If you're struggling to make the wordcount on a journal submission ...

[superdocious]

... does that tell you something about your paper?

More specifically, I am trying to cut a paper down by about 1,500 words(!) to make the journal's word limit. It's not that I think that every word is a pearl of wisdom, but I am really struggling to say what I need to in the words available. Does this happen to everybody, or is this a sign that I am trying to do too much in the paper?

I acknowledge this is possibly a strange question and the answer is probably that it depends. But I am really fascinated by how other people work. I often have this issue (too long) and I wonder whether it's 'normal' or whether I am not sufficiently focused in terms of my contribution. Hope I'm not abusing this forum (which I totally love) in order to ask the stupid questions that I can't ask in real life.

I also often find that when a paper is nearly ready but too long, the sections that I am most worried about can often be radically chopped down, or even chopped out altogether. I can't chop them out before that point because I'm not clear enough what the focus/argument is, but once I am, the least satisfactory bits can often be ditched. So my personal top tip for this situation is to look at the bits I'm still worried about.

But my best technique, as Bountybar says, is not to overwrite to start with by breaking down each section into a word limit before I start writing.