How to Make an Essay Longer – special tips

Writing a good essay is associated with many challenges. Some students fail to address the topic well, others fail to understand it correctly, and some make their sentences and paragraphs too long, while others always struggle to put in enough content to meet the word count requirement. The last challenge is very common not only for beginners but also for experienced writers. Let’s review some of the most effective techniques on how to make an essay longer.

Research your topic well

Failing to address the topic well leads not only to the bad quality of one’s writing, but also to the inability to meet the word count. Wouldn’t you agree that people can talk for hours on topics that interest them, the ones on which they know much and have read a lot? The same thing is with essay writing: if you research your topic thoroughly, you will end up having more words to make your essay longer, more arguments and facts in your arsenal to put to use, etc.

Seek expert support

Not surprisingly, one of the simplest ways to make a essay longer is to hire someone who is more knowledgeable and effective in writing, and who is an expert in the given subject area. These days, there are plenty of professional writing agencies online that assist students with writing college essays and other academic papers for reasonable prices. To maximize your benefit, use this opportunity to learn something new, and to improve your own writing skills.  

Avoid abbreviations and contractions

Often, when we write fast, we tend to use abbreviations instead of full names and titles. This is good when we need less content and when our audience is ready to understand these abbreviations and contractions. However, what if the audience is not familiar with some of those abbreviations? Will they misinterpret or simply completely miss something important from our text? The answer is obvious. Hence, everyone should avoid abbreviations (e.g. instead of writing APA referencing style, say American Psychological Association referencing style) and make their texts easier to comprehend by the readers.

Extra details

Perhaps, in the vastness of various ways to make a essay longer, the easiest one is to add more details. This technique works as follows: once your first draft is complete and you clearly see that it lacks some words to make your essay longer – simply go through each point, idea, or paragraph and think about how they can be further expanded. These may include finer nuances, more facts, opposing opinions, interesting suggestions, etc.

Quotations and famous expressions

Besides providing words to make your essay longer, citations of famous people often add convincing power and entertaining aspects to one’s text. The same goes for famous expressions, clichés, and aphorisms. When adding clichés striving to increase the word count, though, be careful not to over spice your text, otherwise, you may hamper its informational value. Also, be sure to use the correct referencing instruments (such as referencing styles) to avoid being caught on plagiarism. 

Check-list

Students are often advised to make an outline before beginning writing. This is good not only for the integrity and coherency of one’s text, but also a handy tool to increase the word count during the stage of editing and proofreading. When you are checking your first or second draft, check it against your outline, so that nothing has got lost in the process. For example, if you have made yourself a plan to include five arguments, but ended up having only four of them – this is a good opportunity to strengthen your text and add volume at the same time.

Conclusion

While not all of the above points might be applicable to your particular essay text, using at least some of them would definitely help. Remember, that adding more text is easier (less painful) than cutting off something that you have already written. When you get more experienced in writing essays, you will learn to hit the right word count in the first draft or end up having slightly less than needed. And the next time you start wondering how to make an essay longer – come back to this list of techniques and pick up the ones suitable in the context of your essay.