing stories, ideas and paragraphs, without having to validate each sentence with technical reference, sources and quotes.
• You can use anecdotes, personal experiences, news articles, and research findings to introduce your topic, or to close it.
• You can also go into detail about why you were motivated to explore the topic in more depth and why it has helped you to develop your argument. We wrote about essay hooks in more detail here, so be sure to check it out.
• Remind readers why this entire argument matters at the human level in the conclusion. This is done by repeating the topic, the core of your argument, and why you have justified your thesis. 

Add these elements to your introduction and conclusion, and you will quickly reach your essay quota.

Here's an example from the Wordtune blog of an anecdote placed as part of the intro:

4. Use examples to illustrate your point

It is always helpful to provide examples to illustrate complex academic or technical points. As well as adding color and descriptiveness to your own words, examples help your arguments come to life in a way that academic writing cannot. Having read several essays about the same topic, your evaluator will probably find it enjoyable to read something more creative and genuine. 

Examples also help readers visualize your narrative. The situations can be real or imagined, but they must be authentic, relatable, and most importantly, relevant to your topic. Providing examples from your real-life experience will demonstrate to the teacher that you understand your topic.

I started this article by describing my experience as a freshman. The challenges I faced as a student are similar to those you are currently facing, so sharing my journey will help you learn from my mistakes.

5. Invest in serious research 

Research is the most effective way to increase a paper's word count. 

The more research you conduct, the more ideas, perspectives, and information you have to base your arguments on. 

Research takes time and effort, which you may or may not have. 

Here's where my smart tools come into play.

No matter how long a paper is, Wordtune Read will give you all the key highlights.

The following is a composite screenshot of how Wordtune Read summarized the effects of video games on children from a long and complex article. The key highlights on the right help you distill the core messages of the research in minutes, condensing hours of reading into minutes.

In just a few steps, you can add at least two supporting arguments or stats for each point you have in your outline. And just like that, you have several hundred very relevant words, added almost effortlessly to your essay.

6. Ask 'Why' questions

At this stage, the research has already provided you with some solid perspectives, but there's nothing like adding some original perspectives to the existing body of research. Asking ‘why’ questions is an effective way to do this. In addition to strengthening your arguments, it will also enhance your essay with relevant and original content.

Think back to the example of the negative effects of video games on children. Let's say one of the arguments you have is "phone games cause emotional issues". Use a series of 'why' questions to dig deeper into the text. 

Ask questions like: "why is that true?", "Why is it important?", etc. For each answer, ask another why question and develop some original angles based on the insights that may emerge. 

While it beats manual paraphrasing in terms of speed, I felt it also improved the overall quality of the writing.

7. Address the counter view

It's a foolproof way to score brownie points with tutors and also add some value - and word count - to your essay. 

Counter views or counterpoints are positions diametrically opposed to your own.

I argue, for example, that video games negatively affect children in the essay about video games. There is always some literature available (and there is always some literature available) on the counter-side of why and under what circumstances video games can actually have a positive impact on children. I am able to write a pretty solid section on that topic. 

By balancing the pros and cons of both arguments, I will also be able to bridge the two points of view.

Just like that, you've added about 200 words to your essay!

8. Use quotes and references

While the bibliography section doesn’t usually count towards the overall essay word count, there are some easy tricks you can use to maximize the references. Once you are done with the essay, run through your list of citations and find interesting quotes that you may have missed, which you can now incorporate.

9. Get feedback from a friend

If you're like me, working on the same essay for a long time with complete immersion means you develop blind spots to obvious misses and flaws in your text. This could be especially problematic for non-native English speakers .

Ask a trusted friend or peer to look over your essay again. Share your essay on Gdoc with your friends and find out if they spot something that seems missing, out of place, or that stands out like a sore thumb.

Also, ask them to question your assumptions in the essay - this may give you new angles and perspectives to explore, thus expanding the word count even further.

Your friends will help you find the problematic paragraphs in your writing and make them more concise and effective .

10. Add text while editing

Once you have finished writing your essay, you can use the review stage to edit and add text to your essay.

This is another great opportunity to use your AI writing tool, and get suggestions for ways to make your sentences more fluent . You can also replace superfluous words with stronger vocabulary, and pick alternative ways to word sentences that contain repetitive words.

Try and spot long, convoluted sentences and break them up to smaller sentences.

Keep it long and interesting

Essays that meet the prescribed criteria, including word count, indicate to your teachers that you not only possess subject matter knowledge, but also writing, grammar, logic, research, and communication skills.

You can find interesting angles even in the most mundane sounding topics if you challenge yourself to do the work and not worry too much about the word count. With the 11 smart hacks - including use of the smart writing tools - essay writing and meeting the specified word count becomes much easier! 

Learning how to expand a text in an interesting way - and not just by adding fluff - makes you a better writer regardless of the format - essays, reports, statements of purpose - even books! 

Share This Article:

8 Tips for E-commerce Copywriting Success (with Examples!)

The Brand Strategy Deck You Need to Drive Social Media Results + 5 Examples

Grammarly Alternatives: Which Writing Assistant is the Best Choice for You?

Looking for fresh content, thank you your submission has been received.

Essay Extender for Students

Have you ever struggled to reach the specific word count while writing an essay? Our online essay extender can help you get the desired word count with just a few simple steps. All you have to do is:

• Copy and paste your essay.
• Choose how many words you need in your paper.
• Click the "Extend" button.

💎 5 Key Advantages of the Essay Extender

🙋 when to use the ai essay extender, 📜 essay extender free examples, 🖇️ essay word extender tips, 🔗 references.

Our essay word extender offers a range of benefits that can enhance your writing experience. Here are some of them:

With its user-friendly interface, our online essay extender can assist you in various ways. Check out these ideas on how you can use the tool.

1. To Increase the Word Count

One of the most common uses of our essay extender is to increase an essay's word count. You add words to the entire text or a specific part, for example, introduction, conclusion, or body paragraphs. This gives you more control over where you want to expand an essay and helps you tailor the extension to the academic requirements .

Our tool adds words without compromising the quality of their writing. Since it uses advanced AI algorithms, it extends the text while maintaining the coherence and flow of the original content.

2. To Add a New Part

AI essay extender can also help you add a new part to your essay. For example, if you have already written the introduction and body paragraphs but are struggling with the conclusion, our tool can generate it.

Similarly, if you need to add a new body paragraph to support your argument , our essay extender can generate a paragraph based on your prompt. This feature is particularly useful when you are short on time and need to complete your essay quickly.

3. To Get New Ideas

Sometimes, you only need a fresh perspective to improve your writing. Our essay extender can generate unique ideas by developing a body paragraph on any topic. This feature is helpful for those who are stuck with their writing and need some inspiration to continue. You can use this generated paragraph as a starting point and further develop it according to your ideas and arguments.

Wanna see how essay extender generator works in practice? Let's try it together. Imagine you're writing an argumentative essay on "Should all internships be paid?" We'll use our tool to add some words to a body paragraph and then develop an effective introduction.

All internships should be paid for the simple fact that interns are providing valuable work and skills to the company. It is unfair to expect young workers, who are often already struggling with student debt, to work for free. Interns are not just shadowing or observing; they actively contribute to the company's operations and success. By not compensating them, companies are perpetuating a cycle of unpaid labor and exploiting the enthusiasm and eagerness of young workers. Furthermore, paying interns shows that their time and contributions are valued, allowing them to gain practical experience without financial strain.

All internships should be paid for the simple fact that interns are providing valuable work and skills to the company. It is unfair to expect young workers, who are often already struggling with student debt, to work for free. Interns are not just shadowing or observing; they actively contribute to the company's operations and success. For example, a student who is completing an unpaid internship at a marketing firm may be responsible for creating social media content, conducting market research, and assisting with client meetings. These tasks require time, effort, and skills, and the intern should be compensated for their contributions. By not compensating them, companies are perpetuating a cycle of unpaid labor and exploiting the enthusiasm and eagerness of young workers. Moreover, unpaid internships often come with hidden costs that can be a significant burden for students. For instance, a student interning in a different city may have to cover transportation, housing, and other expenses on top of working for free. Furthermore, paying interns shows that their time and contributions are valued, allowing them to gain practical experience without financial strain. Companies should recognize the contributions interns bring to their organization and compensate them accordingly for their hard work.

Internships have become a common way for students to gain practical experience and valuable skills in their chosen field. However, the issue of whether these internships should be paid or not has sparked a debate. While some argue that unpaid internships provide valuable learning opportunities, others believe that all internships should be paid to ensure fair treatment of young workers. In this essay, we will explore why all internships should be paid, including the value that interns bring to organizations and the hidden costs of unpaid internships.

Check out these helpful tips to work on your academic writing skills and extend an essay manually.

• Expand your arguments . Instead of simply stating your point, provide more detailed examples to support your ideas.
• Use transitional phrases . Transition phrases such as "in addition," "furthermore," and "moreover" can help you connect your ideas and add more depth to your essay.
• Include relevant statistics and data . Adding statistics and data from reliable sources can boost the credibility of your essay and help you expand your arguments.
• Incorporate quotes . Including quotes from experts or authoritative individuals adds depth and weight to your essay.
• Provide background information . If you feel that certain concepts need more explanation, you can provide background information to help the reader better understand your points.

Remember, when expanding on your arguments, it is essential to do so smartly. This means providing detailed explanations and relevant examples that add length to your essay and strengthen your points.

❓ Essay Extender FAQ

Updated: Jul 19th, 2024

• How to Increase or Decrease Your Paper’s Word Count | Grammarly
• How to Increase Your Essay Word Count - Word Counter Blog
• Transitions - The Writing Center • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• What Are Filler Words? (Examples and Tips To Avoid Them) | Indeed.com
• How to Write an Introduction Paragraph in 3 Steps

IvyPanda uses cookies and similar technologies to enhance your experience, enabling functionalities such as:

• Basic site functions
• Ensuring secure, safe transactions
• Secure account login
• Remembering account, browser, and regional preferences
• Remembering privacy and security settings
• Analyzing site traffic and usage
• Personalized search, content, and recommendations
• Displaying relevant, targeted ads on and off IvyPanda

Please refer to IvyPanda's Cookies Policy and Privacy Policy for detailed information.

Certain technologies we use are essential for critical functions such as security and site integrity, account authentication, security and privacy preferences, internal site usage and maintenance data, and ensuring the site operates correctly for browsing and transactions.

Cookies and similar technologies are used to enhance your experience by:

• Remembering general and regional preferences
• Personalizing content, search, recommendations, and offers

Some functions, such as personalized recommendations, account preferences, or localization, may not work correctly without these technologies. For more details, please refer to IvyPanda's Cookies Policy .

To enable personalized advertising (such as interest-based ads), we may share your data with our marketing and advertising partners using cookies and other technologies. These partners may have their own information collected about you. Turning off the personalized advertising setting won't stop you from seeing IvyPanda ads, but it may make the ads you see less relevant or more repetitive.

Personalized advertising may be considered a "sale" or "sharing" of the information under California and other state privacy laws, and you may have the right to opt out. Turning off personalized advertising allows you to exercise your right to opt out. Learn more in IvyPanda's Cookies Policy and Privacy Policy .

How to Increase your Essay's Word Count

It happens. You pour your heart out to write the perfect college essay. You've included everything you could possibly think of in your work. Before you submit your magnificent piece of writing, you enter the essay into a word counter.

And there it is: You've come up short on your word count .

Whether it's a college application, a scholarship essay, or a report for class, word counts can be daunting sometimes. And when you come up short, there are solutions available to bulk up your writing.

This article will help you find ways to add to your word count without sacrificing on the quality of your work.

1. Know your Goal and How to Measure It Accurately

Is the requirement 800–1000 words? Is it 500 words maximum? Knowing the exact word goal is crucial when beginning to write, especially for something as important as a college entrance essay or a scholarship competition. Always be sure to read the detailed requirements for each assignment.

It's also important to use an accurate word counter for essays to calculate your word count. Find a reliable online tool to help you track your word count as you're working so you can have peace of mind that you're creating something that fits the requirements you've been given.

Once you've figured out what word count you're aiming for, it's common to look for some short cuts to help estimate your word count as you work. Some writers ask, " How many pages is 1,000 words? ". Although this varies with font type, font size, and spacing choices, generally speaking, double-spaced, typed fonts provide about 250 words per page.

Remember this is just a general rule. Always verify with a word counter before you submit a piece of writing such as a college essay.

2. Be Aware of What NOT To Do

When writers fall short of word counts, they sometimes add filler words that don't improve the quality of the writing at all. Adding pointless fillers will instead make the writing weaker.

Does the following sound familiar?

You add a few more random words, ask yourself, "How many words is this now?", check it in a word counter, and then repeat this process until you've reached the desired word count.

Though I've been guilty of this myself once or twice, this is NOT the way to properly bulk up your essay.

Being wordy in your writing does not make you appear more intelligent. If you start adding miscellaneous words to your essays, it becomes very, very, very, very obvious to your reader. (See what I did there?) It would be really, really redundant and repetitive and even more redundant to just add extra words that essentially mean the same thing. (See. I did it again.)

What you choose to add to your writing needs to be high quality and necessary. This next hint will help you add words that will enhance your writing instead of hurting it.

3. Reread Your Essay and Dig Deeper

There are many ways to add quality content to your essays that will increase your word count while still improving your work. Here are some ways to dig deeper into your writing:

Add More Details

Look for places where you might have been vague and clarify. Remember to always try to show—don't tell .

For example, let's say you previously wrote: "My feet were cold."

Can you show us "cold"? Perhaps add details to explain: "My toes were tingling and numb from the chilling, icy snow that was seeping into my tattered shoes."

These details add to your word count while painting a clear picture for your reader.

Offer an Example

If it's appropriate, offer an example.

In a college application essay, you might state, "I have won several awards." However, it's more powerful to provide an example of a specific award that has a deeper meaning: "Winning the most improved player award for volleyball was a proud moment for me. It celebrated how far I had come and how hard I had to work to become a better player for myself and my teammates."

Support Arguments with More Facts and Quotes

Find areas where you are trying to make a point, and back these statements up with more detail. Is there a quality fact you can add to support your case? Is there a great quote from an expert that will help? Adding more solid evidence to your argument can help make your opinion stronger and more supported.

Change Up Your Introduction and Conclusion

The beginning and end of your essay tend to be more flexible than the body. If you feel the body of your essay is already well-supported and doesn't need more information, perhaps it's time to rework the intro or the conclusion . Is there an interesting story you can tell? Is there a way to wrap things up that is more compelling and ties your thoughts together in a more coherent way?

4. Ask a Peer for Help

Sometimes we can't see the gaps in our own writing, so asking a friend to help out can be useful.

Have your friend read through your piece and ask him for feedback. What isn't clear? What needs more explanation? What other questions does he have for you?

These questions can help guide you to places where you can expand and provide more details.

Getting an accurate word count is important for writing college essays and qualifying for scholarship opportunities. But you shouldn't just add any words to help you meet the required length; instead, make sure you're adding quality words to balance essay length with essay quality.

Using the tips mentioned above, you will be on your way to adding the bulk you need to reach your word count and improving your writing by crafting more details and clarifications that will ultimately produce a better piece of writing.

How to Write Essay Titles and Headers

Don’t overlook the title and section headers when putting together your next writing assignment. Follow these pointers for keeping your writing organized and effective.

101 Standout Argumentative Essay Topic Ideas

Need a topic for your upcoming argumentative essay? We've got 100 helpful prompts to help you get kickstarted on your next writing assignment.

Writing a Standout College Admissions Essay

Your personal statement is arguably the most important part of your college application. Follow these guidelines for an exceptional admissions essay.

Ways to Expand (& Improve) an Essay 

Often writing assignments have a minimum length. It can be frustrating when you’re struggling to make an essay longer. This page gives you seven concrete ways to expand an essay while also making it more detailed, descriptive, and analytical. 

Expand individual paragraphs 

• Ask how and why questions. Read through each sentence and see if there is more to say about any statements or claims you are making. A good observation or idea is rarely explained in one sentence. Asking these questions, even when you think you’ve explained yourself, will help you be detailed, descriptive, and more analytical. (TIP: Give yourself a goal of adding two or three sentences to each existing paragraph. You’ll be surprised at what you discover to say!)  
• Add (more) concrete examples and evidence. Making an argument is all about supporting it with evidence. A good way to do this is to show your argument in action in an example. The more complex or complicated the idea, the more examples you’ll need. 
• Expand the introduction and/or conclusion. Now that you have a full draft of your essay, ask yourself what are some main ideas or concrete examples you use in the body of the essay that you could put in the intro to help give the reader a full picture of the main point(s) of your essay? You may even be able to write a brand new introduction now that you have your main points of the essay. 
• Add a sentence or two at the end of each paragraph summarizing (and/or refuting) the arguments presented in that paragraph. The last sentence of each paragraph should relate the paragraph’s main idea back to the essay’s thesis and explain how the paragraph supports or advances the argument of the essay. 

Write new paragraphs 

• Look for paragraphs that contain more than one idea . If you have a paragraph with three different ideas, then these ideas are usually underdeveloped. Break each idea into its own paragraph and use the tools above to expand them into fully formed paragraphs. 
• Write a paragraph addressing opposing views. Try to think of one or two objections that your audience might have to your essay’s argument, and then write a paragraph defending your argument from those opposing views. 
• Look for key terms or other information in your essay that your readers might not be familiar with. Write a paragraph that serves as an extended definition of those terms or provides background information that help your audiences better understand your subject and argument. 

Works Consulted 

• Reid, E. Shelley. “30 Things to do with your essay in the up draft(s).” The Writing Center. The Writing Center at George Mason University, 2007. issuu.com/gmuwritingcenter/docs/30-things-to-do-with-your-essay-in-the-up-drafts. Accessed 4 April 2017.

• Link to facebook
• Link to linkedin
• Link to twitter
• Link to youtube
• Writing Tips

How to Make an Essay Longer

7-minute read

• 10th May 2023

So you have an essay due the next day. You’ve been holed up in your dorm all day writing it, and now you’ve finished the conclusion. You shake your fist in celebratory fashion as you punctuate the paper’s last sentence. However, your jaw drops in horror when you focus on the word count. The essay rubric states that you must write at least 1,500 words, but you’ve written only 1,000 ! How can this be? You worked so hard to do what the assignment asked you. We know the feeling, and we’re sure every college student experiences it at least once.

So with time running out, you can do the following:

●  Submit the essay and hope the professor doesn’t notice

●  Add some gibberish sentences to get close enough to the required word count

We don’t recommend these options. Making an essay longer seems daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. That’s why we’re providing this post on expanding your essay while keeping it relevant to the topic. We’ll share our helpful tips, and by the end of the post, you’ll know what to do next time your essay falls short of the word count.

1. Add Content to the Essay

Adding more details is a great starting point for increasing the word count. Review your essay and see whether you should have addressed additional points about the topic. Could you include a few more arguments?  

You’ll likely have to review your sources to find additional claims. We understand that you might not want to do this, especially if the clock reads midnight and your class starts in nine hours. However, adding more content not only increases the word count; it also makes your essay more credible. 

If you need to add content, make sure it’s relevant to the topic. Consider the following example:

Personal details about the source’s author are irrelevant. Submitting such details will only earn you the wrath of your professor’s red ink. Let’s try an alternative:

Expanding on the citation with personal insight about screen time adds punch while keeping the discussion relevant. Additional details must move your essay forward the way dialogue and narrative do for a work of fiction.  

2. Add Transitional Sentences and Phrases

Your essay might be short of words because it lacks transitional phrases, so you should add some to the mix. In fact, every academic paper should include a healthy blend of transitional sentences and transitional words/phrases . Not sure what we mean by that? You know words and phrases such as however , moreover , and in addition . 

As with details, transitional phrases help to move the essay forward, so make sure to use them correctly. Let’s take an example from an essay about the late Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic:

As you can see, the writer uses transitional phrases correctly, adding value and words to the essay. When you use them correctly, transitional sentences and phrases improve the flow of your writing , enhancing readability. Professors expect coherent essays that flow smoothly, so transitional sentences and phrases are mandatory, regardless of word count. 

That being said, it can be easy to overuse linking words, particularly if you’re a non-native writer. Check out this interesting article from Fabio Cerpeloni, who argues that linking words can impact the readability of your text . 

3. Spell Out Words and Numbers

If you have contractions in your essay, such as can’t , won’t , and couldn’t , write them out in full. You shouldn’t use contractions at all in academic writing because they’re considered informal. Although using full versions of words seems to be a miniscule measure, doing so can go a long way to increasing your word count. And as a rule, you can also spell out numbers one through eleven. Again, doing this will help expand your essay.

Find this useful?

Subscribe to our newsletter and get writing tips from our editors straight to your inbox.

To save time switching out your contractions, make sure you’re familiar with Microsoft Word’s find and replace tool .  

4. Add More Examples

Using at least two examples, you should aim to support every argument you present. If you have only one example for an argument, add a couple more. Provide citations to support your claims; otherwise, your professor will question your knowledge. As with details, examples will strengthen your essay. It’s a win–win situation!

If the essay has enough citations but still needs more words, you could try paraphrasing claims from sources. Just be sure to paraphrase effectively . You wouldn’t want to fall into the trap of plagiarism!

5. Review the Introduction and Conclusion

Now that you’ve written the essay, go back to the introduction and the conclusion. You might be able to expand on them and provide extra details. Remember that the introduction serves as a lead-in to the essay. In other words, it captures your readers’ attention and makes them want to keep reading. If your introduction appears weak, add details that will engage the reader properly.

And for the conclusion, provide a takeaway for the reader and offer a call to action. For example, what are the most important things to remember about your essay? The conclusion may lack punch, so add some details to improve it.

6. Expand Your Research on the Topic

The amount of research you’ve done could affect the word count. One way to check this is by reviewing your reference list. It should have at least five sources, so if yours has fewer, you need to do more research. Again, it’s not something you’d like to do in the middle of the night; however, sacrifices must be made if your essay needs more research. We guarantee your professor will notice if you haven’t done enough research. Here’s an extra tip: adding details will be much easier if you’re fully knowledgeable about the topic. Trust us on this!

While making an essay longer may seem daunting, doing so is easier if you’ve adequately researched the topic. The essay likely needs more ideas or examples, so go ahead and add them. Additional details will lend value, improve flow, and make your essay more credible. The most important thing to remember is that any details you add must be relevant. Simply adding fluff will weaken your essay and cost you marks. So never submit an essay with a low word count; your professor will notice! And after all, expanding on an essay is part of mastering essay writing skills .

We recommend not waiting until the last minute to check that your essay meets the required word count. Adding details or doing additional research the night before will only spell trouble. We understand the difficulty of making time when multiple papers are due in the same week. However, college life will test your time management skills like nothing else! Use your time wisely!

1.  Why do essays fall short of the required word count?

This is often due to a lack of details and transitional sentences. Review your essay to see whether it’s missing important examples that can strengthen your claims.

2.  Can I simply add “fluff” to increase the word count?

Anything you add to the essay must be relevant and must add value. Your professor is no fool, after all!

3. I hear proofreading is essential before submitting my essay. Can anyone help me with this?

We suggest our proofreading experts at Proofed! They can check your writing for grammar and punctuation errors and ensure perfect spelling and concision. Consider submitting a 500-word document for free today!

Share this article:

Post A New Comment

Got content that needs a quick turnaround? Let us polish your work. Explore our editorial business services.

5-minute read

Free Email Newsletter Template

Promoting a brand means sharing valuable insights to connect more deeply with your audience, and...

6-minute read

How to Write a Nonprofit Grant Proposal

If you’re seeking funding to support your charitable endeavors as a nonprofit organization, you’ll need...

9-minute read

How to Use Infographics to Boost Your Presentation

Is your content getting noticed? Capturing and maintaining an audience’s attention is a challenge when...

8-minute read

Why Interactive PDFs Are Better for Engagement

Are you looking to enhance engagement and captivate your audience through your professional documents? Interactive...

Seven Key Strategies for Voice Search Optimization

Voice search optimization is rapidly shaping the digital landscape, requiring content professionals to adapt their...

4-minute read

Five Creative Ways to Showcase Your Digital Portfolio

Are you a creative freelancer looking to make a lasting impression on potential clients or...

Make sure your writing is the best it can be with our expert English proofreading and editing.

Words To Use In Essays: Amplifying Your Academic Writing

Use this comprehensive list of words to use in essays to elevate your writing. Make an impression and score higher grades with this guide!

Words play a fundamental role in the domain of essay writing, as they have the power to shape ideas, influence readers, and convey messages with precision and impact. Choosing the right words to use in essays is not merely a matter of filling pages, but rather a deliberate process aimed at enhancing the quality of the writing and effectively communicating complex ideas. In this article, we will explore the importance of selecting appropriate words for essays and provide valuable insights into the types of words that can elevate the essay to new heights.

Words To Use In Essays

Using a wide range of words can make your essay stronger and more impressive. With the incorporation of carefully chosen words that communicate complex ideas with precision and eloquence, the writer can elevate the quality of their essay and captivate readers.

This list serves as an introduction to a range of impactful words that can be integrated into writing, enabling the writer to express thoughts with depth and clarity.

Significantly

Furthermore

Nonetheless

Nevertheless

Consequently

Accordingly

Subsequently

In contrast

Alternatively

Implications

Substantially

Transition Words And Phrases

Transition words and phrases are essential linguistic tools that connect ideas, sentences, and paragraphs within a text. They work like bridges, facilitating the transitions between different parts of an essay or any other written work. These transitional elements conduct the flow and coherence of the writing, making it easier for readers to follow the author’s train of thought.

Here are some examples of common transition words and phrases:

Furthermore: Additionally; moreover.

However: Nevertheless; on the other hand.

In contrast: On the contrary; conversely.

Therefore: Consequently; as a result.

Similarly: Likewise; in the same way.

Moreover: Furthermore; besides.

In addition: Additionally; also.

Nonetheless: Nevertheless; regardless.

Nevertheless: However; even so.

On the other hand: Conversely; in contrast.

These are just a few examples of the many transition words and phrases available. They help create coherence, improve the organization of ideas, and guide readers through the logical progression of the text. When used effectively, transition words and phrases can significantly guide clarity for writing.

Strong Verbs For Academic Writing

Strong verbs are an essential component of academic writing as they add precision, clarity, and impact to sentences. They convey actions, intentions, and outcomes in a more powerful and concise manner. Here are some examples of strong verbs commonly used in academic writing:

Analyze: Examine in detail to understand the components or structure.

Critique: Assess or evaluate the strengths and weaknesses.

Demonstrate: Show the evidence to support a claim or argument.

Illuminate: Clarify or make something clearer.

Explicate: Explain in detail a thorough interpretation.

Synthesize: Combine or integrate information to create a new understanding.

Propose: Put forward or suggest a theory, idea, or solution.

Refute: Disprove or argue against a claim or viewpoint.

Validate: Confirm or prove the accuracy or validity of something.

Advocate: Support or argue in favor of a particular position or viewpoint.

Adjectives And Adverbs For Academic Essays

Useful adjectives and adverbs are valuable tools in academic writing as they enhance the description, precision, and depth of arguments and analysis. They provide specific details, emphasize key points, and add nuance to writing. Here are some examples of useful adjectives and adverbs commonly used in academic essays:

Comprehensive: Covering all aspects or elements; thorough.

Crucial: Extremely important or essential.

Prominent: Well-known or widely recognized; notable.

Substantial: Considerable in size, extent, or importance.

Valid: Well-founded or logically sound; acceptable or authoritative.

Effectively: In a manner that produces the desired result or outcome.

Significantly: To a considerable extent or degree; notably.

Consequently: As a result or effect of something.

Precisely: Exactly or accurately; with great attention to detail.

Critically: In a careful and analytical manner; with careful evaluation or assessment.

Words To Use In The Essay Introduction

The words used in the essay introduction play a crucial role in capturing the reader’s attention and setting the tone for the rest of the essay. They should be engaging, informative, and persuasive. Here are some examples of words that can be effectively used in the essay introduction:

Intriguing: A word that sparks curiosity and captures the reader’s interest from the beginning.

Compelling: Conveys the idea that the topic is interesting and worth exploring further.

Provocative: Creates a sense of controversy or thought-provoking ideas.

Insightful: Suggests that the essay will produce valuable and thought-provoking insights.

Startling: Indicates that the essay will present surprising or unexpected information or perspectives.

Relevant: Emphasizes the significance of the topic and its connection to broader issues or current events.

Timely: Indicates that the essay addresses a subject of current relevance or importance.

Thoughtful: Implies that the essay will offer well-considered and carefully developed arguments.

Persuasive: Suggests that the essay will present compelling arguments to convince the reader.

Captivating: Indicates that the essay will hold the reader’s attention and be engaging throughout.

Words To Use In The Body Of The Essay

The words used in the body of the essay are essential for effectively conveying ideas, providing evidence, and developing arguments. They should be clear, precise, and demonstrate a strong command of the subject matter. Here are some examples of words that can be used in the body of the essay:

Evidence: When presenting supporting information or data, words such as “data,” “research,” “studies,” “findings,” “examples,” or “statistics” can be used to strengthen arguments.

Analysis: To discuss and interpret the evidence, words like “analyze,” “examine,” “explore,” “interpret,” or “assess” can be employed to demonstrate a critical evaluation of the topic.

Comparison: When drawing comparisons or making contrasts, words like “similarly,” “likewise,” “in contrast,” “on the other hand,” or “conversely” can be used to highlight similarities or differences.

Cause and effect: To explain the relationship between causes and consequences, words such as “because,” “due to,” “leads to,” “results in,” or “causes” can be utilized.

Sequence: When discussing a series of events or steps, words like “first,” “next,” “then,” “finally,” “subsequently,” or “consequently” can be used to indicate the order or progression.

Emphasis: To emphasize a particular point or idea, words such as “notably,” “significantly,” “crucially,” “importantly,” or “remarkably” can be employed.

Clarification: When providing further clarification or elaboration, words like “specifically,” “in other words,” “for instance,” “to illustrate,” or “to clarify” can be used.

Integration: To show the relationship between different ideas or concepts, words such as “moreover,” “furthermore,” “additionally,” “likewise,” or “similarly” can be utilized.

Conclusion: When summarizing or drawing conclusions, words like “in conclusion,” “to summarize,” “overall,” “in summary,” or “to conclude” can be employed to wrap up ideas.

Remember to use these words appropriately and contextually, ensuring they strengthen the coherence and flow of arguments. They should serve as effective transitions and connectors between ideas, enhancing the overall clarity and persuasiveness of the essay.

Words To Use In Essay Conclusion

The words used in the essay conclusion are crucial for effectively summarizing the main points, reinforcing arguments, and leaving a lasting impression on the reader. They should bring a sense of closure to the essay while highlighting the significance of ideas. Here are some examples of words that can be used in the essay conclusion:

Summary: To summarize the main points, these words can be used “in summary,” “to sum up,” “in conclusion,” “to recap,” or “overall.”

Reinforcement: To reinforce arguments and emphasize their importance, words such as “crucial,” “essential,” “significant,” “noteworthy,” or “compelling” can be employed.

Implication: To discuss the broader implications of ideas or findings, words like “consequently,” “therefore,” “thus,” “hence,” or “as a result” can be utilized.

Call to action: If applicable, words that encourage further action or reflection can be used, such as “we must,” “it is essential to,” “let us consider,” or “we should.”

Future perspective: To discuss future possibilities or developments related to the topic, words like “potential,” “future research,” “emerging trends,” or “further investigation” can be employed.

Reflection: To reflect on the significance or impact of arguments, words such as “profound,” “notable,” “thought-provoking,” “transformative,” or “perspective-shifting” can be used.

Final thought: To leave a lasting impression, words or phrases that summarize the main idea or evoke a sense of thoughtfulness can be used, such as “food for thought,” “in light of this,” “to ponder,” or “to consider.”

How To Improve Essay Writing Vocabulary

Improving essay writing vocabulary is essential for effectively expressing ideas, demonstrating a strong command of the language, and engaging readers. Here are some strategies to enhance the essay writing vocabulary:

• Read extensively: Reading a wide range of materials, such as books, articles, and essays, can give various writing styles, topics, and vocabulary. Pay attention to new words and their usage, and try incorporating them into the writing.
• Use a dictionary and thesaurus:  Look up unfamiliar words in a dictionary to understand their meanings and usage. Additionally, utilize a thesaurus to find synonyms and antonyms to expand word choices and avoid repetition.
• Create a word bank: To create a word bank, read extensively, write down unfamiliar or interesting words, and explore their meanings and usage. Organize them by categories or themes for easy reference, and practice incorporating them into writing to expand the vocabulary.
• Contextualize vocabulary: Simply memorizing new words won’t be sufficient; it’s crucial to understand their proper usage and context. Pay attention to how words are used in different contexts, sentence structures, and rhetorical devices. 

How To Add Additional Information To Support A Point

When writing an essay and wanting to add additional information to support a point, you can use various transitional words and phrases. Here are some examples:

Furthermore: Add more information or evidence to support the previous point.

Additionally: Indicates an additional supporting idea or evidence.

Moreover: Emphasizes the importance or significance of the added information.

In addition: Signals the inclusion of another supporting detail.

Furthermore, it is important to note: Introduces an additional aspect or consideration related to the topic.

Not only that, but also: Highlights an additional point that strengthens the argument.

Equally important: Emphasizes the equal significance of the added information.

Another key point: Introduces another important supporting idea.

It is worth noting: Draws attention to a noteworthy detail that supports the point being made.

Additionally, it is essential to consider: Indicates the need to consider another aspect or perspective.

Using these transitional words and phrases will help you seamlessly integrate additional information into your essay, enhancing the clarity and persuasiveness of your arguments.

Words And Phrases That Demonstrate Contrast

When crafting an essay, it is crucial to effectively showcase contrast, enabling the presentation of opposing ideas or the highlighting of differences between concepts. The adept use of suitable words and phrases allows for the clear communication of contrast, bolstering the strength of arguments. Consider the following examples of commonly employed words and phrases to illustrate the contrast in essays:

However: e.g., “The experiment yielded promising results; however, further analysis is needed to draw conclusive findings.”

On the other hand: e.g., “Some argue for stricter gun control laws, while others, on the other hand, advocate for individual rights to bear arms.”

Conversely: e.g., “While the study suggests a positive correlation between exercise and weight loss, conversely, other research indicates that diet plays a more significant role.”

Nevertheless: e.g., “The data shows a decline in crime rates; nevertheless, public safety remains a concern for many citizens.”

In contrast: e.g., “The economic policies of Country A focus on free-market principles. In contrast, Country B implements more interventionist measures.”

Despite: e.g., “Despite the initial setbacks, the team persevered and ultimately achieved success.”

Although: e.g., “Although the participants had varying levels of experience, they all completed the task successfully.”

While: e.g., “While some argue for stricter regulations, others contend that personal responsibility should prevail.”

Words To Use For Giving Examples

When writing an essay and providing examples to illustrate your points, you can use a variety of words and phrases to introduce those examples. Here are some examples:

For instance: Introduces a specific example to support or illustrate your point.

For example: Give an example to clarify or demonstrate your argument.

Such as: Indicates that you are providing a specific example or examples.

To illustrate: Signals that you are using an example to explain or emphasize your point.

One example is: Introduces a specific instance that exemplifies your argument.

In particular: Highlights a specific example that is especially relevant to your point.

As an illustration: Introduces an example that serves as a visual or concrete representation of your point.

A case in point: Highlights a specific example that serves as evidence or proof of your argument.

To demonstrate: Indicates that you are providing an example to show or prove your point.

To exemplify: Signals that you are using an example to illustrate or clarify your argument.

Using these words and phrases will help you effectively incorporate examples into your essay, making your arguments more persuasive and relatable. Remember to give clear and concise examples that directly support your main points.

Words To Signifying Importance

When writing an essay and wanting to signify the importance of a particular point or idea, you can use various words and phrases to convey this emphasis. Here are some examples:

Crucially: Indicates that the point being made is of critical importance.

Significantly: Highlights the importance or significance of the idea or information.

Importantly: Draws attention to the crucial nature of the point being discussed.

Notably: Emphasizes that the information or idea is particularly worthy of attention.

It is vital to note: Indicates that the point being made is essential and should be acknowledged.

It should be emphasized: Draws attention to the need to give special importance or focus to the point being made.

A key consideration is: Highlight that the particular idea or information is a central aspect of the discussion.

It is critical to recognize: Emphasizes that the understanding or acknowledgment of the point is crucial.

Using these words and phrases will help you convey the importance and significance of specific points or ideas in your essay, ensuring that readers recognize their significance and impact on the overall argument.

Exclusive Scientific Content, Created By Scientists

Mind the Graph platform provides scientists with exclusive scientific content that is created by scientists themselves. This unique feature ensures that the platform offers high-quality and reliable information tailored specifically for the scientific community. The platform serves as a valuable resource for researchers, offering a wide range of visual tools and templates that enable scientists to create impactful and visually engaging scientific illustrations and graphics for their publications, presentations, and educational materials.

Subscribe to our newsletter

Exclusive high quality content about effective visual communication in science.

Sign Up for Free

Try the best infographic maker and promote your research with scientifically-accurate beautiful figures

no credit card required

Content tags

Paragraph Expander Free AI-Powered Text Expander to Lengthen Paragraphs

Need to lengthen your paragraphs and increase your word count? I got you. This free paragraph expander uses AI (artificial intelligence) and acts as a text expander that’ll instantly extend your writing to make your paragraph longer, remaining on theme with your content. This text expander’s advanced algorithms produce AI-powered content that fits in seamlessly with your original content—for free.

Hey there! You’ve hit your free limit for an hour . Don’t worry; you’ll be able to use my tools again in an hour.

" * " indicates required fields

Use the Paragraph Expander to Meet Your Word Count Target and Improve Your SEO

A paragraph expander is a great way to create more in-depth content, based on what you’ve already written. If you’re sitting there thinking, “how do I make my paragraph longer?” then you’ve come to the right place. You can start with a single sentence, a short paragraph, or even a phrase, and create extra content.

There are plenty of reasons why you might want to use a paragraph expander:

• You’ve got a short blog post that you want to make longer, for SEO (search engine optimization) purposes—ideally, your blog posts should usually be 1,500+ words .
• You’re working on a school or college assignment and you haven’t quite met the word count requirements.
• You’ve got short-form content, like social media posts, that you want to use as the basis for a full-length article.
• You have a little bit of text that you want to expand and make paragraphs longer throughout your content.

In all these cases, you can copy and paste short sections of content into the paragraph expander and you’ll automatically get a longer, more detailed paragraph.

Here’s an example. Let’s say you’ve got a great tweet about email marketing (I created this one using RightBlogger ’s “Tweet/X Post Ideas” feature:

Looking to grow your subscriber list? 📈 Offer an irresistible lead magnet to entice visitors to sign up. It could be an exclusive guide, discount, or free resource! 

You want to write a whole blog post about growing your email subscriber list, and you plan to expand on the lead magnet idea. So you simply copy a couple of sentences into the paragraph extender tool:

Run the tool, and you’ll make your paragraph longer based on those starting 2 sentences. Here’s what it came up with for me:

“Want to boost your subscriber list and attract more visitors to your website? One effective strategy is to create a compelling lead magnet that will encourage them to sign up. Consider offering an exclusive guide packed with valuable insights, a special discount on your products or services, or a free resource that addresses a common pain point for your target audience. By providing something of value in exchange for their email address, you can significantly increase your chances of turning visitors into loyal subscribers.”

Ready to give it a try, yourself and write longer paragraphs?

How to Use the Paragraph Expander to Lengthen Your Original Text

The paragraph expander is really user-friendly—but just in case you want a helping hand, here’s a breakdown of what to do, step by step.

Step 1. Copy and Paste Your Original Sentence or Paragraph

First, you’ll need to choose a sentence (or short paragraph) to expand upon. It’s best to use something that feels a bit thin and underwritten. If you’ve already written a detailed, wordy paragraph, then running it through the tool may not give you such good results.

Once you’ve chosen the text you want to expand, simply copy and paste it into the tool.

Step 2. Select Your Tone and Writing Style

If you’re creating standard blog content, it’s fine to simply use the “Default”  tone & style in the paragraph expander tool. But if you’re writing something different, or your blog has a strong branded voice, then you may want to experiment with different tones and styles.

For instance, the “Fun & Quirky” style is a great fit for brands that are laid back and informal. The “Formal” style is a good fit if you’re working on a piece of academic or business writing.

Step 3. Generate an Extended Paragraph of Text

Once you’ve pasted in your text and (optionally) selected a tone & style, it’s time to generate your extended paragraph. Go ahead and hit the “Generate” button and your new text will appear almost instantly.

Bonus: Use My Free SEO Checklist Along With the Paragraph Expander

There’s a good chance you’re using the paragraph extender to help you produce blog posts that work well for search engines. As you write your blog post , you’ll also want to keep in mind the key principles of good blog SEO .

Here’s my personal step-by-step SEO checklist to use for your blog posts: 

• Make sure you’re using the Yoast plugin for WordPress
• Always optimize your post for a specific, achievable keyword phrase that’s relevant to your audience
• Optimize your post’s subheadings: this encourages Google’s rich snippets and can mean that your post gets indexed faster
• Only use one H1 header in your post (that should be the post title at the top of the page)
• Follow correct header hierarchy, with H2 subsections and H3 sub-subsections
• Make sure you include your primary keyword multiple times—but don’t go overboard (it should sound natural)
• Use both internal and external links in your blog post (with at least 3–5 external links)
• Craft an engaging meta description that includes your primary keyword, plus secondary keywords if possible
• Give each image an alt description, using keywords in the descriptions as appropriate
• Think about your blog post’s length—it should normally be at least 1,500+ words
• Craft a meta title (SEO title) that should work well in search engines
• Include keywords in your post’s permalink (also called the URL or slug)

The Key Features of the Paragraph Expander

We designed the paragraph expander to be super-easy to use—but if you’re curious about some of its key features, just keep reading.

Text (Copy and Paste Your Original Text)

The paragraph expander lets you paste in any text you like. (It doesn’t have to be in English, either.) Your text can be anything from a few words long to a couple of sentences long.

Note: There’s a limit of 500 characters for the tool. If you want to expand more text than that, you can simply run the tool multiple times.

Tone & Writing Style (Choose a Style That Matches Your Voice)

Like my other free AI blogging tools , the paragraph extender lets you select a tone & writing style. This is so the AI algorithm can create text that’s as close to your own writing voice as possible. 

You can use the paragraph expander as often as you like, so feel free to experiment with different styles. For example, bloggers often use styles like “Fun & Quirky”, “Casual”, and “Irreverent”. If you’re working on business or academic content, “Formal” or “Professional” might suit you well. And if you’re crafting a piece of copywriting to promote a product or service, then “Sales-oriented” or “Persuasive” could be perfect for boosting conversions. 

Language (Doesn’t Have to be English)

The paragraph expander doesn’t just work with English. You can use it with a whole range of different languages, including French, Spanish, Chinese, Danish, Polish, Japanese, Italian, and more.

Tip: Your input and output languages don’t need to match—though in most cases, you’ll probably be crafting extended content in the same language that you started out with.

Paragraph Expander Tool FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)

Got questions about the paragraph extender tool? Here’s everything you need to know.

What type of content can I enter into the paragraph expander tool?

You can give the paragraph extender tool any kind of content you want. That could be an excerpt from a past blog post, part of a draft you’re working on, a couple of brief sentences from an academic essay … or anything you like. For best results, you’ll want to choose content that’s concise and ripe for expanding upon. 

Even if you plan on editing the paragraph extender’s output, you might still find it’s a useful tool for getting past writer’s block.

The paragraph extender draws on the same AI writing technology behind tools like ChatGPT to create a unique sentence expansion of your input text.

Can I use the paragraph expander tool as an AI sentence expander? 

Yes, you can use this tool as a sentence expander too. Simply enter a short sentence and the tool will expand it into one (or more) sentences. 

Here’s an example for the sentence “The sky is blue”:

“The sky, with its vibrant hue, is a mesmerizing shade of blue that captivates the senses and evokes a sense of tranquility.”

Will the content from the paragraph expander tool pass a plagiarism checker?

The paragraph expander tool creates unique AI-generated content, based on your original words. This means it should easily pass a plagiarism check. For peace of mind, you may want to run your text through a plagiarism checker tool before you submit it for assessment or publication.

If you’re expanding a piece of text written by someone else, the expanded content should be sufficiently different to pass a plagiarism check. However, to avoid plagiarism of ideas, it’s important to cite your sources.

How else can I lengthen my writing to meet the required word count?

Using a paragraph extender is a useful quick fix when you’re trying to get your writing up to a certain word length. However, the tool won’t add in fresh ideas, and using it too extensively could make your piece seem overly wordy.

If you need to significantly extend a piece of writing, you might want to think about:

• Are there any key points that you haven’t covered? My free outline generator might help you to come up with these.
• Could you go into more detail by adding extra material, like examples or quotes? (You can include a discussion of these, too.)
• Have you missed out part of your piece, like the introduction or conclusion? I’ve got an introduction writer and conclusion writer to help you create these.
• Is there something more you could offer your target audience? What would make your message resonate with them?

If your writing often comes out too short, you may need to think about length earlier in the writing process. Using blog post templates , for instance, can help you create well-structured posts that meet the word count you’re aiming for.

Is there a Chrome extension for this tool?

For now, you can only use the paragraph expander here, as an online tool. There’s no Chrome extension or downloadable version, though RightBlogger’s Chrome Extension may eventually include this as a feature. I recommend keeping a tab open here with the tool so you can easily copy and paste text from your email, Google docs, Microsoft Word, or anywhere else you write.

Which other AI tools can I use to help create content?

You might want to use the full AI article writer to create a complete piece of content, in less than a minute. I’ve also got a YouTube script generator that you can use to help you make video content, and a whole range of useful blogging tools like the intro paragraph generator .

If you’re looking to change content around rather than expand sentences, the paragraph rewriter makes it easy to rephrase your text. There’s also a full grammar fixer (grammar checker) to help you with editing your writing.

Why did you make this paragraph expander a free tool?

I know, I know… what’s the catch? This paragraph expander is completely free. Here’s why. When I started blogging, years ago, I couldn’t afford to spend much money on my blog. Essential costs like web hosting took up most of my blogging budget. I knew that premium tools would help me grow my blog faster, but I couldn’t afford them. Instead, I hunted for free tools that did similar things—and I was so grateful to the bloggers who create those tools.

Today, my blog RyRob has been hugely successful, thanks in part to those free tools. I wanted to give something back to the blogging community, so I created the free paragraph expander. This tool is my gift to you.

You can use the paragraph expander as many times as you want, completely free. There’s no charge, and you never need to enter your email address, sign up, or jump through any hoops.

If you like the paragraph expander, I’d love it if you’d check out RightBlogger , my AI powerhouse. It’s packed with useful tools to help you with your writing. While it’s aimed primarily at bloggers, there are tools in there that can create and edit all kinds of AI content. That includes a paraphrasing tool, grammar fixer, rewriter, idea generator, and many more.

Who is this paragraph expander tool designed for?

We created the paragraph expander tool with all sorts of people in mind. It’s for bloggers, writers, content marketers, content creators, SEO professionals, small businesses, students, and anyone who sometimes needs a helping hand creating longer pieces of high-quality content.

How to Expand an Essay – 4 Tips to Increase the Word Count

Do you feel that you’ve written all you could in this essay, but it’s still short of the word count requirement? Maybe you need to add a few hundred or even a thousand words.

If so, you’ve come to the right place. I’m Tutor Phil, and in this tutorial I’ll show you how to increase your essay’s word count. 

These four tips or techniques will work for any type of an essay. They will also improve the quality of your paper. 

So, let’s dive right in. Here are…

Four easy ways to expand your essay:

1. Add an explanation

If you read through your essay, you will likely notice that one or more ideas could use some kind of an explanation. 

Very often, we assume that the reader is familiar with all the concepts that we discuss in our writing. But what if we could find a concept or a term that many people might actually be unfamiliar with?

That’s our opportunity to expand our paper. Here’s an example. Let’s assume you’re writing an essay on human psychology, and you include this statement:

“John became a victim of the ostrich effect when he chose to deny that his family did not share his outlook on the situation.”

One phrase stands out in this sentence. Some readers may wonder: “ What is an ‘ostrich effect? ’”

If they are unfamiliar with the term, they might need to distract themselves from your essay for a second and go look it up. 

What if you did the work for them and simply explained the term in your essay:

“The ‘ostrich effect’ refers to a peculiar behavior of this tropical bird in dangerous or critical situations. When facing danger, an ostrich buries its head in the sand. This way, it prevents itself from seeing what is happening around it. Unfortunately, while this helps relieve anxiety, this is not an effective strategy to deal with the actual threat.”

By adding this explanation, we just added 58 words to the essay. And we can probably find another concept or two to explain.

This is especially effective when you’re writing an essay on some complex topic. But it can work in a simple and mundane topic, as well. You can even deliberately plant an uncommon concept and then explain it.

How to use this technique

To use this technique over and over in your essay, all you need to do is read through the body of your essay from the beginning, scanning it for a term that may be unfamiliar to the reader.

Here are some questions you can ask and then provide an answer as an explanation.  

What is this?

The answer to this question defines something. It is usually a short description of the idea or a thing.

How does this work?

This question gives you a chance to add quite a bit of content. In it, you would explain or describe how something works, from beginning to end. 

If it’s some kind of a mechanical contraption, you can describe its components, explain what each one does, and describe the entire process of its function. 

If it’s a natural process, such as the development of a fetus, you can describe that process in some detail.

You can do the same with a computer program or app, a legal procedure, or anything else that consists of parts and takes steps or stages to complete.

Why is it effective?

Here is your chance to explain why this thing or process works well. In effect, you are describing the strengths and advantages of the thing or process.

What does it enable?

By answering this question, you explain what other things, effects, or benefits become possible thanks to the thing or process you’re discussing. 

Note that you can use any and all of these questions for every concept you want to expand on. 

But use your discretion. This technique is very powerful, and it’s easy to go overboard and explain too much. 

Remember – you have three other techniques you can use. So, employ a variety of these methods. 

2. Use the Counterargument technique

Here is a very effective technique to add two paragraphs of quality material to your paper. You can use this technique multiple times in your essay while making your argumentation more powerful.

I call it the Counterargument technique, and it has three easy steps.

The Counterargument Technique

Step 1. Pick a spot in your paper where one of the authors you’ve used as a source could disagree with a point. 

This should not be your main point. Choose a supporting idea in the body of your essay that sounds like someone could challenge it.

Let’s use an example of a paper on human psychology again, and let’s say that one of the points you make is that people almost never change. This statement sounds like someone out there could challenge it.

Once we’ve picked the statement, we’re ready for the next step. 

Step 2. Challenge this statement.  

You can introduce your challenge in one of the following ways:

“Some authors disagree with this assumption. They claim that…” 

“Some may argue that…”

And then you explain what they claim.

This could be an author that you have already researched. Or, you could go out there and find just one article in which the author presents an argument contrary to the statement you chose.

Don’t worry – the whole source doesn’t have to challenge the statement. If only a small part of it contains contradictory material, you have just found your challenge. And now you’re ready for the next step. 

Step 3. Answer the challenge.  

In this step, you simply write down an answer or a rebuttal to the challenge you just presented. When you do this, you provide even stronger support for your thesis.

For example, it can go something like this:

The original argument:

“People almost never change.”  

The challenge:

“Well, some authors seem to disagree with this view and claim that people can change under certain circumstances.” 

And here you can cite this other author or authors who present the challenge.

And now comes the answer to the challenge:

“However, these authors are mistaken because modern psychology presents abundant evidence that human psychology loves the status quo.” 

And you can provide the reason or reasons you believe the challenge does not hold water. You can make your counterargument as detailed as you want and even add examples. 

When you do it the way I just described, you are not contradicting yourself. 

Instead, you are actually strengthening your argument because you show that you are aware that some people may disagree with it. But their argument is weak for the reasons that you provide. 

Here’s a video I created to walk you through this technique:

3. Add examples

I have graded a lot of papers as a university writing instructor. And I can tell you that students don’t use enough examples in their essays.

Their content is mostly general. Sometimes, they’ll use statistics or formal facts. But those are not specific examples.

An example is usually an image or a story, a depiction of an event or a description of a human being in a particular place and time. 

Examples have colors, smells, names, exact dates, and other details that make them come alive in the reader’s imagination. 

Let’s come back to our imaginary essay about human psychology in which John is used as a general example of the “ostrich effect.”

We wrote a nice explanation of the effect earlier. But we don’t have to leave it at that. We can now add a specific example of John being a victim of the ostrich effect:

“For the past three weeks, John’s wife Liz has tried to get him to recognize that their daughter had been receiving poor grades in school. But faced with the challenges of his new business, John has just kept brushing the topic aside. One day Liz became so angry with her husband that she simply stopped talking to him. That got his attention.”

This is a specific example of John’s habit of denying important facts. We can extend this example even more by providing more details. 

The beauty of using examples is that you can write as much or as little as you want without struggling for words. 

Here’s a tip: you can use your personal examples. And you can include them in simple essays that you would write on a test or even in research papers.

Just make sure that your personal example is relevant and serves to support the point.

4. Add a whole section

This technique is great for expanding your essay by a lot – by 30% or more. And you can even repeat it and add more than one whole section.

Let’s say that you have three supporting ideas for your main point. And you have already written as much as you could about those three points.

To use our human psychology example, let’s say that this is our main structure:

We have three nice sections, each devoted to a part of human psychology. And let’s say that our thesis is the following:

“The three parts of human psychology that primarily determine behavior are emotions, intellect, and decision-making.”

And let’s say that each section in this paper is about 500 words long. And we need another 500 words. 

Can we think of another part of human psychology that also determines human behavior? Of course we can.

I’ll just consult my own basic knowledge of psychology to do it. You can consult your own knowledge or do quick research to find one more supporting idea.

And here we are. The ego is another major contributor to human behavior. 

Now, let’s add this to our whole structure:

Given that this section is similar in length to the others, by the time we have written it out in the body of the essay, we’ll have 500 more words!

Also, we must not forget to update our thesis statement:

“The four parts of human psychology that primarily determine behavior are emotions, intellect, decision-making, and the ego.”

If you wonder how to fill out a new section with high quality material, you should read my guide on how to write body paragraphs . 

Hope this is helpful!

Tutor Phil is an e-learning professional who helps adult learners finish their degrees by teaching them academic writing skills.

Recent Posts

How to Write an Essay about Why You Want to Become a Nurse

If you're eager to write an essay about why you want to become a nurse, then you've arrived at the right tutorial! An essay about why you want to enter the nursing profession can help to...

How to Write an Essay about Why You Deserve a Job

If you're preparing for a job application or interview, knowing how to express why you deserve a role is essential. This tutorial will guide you in crafting an effective essay to convey this...

Add Words to My Essay

How often do you lack words to meet an essay word count? Indeed, finding the correct phrases to add to your essay can be a challenge, especially when the deadline is soon.

Fortunately, our online Add-Words-to-My-Essay Tool is here to help. With just three clicks, you can quickly expand your essay to meet the required word count without sacrificing quality or coherence. Keep reading to learn more about the tool and tips on increasing word count.

• 📝 What Does It Mean to Add Words?
• ❇️ Add Words to My Essay – Benefits

✍️ How to Add More Words to an Essay

🙅‍♀️ how not to add more words.

• 💯 How to Add 100 Words

✒️ Other Ways to Increase Word Count

🔎 references, 📝 add words to essay – what does it mean.

Wondering how you make your essay longer? Here are some of the best ways that can help increase your word count while keeping the piece logical and well-structured.

• Expand on your idea. Take the time to develop your main points fully, providing more detail to your analysis.
• Include more research. Conduct additional research to find more sources and information to incorporate into your essay, adding more depth to your writing.
• Provide additional examples and evidence. Support your arguments with more examples and evidence to strengthen your points and add more words.

❇️ Add Words to My Essay – Tool Benefits

Many benefits make our Add-Words-to-Essay Tool stand out among similar essay expanders. Let's consider the main advantages:

If you're struggling to meet the word count for your essay, there are several tips you can try to add more content and strengthen your arguments. Have a look!

• Add more analysis . Offer deeper analysis, delving into the implications and significance of your findings .
• Use transitional phrases . Include phrases like "moreover," "in addition," and "furthermore" to connect your paragraphs, creating a more cohesive essay.
• Expand on your introduction and conclusion . Provide a more comprehensive introduction that sets the stage for your essay and a conclusion that offers a deeper reflection on the significance of your arguments.
• Address potential counterarguments . Anticipate and reflect on possible counterarguments to your essay, demonstrating a deeper understanding of the topic.
• Provide more detailed explanations . Offer deeper explanations of key concepts and ideas, ensuring that your readers thoroughly understand the material.
• Consider different formatting options . If the instructions allow, explore various formatting options , including subheadings or bullet points.
• Seek feedback from others . Ask for feedback from peers or instructors to identify areas where you can expand or elaborate on your ideas to make the essay longer and more thorough.
• Include relevant statistics or data . Consider incorporating specific numbers, research findings, and case studies that support your claims.
• Rewrite the text using longer phrases . Instead of using short, concise sentences, rephrase your ideas using more elaborate and descriptive language .
• Use quotations . Incorporating quotes from relevant sources can add authority to your writing and contribute to a more comprehensive discussion.
• Provide some background information . Introducing background information about the topic, such as historical context, relevant theories, or key concepts, can add depth to your essay.
• Incorporate personal experiences or anecdotes . By sharing stories or examples from your personal experience, you can present the real-world implications of your arguments.

When increasing an essay's word count, it is essential to add words purposefully without ruining the quality of your essay. Avoid these common mistakes:

• Repetitive statements. Don’t repeat the same points over and over in different ways to fill up space.
• Irrelevant information. Don’t include unrelated facts or details that do not contribute to the overall argument.
• Filler sentences. Don’t add meaningless sentences that do not add any value to the content of the essay.
• Excessive adjectives and adverbs. Don’t overload sentences with unnecessary descriptive words to artificially inflate the word count.
• Lengthy personal anecdotes. Don’t share long personal stories that are not directly related to the topic.
• Overly complex language. Avoid convoluted and verbose language .
• Long-winded quotations. Don’t insert lengthy quotes from sources without adding any meaningful analysis or insight.

💯 How to Add 100 Words to an Essay

Wanna see how the Add More Words to My Essay tool works? Let's try to make a longer body paragraph for the "The Psychological Harm of Social Media" essay.

Besides the Add Words Generator, other useful tools can increase the word count of your essay and maintain coherence. We recommend checking them out!

• Attention grabber generator An online attention grabber generator can be helpful by providing intriguing and concise introductory statements or hooks. These attention grabbers serve as a starting point for establishing a solid narrative and contribute to more in-depth exploration and elaboration.
• Transition phrase generator A free transition phrase maker can add more connecting phrases and words within the text. Utilize this tool to introduce more seamless transitions between ideas, paragraphs, and sections, enhancing the essay's overall flow.
• Introduction generator You can use an online introduction generator to expand the initial content as you get more background information, context, and details related to the essay's topic. You can delve into deeper analysis by using the generated introduction as a springboard.
• Conclusion generator A free conclusion generator can offer effective ideas that you can further develop with additional analysis and exploration. The tool also generates concluding remarks, reflections, or suggestions, further expanding the word count of your essay.
• Essay paraphraser An online essay paraphraser can provide alternative ways to rephrase and expand upon existing content. Using a paraphraser, you can present the same concepts in various ways, incorporating synonyms, different sentence structures, and additional descriptive language.
• How to Increase or Decrease Your Paper’s Word Count | Grammarly
• 3 Ways to Increase Word Count - wikiHow
• On Paragraphs - Purdue OWL® - Purdue University
• Paragraphs and Transitions - Essay Writing - Monroe College LibGuides at Monroe College
• Academic Language - San José State University Writing Center

How to Increase Your Essay Word Count

Add Examples

Skim through your essay looking for any place you have used an example to make a point. In most cases, you should be able to provide additional examples which will make your essay stronger by showing your understanding of the topic while also increasing the word count. You can also go through the essay and look for statements made where inserting an example would be appropriate to help support the statement.

Address Different Viewpoints

An effective way of increasing word count and improving your essay at the same time is to address different viewpoints to your own. You have the opportunity to discuss how these alternative viewpoints differ from the conclusions you have made, and it gives you an opportunity to explain why you believe your conclusions are superior. This shows you have considered a range of different opinions while coming to your conclusions, and in doing so make your essay stronger while adding more words.

Clarify Statements

When you find the statements in your writing, if inserting an example doesn’t make sense, then clarifying the statement may be appropriate. This can be achieved by inserting one or more specific statements to clarify the original one. A common way to do this is to follow the statement with, “In other words…” It’s important not to over-clarify statements or use this for every statement you write as it will begin to look like filler, but using it sporadically throughout your essay can increase the word count and show you perfectly understand the points you’re trying to make.

Find Additional Sources

Another way to improve your essay and increase word count is to find additional sources you haven’t previously mentioned which support the statements and conclusions you have made. The more sources you have, the stronger the essay will be in most cases. Spending some time searching for additional sources to add to the essay can be a great way to add quality content to it.

Use Quotations

Chances are you already have appropriate quotations in your essay, and if that’s the case, skip over this suggestion. Adding more will likely not add to your essay. If you haven’t used any, however, finding appropriate quotations from experts in the field that support your statements can be an excellent way to add words to your essay while improving it at the same time.

Rework Introduction and Conclusion

If all of the above haven’t enabled you to reach your word count minimum and you need some filler, look to put it in your introduction and conclusion rather than the body of the essay. Most teachers give more leeway with the introduction and conclusion to be wordy than the guts of the essay. This is something you should try to avoid if at all possible (it’s never good to be wordier than you have to be), but if you tried everything else, it’s better to do it in these two places than in the heart of the essay.

If you’re writing an essay which has a minimum page count instead of a minimum word count, the above suggestions will work, but you have a bit more wiggle room as well. You can make slight adjustments to the font and font size you use through a Words per Page Counter . As long as you don’t go overboard, this can be a relatively easy way to increase page count while not taking away from the essay.

(Photo courtesy of Caleb Roenigk )

I hate it when teachers give a word count. Word count shouldn’t matter at all. It should be the quality of the writing. If I can get my point across in 1000 words, why do I need to write 2500? It makes no sense at all.

You have never been a teacher. If you ever are, you will know why we give word counts.

That’s a lazy answer. Students who write well shouldn’t be punished with a word count because other students aren’t good students. It’s the teacher’s job to help those students who aren’t doing as well without forcing those good students to do stupid things that make no sense for them.

If you can make it more fun to read, this can also help with word count. Add emphasizes or explain something in more detail. There are so many great ways to increase your word count. It shouldn’t be too hard if you put your mind to it!

Word count never mattered as soon as I got to college, my professors used the “bikini rule,” short enough to keep it interesting, long enough to cover the important parts. Don’t use 2000 words to say what you can in 500

This isn’t the correct question to ask. It’s easy to increase word count on an essay, but it’s difficult to increase word count to make the essay better. So many people decide to increase their word count by inserting sentences, paragraphs, quotes and other non-necessary information simply to reach the word count. While it achieves the goal of increasing the word count, it doesn’t make the essay any better, and it usually makes it much worse. What you should always strive for is to increase the number of words in the essay while also making the essay stronger than it was before.

….Read the article you’re commenting on?

In my experience, college is even worse than high school in this regard. I regularly have to conform to word counts and page counts. Right now, I’m writing a research paper that has an 8 page minimum. Why? Because the professor said so. I could certainly be a lot more concise if I didn’t have to pad it out, but this is what’s required of me. The kicker is that the prof is DEFINITELY going to take off points due to obvious padding. DON’T FORCE ME INTO AN ARBITRARY LENGTH, THEN.

Just change the font style to a bigger one and then do the same with the size of the font but not too big or it will seem too obvious.

My professor requires Times New Roman

Really? Great!

LOL i hate Times New Roman, it’s so boring. There are so many interesting fonts out there, why should we have to make it boring? Plus, cool fonts catch your eye and draw you in. I get not wanting super crazy fonts but at least a little wiggle room here! C’mon!

try using Bookman Old Style

Your prof is stupid

My teacher wants me to write a 5 page essay and a 2 minute speech about the same book which is barely 200 pages

For me it’s either times new roman or arial

Mine too I just use it with other things I write now due to habit

bruh they LOOK at the word counts, just cuz the font will be bigger doesn’t mean that they’ll think you have gone over the limit

page counts tho

they are talking about page counts, not word counts

You’re a fuckin dumbass, increasing font size is too obvious

That’s mean

just make your periods a font style bigger, professors will notice a font style bigger for the text

Making a period a font size bigger isn’t going to do anything.

the teachers can see the word count so, there is no point in doing that

Teachers do check the font and word size y’know?

well, part of it is that you cannot be bothered to write out the word “professor” and… well let me show you a corrected version of your post.

*In my experience, college is even worse than high school in this regard. I regularly have to conform to word counts and page counts. Right now, I’m writing a research paper that has an 8-page minimum. Why? It was because the professor said so. I could be a lot more concise if I didn’t have to pad it out, but such are the requirements. The kicker is that the professor is going to take off points due to my padding. So don’t force me to an arbitrary length!

Don’t go ruining people’s self-esteem.

I’m only in Junior high and I have to write over that amount. Be grateful that your situation isn’t as bad as it could be.

That’s just nasty.

Yep, I agree!

I appreciate that I can put it to use when I tutor! Thank you.

LOL never heard of the bikini rule. I love it

Where did you go to college?

So basically you’re saying that you don’t trust your students to be able to write correctly in your class? Isn’t that more a reflection on your teaching than it is on the students who are writing?

See what you just did you got your point across in 18 words YOU JUST ARE STUPID! Anyways why are you on this web site if you are a teacher?

riiiight that’s what i was thinking like this is meant to help students lol

If it makes so much sense to give word count limits to teachers then please explain

but that makes no sense…there is no reason to do so if they are great at writing all ready…

what do i do if my word count is 800 and i only have 512

add another 288!

You keep going no matter what! Thats what i do!

This is a poor answer because it doesn’t give any reason for the word counts. The point was that they -don’t- know why the word counts are necessary, and just stating that “you don’t have my experience and if you did you’d know why” isn’t an argument or a good contribution to the discussion, when surely it would have been a better idea to just explain why word counts are necessary in the first place.

WHY DO YOU?

Care to explain? That was a super vague answer.

want to expand on that? XD

U realise this is an article for student right? u don’t need to be here dissing all of us. [EDIT]: so many dislikes on teach’s post. lmao

look, not. helping. this is why i hated a bunch of my professors, you all act like we should be overjoyed that you aren’t making us ruin our writing more because we have to stretch it out, you have students with real potential, why do so many ignorant professors waste that and take off marks for something the student cannot control? seems wrong huh?

I’m not a teacher but I do understand that word counts push students to do their best, although I according to everyone, have always been teacher’s pet, and I love to write so having a word count is an amazing way for me to experiment with my writing.

But I have an assignment in which they say use the set format, which doesn’t allow for many words, but they say it has to be 500. I physically can’t stick to the structure and the word count. I understand max word counts, but I can get my entire point across in 300 words, and I am seriously struggling to increase. I think that minimum word counts should not be put in place as I can get the point across in a lot less.

What is your essay’s point? Is it simple? I have to write 1250 word essays regularly, and I’m only on this article because I have 1156 and can’t come up with more. You sound lucky to me.

ill never be one so tell why >:(

it seems teach got the “nobody liked that” experience

We gotta keep this comment section going for 2020.

lol so many dislikes

Proceeds to not give the reason! just makes you sound like a moron with excuses. you have not proven her wrong in the slightest.

Oh my god, you are right.

Teachers too often tried to make things easier on themselves to the detriment of the students are trying to teach. I think making minimum word counts is one of those. On the other hand, I think that maximum word counts can actually be beneficial because it forces the students to better edit their writing.

“Teachers too often tried to make things easier on themselves to the detriment of the students [they] are trying to teach.” Are you making this very bold statement because you have experienced it as a teacher, completed an in-depth research on this topic, or are you just making your opinion seem like a fact? I ask simply because I am a teacher, a high school English teacher to be more specific, and I found your comment to be nothing but overblown opinion. I cannot speak for every teacher, but in my class, I have to put a minimum word count on my essay assignments or I would have the majority of the students attempt to turn in a paragraph and say it is an essay. It would not matter that I instructed them on the purpose of the essay, explained what an introductory paragraph, body paragraph, and a conclusion paragraph are and their individual purposes. It also would not matter if I also spent an entire six week grading period teaching, instructing, modeling, and practicing writing essay, I would still have some that would turn in a ridiculously short essay and argue that they have “gotten to the point.” However, any logical person would know that these student’s essays would not meet the required components of an essay and would not serve as evidence of mastery, which is what a teacher is suppose to do right? Help students master certain skills, regardless of what is “easier on” them?

Just grade them an F

Lol! Sorry to break it to you, but Z isn’t a grade. Sorry.

Lana! r/whooosh

yes it is, its a double f

nobody likes your long paragraphs.

Instead of using a minimum word count, say that you must have at least five paragraphs, and if they turn in 5 sentences, that’s on them. High school students know that a section is longer than a sentence. And if they pretend not too, that’s on them. And your problem that they turn in just a paragraph? They know what an essay is, they are lazy and, quite frankly, don’t care about the class. So give them an incomplete grade and the chance to rewrite it, if they decline, they have failed that assignment. It is harsh but necessary.

I don’t think you understand: if I can get it across in a short paragraph, and otherwise it would be graded well, then why should I have to write a three-hundred word long paragraph just to explain the same thing? I shouldn’t have to. That’s the answer.

I think that minimum word counts are fine with this reasoning, but I am very reluctant to agree with you due to your unnecessary rudeness. Also, teachers, please don’t make the minimum more than 800 words! For college, I understand, but not below college.

Exactly! 2000 words in 4 days! IMPOSSIBLE

2000/4 = 500/1

Just write approx 500 words per day; spend like 1-2 hours for the next couple day adding like 500 words every time. Or you could be a knucklehead like me and try to get it all done in one go, then me suffering the next morning because you fell asleep at 3:30

The only thing thats impossible is impossibility!!!

Hey you stole my Name!

Its Not Impossible, the only thing thats Impossible is Impossibility!!!

i agree 100%

Guidelines are so unaccepted. 🙁

I was researching but I got caught up reading you guys arguing

lmao yeah me too

Same here. Whoops.

Once more… same here.

I am supposed to be writing an essay then I just saw war in the comments so I had to read.

exactly, what is the point in a word count when you can make it easier on yourself and write shorter essays

i only have to write 400 words luckily, but it’s in a language im not great at 🙁 i only need 40 more but don’t have any ideass

Our teacher gave us a 20000 word count for the Australia Murray River Basin… I’d be lucky if my teachers ever give me a 2500 word count. Last year one of the students in our class scored a 38000 word count when the minimum word count was 25000. don’t complain. International School Of Hefei (CISH)

Just had to re-read that. Twenty THOUSAND word count? I was given that as a goal for a story in one of my classes, and we had the entire year to do it. I don’t know how long y’all had for it, but either way that’s too much for an essay.

yeah I’m in class right now in grade 8 and have to do a 250 word since assessment but I cant think of anything else to add because I stuck to the assessment sheet and used the teaches advise but I only have 227 words. (I will add my assessment below)

Energy comes in six basic forms that are chemical which is renewable, electrical, radiant, mechanical, thermal and nuclear. These types of energy are both renewable and nonrenewer, electrical, thermal and radiant are all renewable energy types but electrical, chemical mechanical and nuclear are non-renewable because there is not a infinite source of this type of energy. There are other types but these are the six basic types of energy that make up other types. Energy is the thing that powers most electrical items you can’t create and destroy energy but you can move it to an object like a light bulb or battery. Energy can be transferred by copper and other conductive materials. There are also materials that are nonconductive like wood and rubber. Energy is mostly transferred between thing with wires like when you charge you phone or turn on light. Energy can change form into other types of energy. for example if you turn on a light bulb the electric energy will turn into thermal energy and light energy. A car is also a good example of this because the car hold chemical bonds of fuel which later turns into several different types of energy and gases. The law of conservation states that every type of energy can not be created or destroyed it can and will only be transferred into other types of energy.

Now you need to write an article on how to decrease word count when you go hopelessly over the maximum allowed.

Yes! This is what I need. I don’t understand how people can write under the word count given. I’m ALWAYS over, and by a lot. I had a 1000 word paper to write and I wrote 2500. Teachers never give enough word count for writing.

I once had 200 word essay and i wrote 400!

I struggle to get to the word count, but once I’m there I go over and struggle to remove stuff without ruining it.

Here you go: https://wordcounter.net/blog/2016/01/26/101025_how-to-reduce-essay-word-count.html

The second link in the first paragraph is to just such an article.

A thesaurus is your friend when you are only a bit under word count. I’m glad to see you added one to your tool. it’s so much easier than going back and forth to another thesaurus website. Thank you for making this useful tool and not charging any money for it.

Adjectives and adverbs can help with this, but it won’t make the essay stronger. You usually want to eliminate adverbs and adjectives in your writing to make it better. You have to make a decision as to whether word count is more important or a better essay is more important before using these methods.

I’m 500 words short of the minimum word count my teacher assigned for my essay. What is the best way to increase word count fast without a lot of effort?

Did you even read the article?

Don’t use contractions.

Writing takes effort. If you want to write with no effort, your writing is going to suck.

I hate that I never seem to be able to write enough words for assignments. If I have answered a question, why do I need to write more meaningless words?

You should never write meaningless words. You would be much better off adding a different perspective or adding more support to your view. meaningless words will only lower your grade.

I have to write 7,000+ characters with spaces!!!! By thursday! I have 5,200 done. What should I do?

Write more… or put a ton of smiley faces in 😉

As a teacher, I’m glad to see legitimate ways for students to increase their essay word count instead of all the “tricks” students don’t think we know, but we do. Adding random words in white so it appears the word count is higher than it is doesn’t work because we know approximately how many pages the assignment should be. Best to actually do the work!

You are the exception. I have a great way to increase word count when I’m short on words. I will write a bunch of random text at the end of the essay, then change it to white so you can’t see it even though it’s there. Now the teacher thinks you have written the required word count. Brilliant! Teachers are so clueless that this works 100% of the time. Now you will never be under your word count and you don’t have to write a bunch of filler crap that isn’t needed. You can thank me later.

To add onto this, feel free to change the font size of the white text to fit in more words into less space.

There must be so many students who come to this article for the exact same reason as I did. (“hi” all you sleep-deprived people) I’m 500 words short on my essay and I need to figure out how to make it longer before tomorrow’s class. thank you for this list of ideas. I think I’ll be able to incorporate a few of them to make my essay long enough to reach the word count.

Yes, this is the exact reason I’m here, but I need to add 600 words to my essay. Why do teachers make the assignments so long when there is only a limited amount to say on the given topic?

I’m one of those looking for a way to extend an essay by 300 words when I’ve already said everything there is to say on the topic. I guess I’ll add a lot of useless quotes just to satisfy the teacher.

I think attitude has a lot to do with it. If you’re writing an essay you have little to no interest in writing, it’s much more difficult to write it and reach the word count. If it’s something you have a lot of interest in, then the issue is usually staying beneath the word count limit. One of the best ways to increase word count on essays is to take an interest in the topic. If you learn to become more curious and have an interest in things that may not at first seem to be interesting, you’ll be surprised at how much easier it is to write essays and to always reach the designated word count.

That easy to say and all, what if your teacher assigns you a topic? And what if that topic is totally boring? It’s hard to write about things that are boring and you have no interest in, so of course it’s going to be difficult to reach the word count. If you’re in school, you have to write with the teacher tells you to write, not what interests you. So your suggestion sounds good and all, but in reality we don’t have that choice.

I think the best way to increase the word count of an essay is to add more examples. This clarifies what you’re trying to say which adds value to the essay so anyone reading will understand exactly the point you want to get across. All my friends are bad at giving examples, but I am good and I’m always going over the word count while they are always under.

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. My entire essay is almost only quotes. This is the easiest way to make your essay meet word count. Just put in a lot of quotes and you’ll get there in no time.

It maybe the easiest way to increase your word count, but if your entire essay is all quotes you probably aren’t going to get a very good grade on it. Quotes should be used to support the points that you’re trying to make, but they shouldn’t be your entire essay. If you want to do well in school, you have to know the difference between these two.

This is lazy writing. It will not help you become better in the long run, and the teacher will see what you’ve done and mark down your paper. The easiest way is often not the best way to approach increasing an essay word count.

Cite every single quote in a bibliography at the bottom to make the word count huge.

This is really a skill that every teacher should teach their students. Not just assign an essay, but explain how the steps they need to take to reach a word count. It would be a great benefit to most students (I know some students are wordy and always hit their word count, but most of us don’t). I wish teachers cared enough to actually help us.

On almost any topic you care to mention volumes have been written. To imagine you have covered the topic fully and still be 500-600 words short of required count is ridiculous. The idea that the shortfall is due to the clarity of your arguments or exceptional command of language & vocabulary is laughable in most cases.

If it’s too short, it lacks content. Do more research.

The quality of your writing may suggest you are the love child of William Shakespeare and Jane Austen, but if it doesn’t cover the assignment material you won’t get the marks.

Teachers know the key points they expect to be covered on an assignment and allow a word allocation for each point, as well as marks allocation.

For example, a 1,000 word requirement may indicate a short intro and conclusion and 4 x 200 word key points.

You might be able to work out the scheme by reviewing assignments where you scored well. How many key points did you make, compared to word count?

Word count = 170.

Not everyone is born with the ability to write or enjoys writing, so sometimes it can be extremely hard to write a long essay. These tips surely did help a lot. I would also suggest learning enjoy writing more. If you like to do it, it should be easier to do.

how do you learn to like something? either you like it or you don’t.

HEy! you stole my name!!!

Any teachers out there? Why exactly do assignments have a minimum and maximum word count assigned? Is it for the students’ benefit or the teachers? I’m curious as it would seem that word count shouldn’t really matter, but that actual writing for the assignment. I waiting to hear a good answer to this question.

Word count forces students to be more concise in their writing and focus on the most important points. Minimum word counts make the student research more to find alternative supporting evidence they may have overlooked without it.

If you can’t increase your word count, you don’t know what you’re writing about well enough. There should be no issue writing about any topic up to 5000 words as long as you are familiar with the topic. If you find you don’t have enough to write about something, it’s because you haven’t taken the time to study the topic well enough.

This isn’t true. Sometimes you don’t need a lot of words to cover the topic at hand and adding more words just to increase word count does nothing but add unneeded words. Sure, you can add the words, but they are useless and don’t make the essay better. Why would anyone want to do that?

Where did you get this Bogus Idea, I’ve been trying to finish an essay and I love the topic we’re doing, but it’s almost impossible to write 2500 words on it, and according to your logic “There should be no issue writing about any topic up to 5000 words” that’s a lie.

I stumbled upon this and it’s been helpful, but are there other ways to increase word count? I still have about 500 more words to write.

Any teachers out there? Why exactly do assignments have a minimum and maximum word count assigned? Is it for the students’ benefit or the teachers? I’m curious as it would seem that word count shouldn’t really matter, but that actual writing for the assignment

As teachers, we know approximately how long an essay should be to get the points across for that particular assignment. That is why we assign a word count. If the student is well under they have not explored the topic in-depth enough and if they are well over, they are being too wordy.

Still you don’t need a word count, just let the kids try and let them be creative 😒!

But wouldn’t addressing the prompt in fewer words than assigned show that the student is smarter? Why spend 1000 words saying something that’s equally if not more so effective in 500 words?

“if they are well over, they are being too wordy.”

Now here’s something *I* don’t get. I can understand being “wordy” as something bad if it’s a student looking in a thesaurus to make every word more complicated, but I’ve done essays where I’ve covered all the points related to the topic I wanted to talk about, delivered them with examples and references where needed, and accidentally gone over the word limit to where I either have to make my essay weaker to not get points taken off OR get points taken off for being “wordy”? Why??

Hello Prince Charming! Come and Save Me from School Please! NOW!!!

The best way to increase a paper’s word count is to do more research. The more research you do, the more information you’ll have, and the more you can write on the topic.

Look, everyone has a different opinions about Word Counts, I really don’t like word counts but I do the essay anyways! So quit complaining!

Or at the bottom of your essay type a bunch of random letters like this mkfneofheoughero; then turn that to a white font.

LOL!!!!!!!!!!

you sir are a genius

well yes, genius solution, but uh— that’s cheating.

But like what if we have a page count minimum and the teacher can see if the page is full or not?

This helped a lot, thank you so much!! I don’t understand what it is with teachers and word-count. I’ve heard some teachers say, “When you become a teacher, you’ll understand why we give word counts” and I guess I do. It’s to make sure you covered all of the criteria and stuff. But If my essay word count is 800 words, and I’ve only written 300 and gotten my point across, why do I have to be marked down for it? I am in year 9 at school and I have a Geography essay due in last period today about biomes. I have gotten my point across and now I have to fluff about writing another 500 words. Thanks again, and wish me luck! 🙂

Bruh. You ain’t seen nothing yet. English 1301 has KILLED me. I’m 1500 words short….

bruh im currently 1500 words short on a 1500 word essay due tomorrow 🙁

All of you guys are complaining about essays of 2000 words or less, but I have to write a 25 000 word essay, in three weeks, which really isn’t that hard. I, for one, enjoy writing essays, but be lucky that you don’t have them of this length to write 😉

That’s not an essay it’s a book.

Actually, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s stone is 76,944, and that is the average length for a book so 25,000, is more like a 4 chapter fanfic…

I’ve never been a teacher but have been a university student. Personally, I get very uncomfortable when word counts aren’t given, because the fact is that the professor likely has a quiet expectation on the issue. I don’t want to try to have to hit that count by inference.

How one structures his essay depends on that word count (2000 v 3000 maybe not so much but say 1000 v 5000 is quite different). I’d like to know what kind of essay he wants.

heh, I once passed an essay online which had a minimum word count I just added random gibberish to the end in a white font to conceal it with tiny font size. try that if u really have to.

I have an idea – write a few words after each paragraph and make them white. The teacher will never know… 🙂

I think the refrigorator eat windows and the good skull

i’m 6 pages short on a compare/contrast religion paper focused around love that is due on tuesday. i have already gone over the five religions and though i need more substance (6 pages more), i don’t want to add so much that it’s just an information dump. my three options that i can see right now are: start over with a similar topic so i don’t have to just scrap everything, add more anyway, or just finish it and turn it in under the requirement but with good writing. what should i do?? do i have any other options??

use double space😂😁

i came across this because this is literally my problem now. well…

all i need is 12 more words! thats why i came to this website!

i only have 600 word for nuclear reactors i’m amazed how u guys can do 1000+ word without your brain exploding.

If i had a 2500 Word count minimum. I would die.

i love how everyone’s arguing on a blog. not complaining tho!

most of you are in college and are fussing about 1000 word essays meanwhile me still in middle school having to do 4-5 pages aka more than 1000 words

Word counts ‘work’ until students learn to hate writing, because only their word counts — not their points — matter.

UGH….. I’ve done this already and I still have 200 words to go! 🙁 It was pretty amusing to read through the comments saying someone is in Highschool or College and be like “Sucker, I’m still in Junior High”. RIP.

I had the best time reading your argument before I finished my essay thanks for the good times. 🙂

The word count at my University is a maximum word count, not a minimum. The word count is there to suggest the level of detail we’re expected to go into. For example, my last essay had a 2,500 word maximum. I could easily have written a 10,000 word dissertation or a 100 word summary. For the detail expected. I ended up with 2,464 words. If you’re writing 1,000 words for a 2,500 word essay, even if that seems OK to you, you’ve not added enough detail.

oh my god, this was SO helpful you dont understand how much this page helped me. Thank You!!!

if you have ever bean a teacher you would under stand why word counts exist jk I think text matters more than the amount of words

Im only in the 8th grade, we are righting an essay right now about the holocaust, we have to write 12 PAGES!! WHAT. i can explain it in a page or two😩

When writing a essay you got to stay on topic make sure you proofread and using correct grammar

word counts make me sad

me reading the comments in 2024 🙂 cuz i hate essay as well.

Popular Posts

• The Top 10 Most Difficult-to-Spot Writing Mistakes
• 4 Simple Tips for Great Writing
• Avoiding Wordiness: 330 Examples & What to Use Instead
• The Oxford Comma: The Splice of Life
• Who vs. Whom
• Affect vs. Effect
• How to Take Notes: The 10-Step Guide to Note-Taking (Infographic)
• CMOS vs. AP – Recent Changes & Comparison (Updated 1. Nov. 2021)
• The Daily Word Counts of 19 Famous Writers
• The Ideal Length of Everything You Write Online ( Infographic)

Recent Comments

• Trilby on Words Everyone Seems to Hate
• Sarah on Words Everyone Seems to Hate
• Justin Robinson on Words Everyone Seems to Hate
• Muhammad Abdullah on Word Counter Reading Level Feature

Session expired

Please log in again. The login page will open in a new tab. After logging in you can close it and return to this page.

Calculate for all schools

Your chance of acceptance, your chancing factors, extracurriculars, expanding high-level vocabulary for essays.

I'm working on my college essays and I want to improve my vocab to make my writing stand out. Any suggestions on how to incorporate high-level vocabulary or resources to expand my lexicon?

Incorporating high-level vocabulary in your college essays is a great way to showcase your writing skills and stand out. Here are some suggestions on how to expand your lexicon and effectively use a sophisticated vocabulary in your essays:

1. Read widely: To expand your vocabulary, read a variety of materials including novels, newspapers, and even academic papers. This exposes you to new words and phrases that you can naturally incorporate into your own writing. Take note of unfamiliar words, look up their meanings, and try to use them in sentences for practice.

2. Use vocabulary-building tools: There are several resources available for vocabulary expansion, such as flashcard apps, websites like Vocabulary.com, and even classic books like "Word Power Made Easy" by Norman Lewis. These tools help you learn new words in a structured manner and provide exercises to reinforce your learning.

3. Keep a vocabulary journal: Whenever you encounter a new word, write it down in a journal along with its definition and an example sentence. Review your journal regularly to reinforce your learning and expose yourself to these words more frequently.

4. Revise selectively: Instead of trying to replace every simple word with a more complex one, focus on key phrases and descriptions where a higher-level word would add nuance or impact. Overstuffing your essay with complex vocabulary can make it difficult to read and may detract from your message. Aim for a balance of clarity and sophistication.

5. Use words in context: When incorporating new words into your essay, ensure their usage is contextually appropriate. Misusing a word can create confusion and cast doubt on your grasp of the language. It's always better to use a simpler word correctly than a complex one incorrectly.

6. Practice writing: Familiarize yourself with using high-level vocabulary by regularly writing essays, journal entries, or even fiction. Like any skill, the more you practice, the more natural it will become. Challenge yourself to incorporate new words in your writing to expand your active vocabulary.

7. Edit and revise: Once you have a draft of your essay, go through it to identify areas where you can improve your word choice. Use a thesaurus to find synonyms if needed, but remember that context matters – always double-check if the suggested synonyms fit the intended meaning.

Remember, while a high-level vocabulary can enhance your college essay, the most important aspects are still the quality of your storytelling and your ability to convey your thoughts and experiences effectively. Focusing on a clear, engaging narrative with well-structured sentences is the foundation upon which you can layer a sophisticated vocabulary. Good luck with your college essays!

About CollegeVine’s Expert FAQ

CollegeVine’s Q&A seeks to offer informed perspectives on commonly asked admissions questions. Every answer is refined and validated by our team of admissions experts to ensure it resonates with trusted knowledge in the field.

• +44 (0) 207 391 9032

Recent Posts

• Abstract vs. Introduction: What’s the Difference?
• How Do AI detectors Work? Breaking Down the Algorithm
• What is a Literature Review? Definition, Types, and Examples
• Why Is Your CV Getting Rejected and How to Avoid It
• Where to Find Images for Presentations
• What Is an Internship? Everything You Should Know

How Long Should a Thesis Statement Be?

• How to Write a Character Analysis Essay
• Best Colours for Your PowerPoint Presentation: Top Colour Combinations
• How to Write a Nursing Essay – With Examples
• Academic News
• Custom Essays
• Dissertation Writing
• Essay Marking
• Essay Writing
• Essay Writing Companies
• Model Essays
• Model Exam Answers
• Oxbridge Essays Updates
• PhD Writing
• Significant Academics
• Student News
• Study Skills
• University Applications
• University Essays
• University Life
• Writing Tips

17 academic words and phrases to use in your essay

(Last updated: 20 October 2022)

Since 2006, Oxbridge Essays has been the UK’s leading paid essay-writing and dissertation service

We have helped 10,000s of undergraduate, Masters and PhD students to maximise their grades in essays, dissertations, model-exam answers, applications and other materials. If you would like a free chat about your project with one of our UK staff, then please just reach out on one of the methods below.

For the vast majority of students, essay writing doesn't always come easily. Writing at academic level is an acquired skill that can literally take years to master – indeed, many students find they only start to feel really confident writing essays just as their undergraduate course comes to an end!

If this is you, and you've come here looking for words and phrases to use in your essay, you're in the right place. We’ve pulled together a list of essential academic words you can use in the introduction, body, and conclusion of your essays .

Whilst your ideas and arguments should always be your own, borrowing some of the words and phrases listed below is a great way to articulate your ideas more effectively, and ensure that you keep your reader’s attention from start to finish.

It goes without saying (but we'll say it anyway) that there's a certain formality that comes with academic writing. Casual and conversational phrases have no place. Obviously, there are no LOLs, LMFAOs, and OMGs. But formal academic writing can be much more subtle than this, and as we've mentioned above, requires great skill.

So, to get you started on polishing your own essay writing ability, try using the words in this list as an inspirational starting point.

Words to use in your introduction

The trickiest part of academic writing often comes right at the start, with your introduction. Of course, once you’ve done your plan and have your arguments laid out, you need to actually put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) and begin your essay.

You need to consider that your reader doesn’t have a clue about your topic or arguments, so your first sentence must summarise these. Explain what your essay is going to talk about as though you were explaining it to a five year old – without losing the formality of your academic writing, of course! To do this, use any of the below words or phrases to help keep you on track.

1. Firstly, secondly, thirdly

Even though it sounds obvious, your argument will be clearer if you deliver the ideas in the right order. These words can help you to offer clarity and structure to the way you expose your ideas. This is an extremely effective method of presenting the facts clearly. Don’t be too rigid and feel you have to number each point, but using this system can be a good way to get an argument off the ground, and link arguments together.

2. In view of; in light of; considering

These essay phrases are useful to begin your essay. They help you pose your argument based on what other authors have said or a general concern about your research. They can also both be used when a piece of evidence sheds new light on an argument. Here’s an example: The result of the American invasion has severely impaired American interests in the Middle East, exponentially increasing popular hostility to the United States throughout the region, a factor which has proved to be a powerful recruitment tool for extremist terrorist groups (Isakhan, 2015). Considering [or In light of / In view of] the perceived resulting threat to American interests, it could be argued that the Bush administration failed to fully consider the impact of their actions before pushing forward with the war.

3. According to X; X stated that; referring to the views of X

Introducing the views of an author who has a comprehensive knowledge of your particular area of study is a crucial part of essay writing. Including a quote that fits naturally into your work can be a bit of a struggle, but these academic phrases provide a great way in.

Even though it’s fine to reference a quote in your introduction, we don’t recommend you start your essay with a direct quote. Use your own words to sum up the views you’re mentioning, for example:

As Einstein often reiterated, experiments can prove theories, but experiments don’t give birth to theories.

Rather than:

“A theory can be proved by experiment, but no path leads from experiment to the birth of a theory.” {Albert Einstein, 1954, Einstein: A Biography}.

See the difference?

And be sure to reference correctly too, when using quotes or paraphrasing someone else's words.

Adding information and flow

The flow of your essay is extremely important. You don’t want your reader to be confused by the rhythm of your writing and get distracted away from your argument, do you? No! So, we recommend using some of the following ‘flow’ words, which are guaranteed to help you articulate your ideas and arguments in a chronological and structured order.

4. Moreover; furthermore; in addition; what’s more

These types of academic phrases are perfect for expanding or adding to a point you’ve already made without interrupting the flow altogether. “Moreover”, “furthermore” and “in addition” are also great linking phrases to begin a new paragraph.

Here are some examples: The dissociation of tau protein from microtubules destabilises the latter resulting in changes to cell structure, and neuronal transport. Moreover, mitochondrial dysfunction leads to further oxidative stress causing increased levels of nitrous oxide, hydrogen peroxide and lipid peroxidases.

On the data of this trial, no treatment recommendations should be made. The patients are suspected, but not confirmed, to suffer from pneumonia. Furthermore, five days is too short a follow up time to confirm clinical cure.

5. In order to; to that end; to this end

These are helpful academic phrases to introduce an explanation or state your aim. Oftentimes your essay will have to prove how you intend to achieve your goals. By using these sentences you can easily expand on points that will add clarity to the reader.

For example: My research entailed hours of listening and recording the sound of whales in order to understand how they communicate.

Dutch tech companies offer support in the fight against the virus. To this end, an online meeting took place on Wednesday...

Even though we recommend the use of these phrases, DO NOT use them too often. You may think you sound like a real academic but it can be a sign of overwriting!

6. In other words; to put it another way; that is; to put it more simply

Complement complex ideas with simple descriptions by using these sentences. These are excellent academic phrases to improve the continuity of your essay writing. They should be used to explain a point you’ve already made in a slightly different way. Don’t use them to repeat yourself, but rather to elaborate on a certain point that needs further explanation. Or, to succinctly round up what just came before.

For example: A null hypothesis is a statement that there is no relationship between phenomena. In other words, there is no treatment effect.

Nothing could come to be in this pre-world time, “because no part of such a time possesses, as compared with any other, a distinguishing condition of existence rather than non-existence.” That is, nothing exists in this pre-world time, and so there can be nothing that causes the world to come into existence.

7. Similarly; likewise; another key fact to remember; as well as; an equally significant aspect of

These essay words are a good choice to add a piece of information that agrees with an argument or fact you just mentioned. In academic writing, it is very relevant to include points of view that concur with your opinion. This will help you to situate your research within a research context.

Also , academic words and phrases like the above are also especially useful so as not to repeat the word ‘also’ too many times. (We did that on purpose to prove our point!) Your reader will be put off by the repetitive use of simple conjunctions. The quality of your essay will drastically improve just by using academic phrases and words such as ‘similarly’, ‘as well as’, etc. Here, let us show you what we mean:

In 1996, then-transport minister Steve Norris enthused about quadrupling cycling trips by 2012. Similarly, former prime minister David Cameron promised a “cycling revolution” in 2013…

Or Renewable Energy Initiative (AREI) aims to bridge the gap of access to electricity across the continent (...). Another key fact to remember is that it must expand cost-efficient access to electricity to nearly 1 billion people.

The wording “not only… but also” is a useful way to elaborate on a similarity in your arguments but in a more striking way.

Comparing and contrasting information

Academic essays often include opposite opinions or information in order to prove a point. It is important to show all the aspects that are relevant to your research. Include facts and researchers’ views that disagree with a point of your essay to show your knowledge of your particular field of study. Below are a few words and ways of introducing alternative arguments.

8. Conversely; however; alternatively; on the contrary; on the other hand; whereas

Finding a seamless method to present an alternative perspective or theory can be hard work, but these terms and phrases can help you introduce the other side of the argument. Let's look at some examples:

89% of respondents living in joint families reported feeling financially secure. Conversely, only 64% of those who lived in nuclear families said they felt financially secure.

The first protagonist has a social role to fill in being a father to those around him, whereas the second protagonist relies on the security and knowledge offered to him by Chaplin.

“On the other hand” can also be used to make comparisons when worded together with “on the one hand.”

9. By contrast; in comparison; then again; that said; yet

These essay phrases show contrast, compare facts, and present uncertainty regarding a point in your research. “That said” and “yet” in particular will demonstrate your expertise on a topic by showing the conditions or limitations of your research area. For example:

All the tests were positive. That said, we must also consider the fact that some of them had inconclusive results.

10. Despite this; provided that; nonetheless

Use these phrases and essay words to demonstrate a positive aspect of your subject-matter regardless of lack of evidence, logic, coherence, or criticism. Again, this kind of information adds clarity and expertise to your academic writing.

A good example is:

Despite the criticism received by X, the popularity of X remains undiminished.

11. Importantly; significantly; notably; another key point

Another way to add contrast is by highlighting the relevance of a fact or opinion in the context of your research. These academic words help to introduce a sentence or paragraph that contains a very meaningful point in your essay.

Giving examples

A good piece of academic writing will always include examples. Illustrating your essay with examples will make your arguments stronger. Most of the time, examples are a way to clarify an explanation; they usually offer an image that the reader can recognise. The most common way to introduce an illustration is “for example.” However, in order not to repeat yourself here are a few other options.

12. For instance; to give an illustration of; to exemplify; to demonstrate; as evidence; to elucidate

The academic essays that are receiving top marks are the ones that back up every single point made. These academic phrases are a useful way to introduce an example. If you have a lot of examples, avoid repeating the same phrase to facilitate the readability of your essay.

Here’s an example:

‘High involvement shopping’, an experiential process described by Wu et al. (2015, p. 299) relies upon the development of an identity-based alliance between the customer and the brand. Celebrity status at Prada, for example, has created an alliance between the brand and a new generation of millennial customers.

Concluding your essay

Concluding words for essays are necessary to wrap up your argument. Your conclusion must include a brief summary of the ideas that you just exposed without being redundant. The way these ideas are expressed should lead to the final statement and core point you have arrived at in your present research.

13. In conclusion; to conclude; to summarise; in sum; in the final analysis; on close analysis

These are phrases for essays that will introduce your concluding paragraph. You can use them at the beginning of a sentence. They will show the reader that your essay is coming to an end:

On close analysis and appraisal, we see that the study by Cortis lacks essential features of the highest quality quantitative research.

14. Persuasive; compelling

Essay words like these ones can help you emphasize the most relevant arguments of your paper. Both are used in the same way: “the most persuasive/compelling argument is…”.

15. Therefore; this suggests that; it can be seen that; the consequence is

When you’re explaining the significance of the results of a piece of research, these phrases provide the perfect lead up to your explanation.

16. Above all; chiefly; especially; most significantly; it should be noted

Your summary should include the most relevant information or research factor that guided you to your conclusion. Contrary to words such as “persuasive” or “compelling”, these essay words are helpful to draw attention to an important point. For example:

The feasibility and effectiveness of my research has been proven chiefly in the last round of laboratory tests.

Film noir is, and will continue to be, highly debatable, controversial, and unmarketable – but above all, for audience members past, present and to come, extremely enjoyable as a form of screen media entertainment.

17. All things considered

This essay phrase is meant to articulate how you give reasons to your conclusions. It means that after you considered all the aspects related to your study, you have arrived to the conclusion you are demonstrating.

After mastering the use of these academic words and phrases, we guarantee you will see an immediate change in the quality of your essays. The structure will be easier to follow, and the reader’s experience will improve. You’ll also feel more confident articulating your ideas and using facts and examples. So jot them all down, and watch your essays go from ‘good’ to ‘great’!

Essay exams: how to answer ‘To what extent…’

How to write a master’s essay.

• academic writing
• writing a good essay
• writing essays
• writing tips

Writing Services

• Essay Plans
• Critical Reviews
• Literature Reviews
• Presentations
• Dissertation Title Creation
• Dissertation Proposals
• Dissertation Chapters
• PhD Proposals
• Journal Publication
• CV Writing Service
• Business Proofreading Services

Editing Services

• Proofreading Service
• Editing Service
• Academic Editing Service

Additional Services

• Marking Services
• Consultation Calls
• Personal Statements
• Tutoring Services

Our Company

• Frequently Asked Questions
• Become a Writer

Terms & Policies

• Fair Use Policy
• Policy for Students in England
• Privacy Policy
• Terms & Conditions
• Editing Service Examples
• [email protected]
• Contact Form

Payment Methods

Cryptocurrency payments.

• Argumentative
• Ecocriticism
• Informative
• Explicatory
• Illustrative
• Problem Solution
• Interpretive
• Music Analysis
• All Essay Examples
• Entertainment
• Law, Crime & Punishment
• Artificial Intelligence
• Environment
• Geography & Travel
• Government & Politics
• Nursing & Health
• Information Science and Technology
• All Essay Topics

Essay Extender

Easily make your essay longer with our ai essay expander.

How to Expand Your Essay Text Using Essay Extender at EssayGPT?

Using our essay extender takes only three simple steps. Here's what you need to do:

• 1. Enter the essay you want to extend in the Content to expand on field.
• 2. Choose the target audience, tone of voice, and essay language.
• 3. Select how many essays you want to generate and click Generate to extend your essay.

Try Our Other Powerful AI Products

Bypass AI detection with 100% undetectable AI content

Create undetectable, plagiarism-free essays with accurate citations

Solve ANY homework problem with a smart AI. 99% accuracy guaranteed.

Browser Extension

The all-in-one ChatGPT copilot: rewrite, translate, summarize, Chat with PDF anywhere

EssayGPT Essay Extender: A Trouble-Free Way to Expand Your Essay

Have you written a basic essay and feel like it could be better, but you can't really find the right words? You need to extend it to make it more detailed, engaging, and eloquent. Or do you have a word count criteria to meet? Either way, EssayGPT's AI essay expander has got your back!

At the backend of our simple-looking tool is an advanced AI. It truly understands your short input and expands on the main idea and key points, making it interesting, clear, and more fluent in three easy steps. With EssayGPT , writer's block won't stop you from creating a great essay.

Why Can EssayGPT's AI Essay Extender Get You The Best Results?

Use the EssayGPT's AI essay expander to create immersive content that'll add more value to your essay while also increasing the word count—all that in a matter of seconds.

Here's more of what it can do for you:

• Professionally-Written Content: The best essay needs to be professionally written—no fluff or filler sentences and straight to the point. Our tool does exactly that better than most essay extenders on the market.
• 100% Original: Although the advanced AI behind our essay elongator uses a database with tons of content, including previously written textbooks, essays, academic papers, etc. Plus, the content it produces is plagiarism-free and would pass most AI detection tools.
• Clearly Formatted: We understand the significance of excellent presentation—the essay needs to be more readable and, more importantly, skimmable (as most people read in this way). That's why our essay expander formats the produced content in bullet points and short, easy-to-read paragraphs while also making the essay longer.
• Free from Syntax or Grammar Errors: Grammatical and syntax errors are a massive turn-off for any reader, let alone anyone evaluating you. Our essay expander eliminates these errors using its highly trained advanced algorithm, ensuring the output is perfect from every angle.

Who Can Benefit from EssayGPT's AI Essay Lengthener?

Our essay extender can be suitable for various user groups. See how the EssayGPT essay extender handle can help different people handle the extending for you.

Our essay extender is helpful for students who are struggling with their school projects or assignments. We can help them easily extend their essays without sacrificing quality, and the generated content is relevant and tailored to their needs.

Researchers

EssayGPT provides an efficient way to extend and improve research essays. Our tool can identify gaps in their research and suggest additional information to add based on the research topic. This helps researchers save time in editing essays.

EssayGPT Essay Extender to Expand and Perfect Essays

Discover the Full Potential of EssayGPT Beyond Essay Expanding

Essay introduction generator, essay outline generator, free essay conclusion generator, essay shortener, chatgpt essay writer, dive into a world of inspiration.

• Analyse The Size And Scope Of The Global Tourism And Hospitality Industry
• Summary: The Pregnancy Pact
• Loss Of Faith In Maus By Vladek
• Character Analysis Of Nancy Wheeler In Stranger Things
• External and Internal Factors Essay
• Persuasive Letter
• Stovall V. Denno 388 US
• Baroque Economy
• What Is The Mood Of The Metamorphosis By Franz Kafka
• Essay on Karen Horney V. Alfred Adler
• A Research on Marketing Mix of Ntv International Television Channel Ltd
• Intellectual Property: Burger King In Florida
• Short Story : ' Melting Pot '
• Summary Of The 18th Chapter Of Alan Taylor's American Colonies
• Cyclohexene Lab Report
• Clayton Byrd Goes Underground Essay

1. What is an essay extender?

An essay expander is an online tool that EssayGPT has created to extend essays to be more detailed, engaging, and interesting using a simple and short input text. Using it is no rocket science—just fill in the relevant content to be expanded and choose the tone, audience, and language to extend it without any hassle.

2. Does the essay extender take a long time to use?

Using the HIX. AI's essay expander is not only straight forward, but fast. It’ll be faster than if you were writing it yourself, and with just a few simple steps, you’ll have new content generated in less than one minute.

3. Is your AI essay extender free to use?

It's free! Our essay lengthener doesn't charge you a penny for the first 3000 words it generates—no need to sign up or enter your credit card information. But if you need to create more text than that, choose from our basic or pro packages (according to your needs). It's way cheaper, more customizable, and better overall than other essay extenders on the market.

4. Is EssayGPT AI essay extender reliable for generating quality content?

Most essay extenders use fillers to add more text to your essays. But that's not the case with HIX's essay expander— it's highly reliable. Why? Its algorithm is trained on a lot of essays, academic papers, and books. Also, it's highly customizable and understands your input, and uses it to add meaningful, to-the-point, and engaging text to your essay. It makes the essay longer, but not at the cost of quality.

5. Can I use EssayGPT's AI essay extender for all types of essays?

Of course! Its advanced AI is trained on all types of essays. Whether your essay is descriptive, expository, narrative, or argumentative, this tool can understand your input well, identify the type, and add more text accordingly.

6. Is using an essay extender considered plagiarism?

Nope! Although the advanced algorithm working at its backend uses essays, books, academic papers, etc., in its database to train, the added content is 100% unique and passes most plagiarism detectors. And that's not all: The tool takes your simple and short text, understands its true meaning, and adds text to it based on that, making it even more original.

Expand Your Ideas with Our AI Essay Expander!

Enhance the depth and elaboration of your content using the power of AI. Try EssayGPT's AI Essay Expander now and elevate your writing to the next level!

Frequently asked questions

How can i expand my college essay.

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.

Frequently asked questions: College admissions essays

When writing your Common App essay , choose a prompt that sparks your interest and that you can connect to a unique personal story.

No matter which prompt you choose, admissions officers are more interested in your ability to demonstrate personal development , insight, or motivation for a certain area of study.

The Common App essay is your primary writing sample within the Common Application, a college application portal accepted by more than 900 schools. All your prospective schools that accept the Common App will read this essay to understand your character, background, and value as a potential student.

Since this essay is read by many colleges, avoid mentioning any college names or programs; instead, save tailored answers for the supplementary school-specific essays within the Common App.

Most importantly, your essay should be about you , not another person or thing. An insightful college admissions essay requires deep self-reflection, authenticity, and a balance between confidence and vulnerability.

Your essay shouldn’t be a résumé of your experiences but instead should tell a story that demonstrates your most important values and qualities.

When revising your college essay , first check for big-picture issues regarding your message and content. Then, check for flow, tone, style , and clarity. Finally, focus on eliminating grammar and punctuation errors .

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.

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 you’ve got to write your college essay fast , don’t panic. First, set yourself deadlines: you should spend about 10% of your remaining time on brainstorming, 10% on outlining, 40% writing, 30% revising, and 10% taking breaks in between stages.

Second, brainstorm stories and values based on your essay prompt.

Third, outline your essay based on the montage or narrative essay structure .

Fourth, write specific, personal, and unique stories that would be hard for other students to replicate.

Fifth, revise your essay and make sure it’s clearly written.

Last, if possible, get feedback from an essay coach . Scribbr essay editors can help you revise your essay in 12 hours or less.

Avoid swearing in a college essay , since admissions officers’ opinions of profanity will vary. In some cases, it might be okay to use a vulgar word, such as in dialogue or quotes that make an important point in your essay. However, it’s safest to try to make the same point without swearing.

If you have bad grades on your transcript, you may want to use your college admissions essay to explain the challenging circumstances that led to them. Make sure to avoid dwelling on the negative aspects and highlight how you overcame the situation or learned an important lesson.

However, some college applications offer an additional information section where you can explain your bad grades, allowing you to choose another meaningful topic for your college essay.

Here’s a brief list of college essay topics that may be considered cliché:

• Extracurriculars, especially sports
• Role models
• Dealing with a personal tragedy or death in the family
• Struggling with new life situations (immigrant stories, moving homes, parents’ divorce)
• Becoming a better person after community service, traveling, or summer camp
• Overcoming a difficult class
• Using a common object as an extended metaphor

It’s easier to write a standout essay with a unique topic. However, it’s possible to make a common topic compelling with interesting story arcs, uncommon connections, and an advanced writing style.

Yes. The college application essay is less formal than other academic writing —though of course it’s not mandatory to use contractions in your essay.

In a college essay , you can be creative with your language . When writing about the past, you can use the present tense to make the reader feel as if they were there in the moment with you. But make sure to maintain consistency and when in doubt, default to the correct verb tense according to the time you’re writing about.

The college admissions essay gives admissions officers a different perspective on you beyond your academic achievements, test scores, and extracurriculars. It’s your chance to stand out from other applicants with similar academic profiles by telling a unique, personal, and specific story.

Use a standard font such as Times New Roman or Arial to avoid distracting the reader from your college essay’s content.

A college application essay is less formal than most academic writing . Instead of citing sources formally with in-text citations and a reference list, you can cite them informally in your text.

For example, “In her research paper on genetics, Quinn Roberts explores …”

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 .

Most topics are acceptable for college essays if you can use them to demonstrate personal growth or a lesson learned. However, there are a few difficult topics for college essays that should be avoided. Avoid topics that are:

• Overly personal (e.g. graphic details of illness or injury, romantic or sexual relationships)
• Not personal enough (e.g. broad solutions to world problems, inspiring people or things)
• Too negative (e.g. an in-depth look at your flaws, put-downs of others, criticizing the need for a college essay)
• Too boring (e.g. a resume of your academic achievements and extracurriculars)
• Inappropriate for a college essay (e.g. illegal activities, offensive humor, false accounts of yourself, bragging about privilege)

To write an effective diversity essay , include vulnerable, authentic stories about your unique identity, background, or perspective. Provide insight into how your lived experience has influenced your outlook, activities, and goals. If relevant, you should also mention how your background has led you to apply for this university and why you’re a good fit.

Many universities believe a student body composed of different perspectives, beliefs, identities, and backgrounds will enhance the campus learning and community experience.

Admissions officers are interested in hearing about how your unique background, identity, beliefs, culture, or characteristics will enrich the campus community, which is why they assign a diversity essay .

In addition to your main college essay , some schools and scholarships may ask for a supplementary essay focused on an aspect of your identity or background. This is sometimes called a diversity essay .

You can use humor in a college essay , but carefully consider its purpose and use it wisely. An effective use of humor involves unexpected, keen observations of the everyday, or speaks to a deeper theme. Humor shouldn’t be the main focus of the essay, but rather a tool to improve your storytelling.

Get a second opinion from a teacher, counselor, or essay coach on whether your essay’s humor is appropriate.

Though admissions officers are interested in hearing your story, they’re also interested in how you tell it. An exceptionally written essay will differentiate you from other applicants, meaning that admissions officers will spend more time reading it.

You can use literary devices to catch your reader’s attention and enrich your storytelling; however, focus on using just a few devices well, rather than trying to use as many as possible.

To decide on a good college essay topic , spend time thoughtfully answering brainstorming questions. If you still have trouble identifying topics, try the following two strategies:

• Identify your qualities → Brainstorm stories that demonstrate these qualities
• Identify memorable stories → Connect your qualities to these stories

You can also ask family, friends, or mentors to help you brainstorm topics, give feedback on your potential essay topics, or recall key stories that showcase your qualities.

Yes—admissions officers don’t expect everyone to have a totally unique college essay topic . But you must differentiate your essay from others by having a surprising story arc, an interesting insight, and/or an advanced writing style .

There are no foolproof college essay topics —whatever your topic, the key is to write about it effectively. However, a good topic

• Is meaningful, specific, and personal to you
• Focuses on you and your experiences
• Reveals something beyond your test scores, grades, and extracurriculars
• Is creative and original

Unlike a five-paragraph essay, your admissions essay should not end by summarizing the points you’ve already made. It’s better to be creative and aim for a strong final impression.

You should also avoid stating the obvious (for example, saying that you hope to be accepted).

There are a few strategies you can use for a memorable ending to your college essay :

• Return to the beginning with a “full circle” structure
• Reveal the main point or insight in your story
• Look to the future
• End on an action

The best technique will depend on your topic choice, essay outline, and writing style. You can write several endings using different techniques to see which works best.

College deadlines vary depending on the schools you’re applying to and your application plan:

• For early action applications and the first round of early decision applications, the deadline is on November 1 or 15. Decisions are released by mid-December.
• For the second round of early decision applications, the deadline is January 1 or 15. Decisions are released in January or February.
• Regular decision deadlines usually fall between late November and mid-March, and decisions are released in March or April.
• Rolling admission deadlines run from July to April, and decisions are released around four to eight weeks after submission.

Depending on your prospective schools’ requirements, you may need to submit scores for the SAT or ACT as part of your college application .

Some schools now no longer require students to submit test scores; however, you should still take the SAT or ACT and aim to get a high score to strengthen your application package.

Aim to take the SAT or ACT in the spring of your junior year to give yourself enough time to retake it in the fall of your senior year if necessary.

Apply early for federal student aid and application fee waivers. You can also look for scholarships from schools, corporations, and charitable foundations.

To maximize your options, you should aim to apply to about eight schools:

• Two reach schools that might be difficult to get into
• Four match schools that you have a good chance of getting into
• Two safety schools that you feel confident you’ll get into

The college admissions essay accounts for roughly 25% of the weight of your application .

At highly selective schools, there are four qualified candidates for every spot. While your academic achievements are important, your college admissions essay can help you stand out from other applicants with similar profiles.

In general, for your college application you will need to submit all of the following:

• Your personal information
• List of extracurriculars and awards
• College application essays
• Transcripts
• Standardized test scores
• Recommendation letters.

Different colleges may have specific requirements, so make sure you check exactly what’s expected in the application guidance.

You should start thinking about your college applications the summer before your junior year to give you sufficient time for college visits, taking standardized tests, applying for financial aid , writing essays, and collecting application material.

Yes, but make sure your essay directly addresses the prompt, respects the word count , and demonstrates the organization’s values.

If you plan ahead, you can save time by writing one scholarship essay for multiple prompts with similar questions. In a scholarship tracker spreadsheet, you can group or color-code overlapping essay prompts; then, write a single essay for multiple scholarships. Sometimes, you can even reuse or adapt your main college essay .

You can start applying for scholarships as early as your junior year. Continue applying throughout your senior year.

Invest time in applying for various scholarships , especially local ones with small dollar amounts, which are likely easier to win and more reflective of your background and interests. It will be easier for you to write an authentic and compelling essay if the scholarship topic is meaningful to you.

You can find scholarships through your school counselor, community network, or an internet search.

A scholarship essay requires you to demonstrate your values and qualities while answering the prompt’s specific question.

After researching the scholarship organization, identify a personal experience that embodies its values and exemplifies how you will be a successful student.

A standout college essay has several key ingredients:

• A unique, personally meaningful topic
• A memorable introduction with vivid imagery or an intriguing hook
• Specific stories and language that show instead of telling
• Vulnerability that’s authentic but not aimed at soliciting sympathy
• Clear writing in an appropriate style and tone
• A conclusion that offers deep insight or a creative ending

While timelines will differ depending on the student, plan on spending at least 1–3 weeks brainstorming and writing the first draft of your college admissions essay , and at least 2–4 weeks revising across multiple drafts. Don’t forget to save enough time for breaks between each writing and editing stage.

You should already begin thinking about your essay the summer before your senior year so that you have plenty of time to try out different topics and get feedback on what works.

Your college essay accounts for about 25% of your application’s weight. It may be the deciding factor in whether you’re accepted, especially for competitive schools where most applicants have exceptional grades, test scores, and extracurricular track records.

In most cases, quoting other people isn’t a good way to start your college essay . Admissions officers want to hear your thoughts about yourself, and quotes often don’t achieve that. Unless a quote truly adds something important to your essay that it otherwise wouldn’t have, you probably shouldn’t include it.

Cliché openers in a college essay introduction are usually general and applicable to many students and situations. Most successful introductions are specific: they only work for the unique essay that follows.

The key to a strong college essay introduction is not to give too much away. Try to start with a surprising statement or image that raises questions and compels the reader to find out more.

The introduction of your college essay is the first thing admissions officers will read and therefore your most important opportunity to stand out. An excellent introduction will keep admissions officers reading, allowing you to tell them what you want them to know.

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.

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.

In your application essay , admissions officers are looking for particular features : they want to see context on your background, positive traits that you could bring to campus, and examples of you demonstrating those qualities.

Colleges want to be able to differentiate students who seem similar on paper. In the college application essay , they’re looking for a way to understand each applicant’s unique personality and experiences.

You don’t need a title for your college admissions essay , but you can include one if you think it adds something important.

Your college essay’s format should be as simple as possible:

• Use a standard, readable font
• Use 1.5 or double spacing
• If attaching a file, save it as a PDF
• Stick to the word count
• Avoid unusual formatting and unnecessary decorative touches

There are no set rules for how to structure a college application essay , but these are two common structures that work:

• A montage structure, a series of vignettes with a common theme.
• A narrative structure, a single story that shows your personal growth or how you overcame a challenge.

Avoid the five-paragraph essay structure that you learned in high school.

Campus visits are always helpful, but if you can’t make it in person, the college website will have plenty of information for you to explore. You should look through the course catalog and even reach out to current faculty with any questions about the school.

Colleges set a “Why this college?” essay because they want to see that you’ve done your research. You must prove that you know what makes the school unique and can connect that to your own personal goals and academic interests.

Depending on your writing, you may go through several rounds of revision . Make sure to put aside your essay for a little while after each editing stage to return with a fresh perspective.

Teachers and guidance counselors can help you check your language, tone, and content . Ask for their help at least one to two months before the submission deadline, as many other students will also want their help.

Friends and family are a good resource to check for authenticity. It’s best to seek help from family members with a strong writing or English educational background, or from older siblings and cousins who have been through the college admissions process.

If possible, get help from an essay coach or editor ; they’ll have specialized knowledge of college admissions essays and be able to give objective expert feedback.

When revising your college essay , first check for big-picture issues regarding message, flow, tone, style , and clarity. Then, focus on eliminating grammar and punctuation errors.

Include specific, personal details and use your authentic voice to shed a new perspective on a common human experience.

Through specific stories, you can weave your achievements and qualities into your essay so that it doesn’t seem like you’re bragging from a resume.

When writing about yourself , including difficult experiences or failures can be a great way to show vulnerability and authenticity, but be careful not to overshare, and focus on showing how you matured from the experience.

First, spend time reflecting on your core values and character . You can start with these questions:

• What are three words your friends or family would use to describe you, and why would they choose them?
• Whom do you admire most and why?
• What are you most proud of? Ashamed of?

However, you should do a comprehensive brainstorming session to fully understand your values. Also consider how your values and goals match your prospective university’s program and culture. Then, brainstorm stories that illustrate the fit between the two.

In a college application essay , you can occasionally bend grammatical rules if doing so adds value to the storytelling process and the essay maintains clarity.

However, use standard language rules if your stylistic choices would otherwise distract the reader from your overall narrative or could be easily interpreted as unintentional errors.

Write concisely and use the active voice to maintain a quick pace throughout your essay and make sure it’s the right length . Avoid adding definitions unless they provide necessary explanation.

Use first-person “I” statements to speak from your perspective . Use appropriate word choices that show off your vocabulary but don’t sound like you used a thesaurus. Avoid using idioms or cliché expressions by rewriting them in a creative, original way.

If you’re an international student applying to a US college and you’re comfortable using American idioms or cultural references , you can. But instead of potentially using them incorrectly, don’t be afraid to write in detail about yourself within your own culture.

Provide context for any words, customs, or places that an American admissions officer might be unfamiliar with.

College application essays are less formal than other kinds of academic writing . Use a conversational yet respectful tone , as if speaking with a teacher or mentor. Be vulnerable about your feelings, thoughts, and experiences to connect with the reader.

Aim to write in your authentic voice , with a style that sounds natural and genuine. You can be creative with your word choice, but don’t use elaborate vocabulary to impress admissions officers.

Admissions officers use college admissions essays to evaluate your character, writing skills , and ability to self-reflect . The essay is your chance to show what you will add to the academic community.

The college essay may be the deciding factor in your application , especially for competitive schools where most applicants have exceptional grades, test scores, and extracurriculars.

Some colleges also require supplemental essays about specific topics, such as why you chose that specific college . Scholarship essays are often required to obtain financial aid .

Ask our team

Want to contact us directly? No problem.  We  are always here for you.

• Email [email protected]
• Start live chat
• Call +1 (510) 822-8066
• WhatsApp +31 20 261 6040

Our team helps students graduate by offering:

• A world-class citation generator
• Plagiarism Checker software powered by Turnitin
• Innovative Citation Checker software
• Professional proofreading services
• Over 300 helpful articles about academic writing, citing sources, plagiarism, and more

Scribbr specializes in editing study-related documents . We proofread:

• PhD dissertations
• Research proposals
• Personal statements
• Admission essays
• Motivation letters
• Reflection papers
• Journal articles
• Capstone projects

Scribbr’s Plagiarism Checker is powered by elements of Turnitin’s Similarity Checker , namely the plagiarism detection software and the Internet Archive and Premium Scholarly Publications content databases .

The add-on AI detector is powered by Scribbr’s proprietary software.

The Scribbr Citation Generator is developed using the open-source Citation Style Language (CSL) project and Frank Bennett’s citeproc-js . It’s the same technology used by dozens of other popular citation tools, including Mendeley and Zotero.

You can find all the citation styles and locales used in the Scribbr Citation Generator in our publicly accessible repository on Github .

• PRO Courses Guides New Tech Help Pro Expert Videos About wikiHow Pro Upgrade Sign In
• EDIT Edit this Article
• EXPLORE Tech Help Pro About Us Random Article Quizzes Request a New Article Community Dashboard This Or That Game Happiness Hub Popular Categories Arts and Entertainment Artwork Books Movies Computers and Electronics Computers Phone Skills Technology Hacks Health Men's Health Mental Health Women's Health Relationships Dating Love Relationship Issues Hobbies and Crafts Crafts Drawing Games Education & Communication Communication Skills Personal Development Studying Personal Care and Style Fashion Hair Care Personal Hygiene Youth Personal Care School Stuff Dating All Categories Arts and Entertainment Finance and Business Home and Garden Relationship Quizzes Cars & Other Vehicles Food and Entertaining Personal Care and Style Sports and Fitness Computers and Electronics Health Pets and Animals Travel Education & Communication Hobbies and Crafts Philosophy and Religion Work World Family Life Holidays and Traditions Relationships Youth
• Browse Articles
• Learn Something New
• Quizzes Hot
• Happiness Hub
• This Or That Game
• Train Your Brain
• Explore More
• Support wikiHow
• About wikiHow
• Log in / Sign up
• Education and Communications

How to Increase Word Count

Last Updated: December 20, 2022 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Stephanie Wong Ken, MFA . Stephanie Wong Ken is a writer based in Canada. Stephanie's writing has appeared in Joyland, Catapult, Pithead Chapel, Cosmonaut's Avenue, and other publications. She holds an MFA in Fiction and Creative Writing from Portland State University. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 101,397 times.

Word count is the total number of words in a document. You may be trying to increase the word count of your essay for a class or a paper for a school assignment. Or, perhaps you want to increase the word count of your novel or short story to meet a deadline. Bolstering word count can be done by adding new content or by expanding on existing content. With the right approach, you can increase word count in your work easily and efficiently.

Adjusting Existing Content in Your Paper

• For example, you may use clarifying phrases like, “In other words…” or “As noted in my previous paragraph…”.

• For example, you may notice that there is a long sentence in your introduction that could be broken up and then elaborated on further. Or maybe there is an image from the text that you want to describe in a bit more detail in your conclusion to wrap up the paper.

• For example, if you have a short quote from a section of the text, add another quote that relates to it so you can flesh out your ideas more in your paper.
• You can also substitute your existing quotes for quotes that are longer or more relevant to your ideas. This can make your paper stronger and help you increase the word count.

Adding New Content to the Paper

• For example, if you are writing a paper on reproductive rights in Oregon, you may include a section on an opposing viewpoint on abortion rights from a credible source.

• For example, you may add another example from the source text that illustrates the theme of your essay. Or you may include another case study to support your argument in a paper.

• For example, if you are writing a paper on reproductive rights in Oregon, you may look for a recent government source that you can then pull content from to add to your paper. Or you may add scholarly articles to your paper to help support your ideas more fully.

• You should also avoid using overly complex words in your sentences. Do not try to increase word count by adding a lot of “very,” “really,” and “rather” in your sentences. This will only clutter up your essay and weaken your sentences.

Increasing Word Count for a Novel or Short Story

• For example, if you have a scene where two characters are arguing in a forest, you may include more details about the forest setting. You can also elaborate on what the characters are wearing in the scene as well as how they move their bodies when they are speaking to each other.

• For example, you may try adding in section of backstory for your main character about their childhood. Or you may include a chapter that discusses the history of the relationship between two characters as a form of backstory.

• For example, maybe you have a conflict that happens mid-way in the novel. You may try to resolve this conflict by adding content to the last section of the novel so it feels more wrapped up and complete.

• For example, perhaps you add in a family member for your main character who plays a minor part in the story. Or maybe you include a best friend character to add more content to the novel.

• For example, if you are writing a novel about the end of a marriage, you may have the main plot be the end of the marriage from the perspective of the couple. The subplot could then be how the marriage affects the children of the couple.

Community Q&A

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://www.grammarly.com/blog/word-count/
• ↑ https://wordcounter.net/blog/2015/12/11/101016_how-to-increase-essay-word-count.html
• ↑ https://www.kibin.com/essay-writing-blog/how-to-make-an-essay-longer/
• ↑ http://thewritepractice.com/too-short/
• ↑ https://www.novlr.org/the-reading-room/5-tips-to-write-a-good-subplot-that-every-writer-needs-to-know

About This Article

• Send fan mail to authors

Reader Success Stories

Annavaun Baril

Apr 17, 2017

Did this article help you?

Featured Articles

Trending Articles

Watch Articles

• Terms of Use
• Privacy Policy
• Do Not Sell or Share My Info
• Not Selling Info

wikiHow Tech Help Pro:

Level up your tech skills and stay ahead of the curve

Essay Expander

Ai-powered essay expansion tool.

• Expand an academic essay: Add depth and detail to your essay, improving its quality and increasing its length.
• Enhance a blog post: Expand on your ideas and arguments, making your blog post more engaging and comprehensive.
• Improve a business report: Add more detail to your report, making it more informative and persuasive.
• Upgrade a product description: Add more detail and depth to your product description, making it more engaging and persuasive.

New & Trending Tools

Wedding toast generator, ai answer science questions, ai text analyzer and highlights.