More assingment woes ........ how do I cut out 300 words?

[mosschops30]

Ok have finished assignment for hand in tomorrow. Problem is I am 400 words over the word count.
Now I can lie about 100 but they will notice 400 over.

I dont want to cut any of it, and 300 is loads, so any tips?

Go over the sentences & see what wee small words you can leave out & it will still make sense.

Brevity is a very hard lesson to learn, I have had a semester teaching me how to edit my own work & how to leave out small words that are not needed.

There is a need for concise writing in essays, identify & eliminate jargon. Write short crisp sentences & short suitable paragraphs.

Example:

"Departmental representatives will meet as soon as possible to finalise the matter concerning the mode of payment to be adopted."

"Department representatives will meet soon to decide how payment is to be made."

OK, the sentence above is not relevant to what your essay is about, but you can get an example of what I mean by brevity.

think you probably have to be brutal. Can you get someone else to have a look at it for you who can be neutral eg: DH/DP or close friend?

If he's anything like my Dh he will look at it, read about 4 words & say "How am I supposed to know what you're going on about?"

We have a ten percent penalty on marks if we go more than 105 over the word count.

I hate editing essays (especially as when you do they inevitably copme back with 'great essay but could use mroe details' on just the bits you edited ), but really I find its easiest to do in stages- one clear edit taking every ;ine; and then going back getting stricted each time until you make the count

not 105 over 10% over!

peachy we can go 10% over which is 400 words, but I am currently 800 words over. Will have a stab at it now.

lol charlottesweb, my dh to a tee

Familiar words

What's your essay about? How come you're not broke up for the summer?

I'm not looking forward to going back In September, well, part of me is but it's my final year & I know it'll be hard!!!

Its a continuing care assignment about Parkisons Disease.
I'm finished all paperwork side of things tomorrow and finish placement on Friday. Its a nursing degree

Ah, so you have to work over some of the summer. Well Done.

How long have you left?

It sounds interesting It's great to be able to do something we love & have an interest in, isn't it?

I was chatting to a woman on holidays, she was doing an OU degree that lasts 6 years but she was loving it. She is in year 4 I think & then has to add another year on to do a PGCE. She wants to teach Chatted for ages, felt like I had found a kindred spirit.

what are you doing charlottesweb?

I do love it but havent enjoyed this placement and the assignments get me down because I am not particularly academic.

Just dissertation plan to be getting on with now

I'm doing a Journalism & publishing studies degree & minoring in psychology.

I love the journalism & publishing as we learn how to edit & replace words etc.. but the psychology is hard going. It's not as interesting as I would have liked it to be but I think that's because I chose the wrong topics last semester. Hopefully I will make up for it this term.

I am not really good at essay writing & struggle with the psychology essays, but for the journalism we have to write articles & take news from the police website & write it up & I love that aspect of it Also I have a weeks work experience for a local tv station this week so am excited about that!

We haven't been talked to about dissertations yet! I'm hoping it will be soon!

Also, if you are going into your final year, do you know if the hours of study are fewer than the previous 2 years?

Shorter sentences, death to 'and' and 'but' if you can, and still have the stuff make sense.

Kill adjectives and adverbs unless they are essential to the meaning.

Remove padding words like 'however', 'thus' and 'therefore'

We've got less hours next year, should be 10 (usually 12- 14) but am doing a self taught module (gulp) as they cut the module I needed and replaced it with something I really didnt fancy (Bollywood and all that sort of religiopn in film stuff- as my eyesight is poor wouldn't have worked LOL), so its 8 hours. Have to do my dissertation plan too, though we have been given no guidelines for that and have NO idea on format for it!

Slaughter the bugger. It's curiously satisfying once you start.

You have to be brutal. Go over the thing with a red pen and cut out all the unneccesary words and sentences (and there will be quite a lot). Imagine you are a very severe editor faced with the latest Harry Potter installment

yeeesssss!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

4381 and that without lying

thank you all, I took out lots of 'the' and some other crap that I didnt really need. Just gonna print and re-read now

Well done