Choose my life

b)

I think B also

Depends on the teacher - some mark overlong essays down heavily, but they usually announce this intention. Some aren't terribly fussed. Also, you will know how easily you can edit the piece down.

b

indescriminately take out every second word.

or every second sentence will probably still read ok.

I know it's too late now Anthony, but in most cases you can remove the word 'that' without really affecting the meaning. Well, it can knock off a hundred or so words which is better than nothing.

Anna: I don't agree with.

actually, kind of works martin.

I also suspect* Anthony's essay wouldn't have been reduced sufficiently by removing all the redundant 'that's.

*we really don't need it here!

As someone who marks uni essays, I'm a little concerned about 'that' advice... Many 'thats' are stylistically desirable and several will be grammatically necessary.

Lecturer's tip: Superfluous adverbs and adjectives are the place to start (especially when editing the crap I write, but evidently I'm not alone).

Lecturer's tip #2: It's more efficient (as well as being more authoritative) to write in the active voice. A search on 'by' and 'with' usually highlights ungainly sentences which can be restructured in the active, and with fewer words.

Lecturer's tip #3: I love to read good, sophisticated writing...but when you have 100+ scripts to mark, I suspect that concise and tightly written sentences impress me more.

Lecturer's tip #4: I've never counted the words in studentss essays and I suspect that an essay which was double the word limit would go unnoticed.

Good advice, debaser. Adverbs and adjectives can often be excised mercilessly to the benefit of writing (not just to save words), but perhaps less so in arts subjects than anywhere else.

My boss would object to your #2! He never tells me to do something - instead I get emails that say x "is required to be done". You are right and he is wrong, obviously.

#3: I would trust few lecturers to mark for style and genuine quality of writing. Concise, clear and meaningful should be the main aim.

#4: few do count, I think - that was my point earlier, that the lecturers who do fuss about that tend to emphasise the point.

One more tip about clarity and concision, and even more about precision, is to try to remove all abstract nouns. Not all can or should be removed, but words ending -tion are very often indicative of vague thinking, so should almost always at least be reconsidered. (Football manager Glenn Hoddle adds "situation" to things almost at random - "We had a free kick situation" - where no extra value is carried.)

saying "situation" signals that they recognised that had to discuss and consider the tactical and strategic aspects of the free kick

(haha, "the comma gives the guy time to pull out his chair and sit down")

"I've never counted the words in students essays and I suspect that an essay which was double the word limit would go unnoticed."

This is absolutely true.

Use single spacing and Arial Narrow 4pt. Eschew margins. Better still, present it on a microdot.

Although I suspect microdots do not exist outside of my Detective's Handbook (Usborne Publishing, c.1979)

I think they were in Tony the Tiger's Grrreat Guide to Secret Codes (or whatever) as well. Tony the Tiger knows all.

I'd go for option a)

(I recently had to cut an essay down from 7000 to 2000 words - it broke my heart - but one of the assessment criteria was that is not be over 2000 words)

Burn the essay, skip class, and rob a convenience store.

No, you don't want to use Arial.

Microdot vs Microfiche: FITE!

(d'ya know I've considered purchasing a microfiche reader for my home?)

from Graham's above link: "I can almost hear young designers now saying, "Helvetica? That's that font that looks kinda like Arial, right?"

another article is called "How to Spot Arial".

arialists! arians!