Getting to an essay’s required word or page count can be a stressor, more so when juggling with many exams or papers. In a pinch, you may find yourself relying on tricks such as making the font size a bit bigger or increasing the margin size. Even though these tricks will make your essay look longer, there are other smart ways you can use to write a high-quality and longer essay.
Trying to meet the minimum page or word counts should never be a problem. You can add its length at the same time, add the essay’s depth and clarity. Here’s what to do:
- Use Many Examples Where Possible
One important thing to check after writing an essay is checking on the claims you included. Go back to the essay and look at the ideas you listed. If you didn’t back them up with supportive ideas that prove their accuracy, then go back and fix them. Doing this will not only strengthen your points but add length to the essay.
For instance, say you claimed that UFOs were true, you can add a documentary, reference, or an eye witness sighting. The professor will enjoy reading your essay that claims are fully supported, and this will finally make the paper longer.
- Use More Quotations
Quotations consume more space in an essay. They are an excellent way to boost your arguments at the same time, driving your essay longer. However, never add quotes just for the basis of doing so.
If you don’t have words to add to your essay, reread along the source materials. Doing this helps you in checking whether you didn’t include other essential quotes. Furthermore, ensure you do a little research to check whether there are other sources you can include. This is to give the reader more evidence on your arguments.
Extended quotes aren’t preferred when writing an essay, but when you are in a bind, lengthen some of the quotes that you already included in the paper. Be sure to use a proper formatting style to cite and Quote Sources.
- Go Back to Your Introduction and Conclusion
Many times, ideas develop when writing an essay. In case the first things you listed was the introduction, move back to the first paragraph, then reread it. Perhaps you may decide that you forgot to include some vital information that assists the reader in grasping your arguments properly.
When reviewing your conclusion, make sure you include a summary of the key points of the topic and give a solution to the reader. In case you didn’t do this, go back to the conclusion and revise the paper. With that done, you’ll end up making your essay longer.
- Use More Transitional Words and Phrases
Including transitional words in your essay is a more natural thing you can do to add its length. It helps you move from one idea to the other as you bring your readers together with you slowly. Additionally, phrases and transitional words raise the length of the essay. So it’s a win/win situation. Make sure you use these phrases as much as possible.
- Try Reverse Outlining
Once you finish writing your essay, try reading back through it, then develop an outline based on what you have at hand. Doing this will assist you in reorganizing the pages in a manner that adds more sense to everyone reading your project. Also, it will point out the part that needs development.
If you spot an area that needs further clarification, please do so and take the opportunity to make your essay longer. If you realize that your work has larger paragraphs that speak more than one idea, be sure to break them into many paragraphs. Then explain the ideas properly.
Doing so will make your writing easy to read, and you’ll move nearer to the minimum page needed in the process.
- Read The Essay Loudly
Even though this tip looks silly, reading the essay loudly will help you detect any syntactical and grammatical issues. Once you rephrase the sentences and paragraphs to correct this, you’ll end up boosting the length of the essay a bit. As you read it louder, you’ll find out that other sufficient details are missing in a particular paragraph. Make sure you go back and add some words to boost the length.
- Take a Break from Your work
Perhaps you’ve been staring at the laptop screen for a long time wishing that words will come to your head by magic. Take regular breaks. Call a friend, go for a walk, or even eat a snack.
Probably, you’ll turn back to the essay having a fresh mind after the break, and new ideas will stream in, helping you make the essay longer.
- Give Someone Else to Proofread the Essay
Even if you are late submitting the essay, ask your sibling, parent, or friend to go through the essay, noting any sentence they find confusing. After that, revise the unclear areas to fill in important information to provide your readers with more clarity.
You have more understanding of everything you are writing about more than your readers. Therefore, giving a different person your essay to read is a nice way to ensure that you don’t miss other essential details.
Sometimes hitting the required number of words can be challenging, and you can make the essay longer using the smart way other than resorting to tricks such as increasing the font size and line spacing.
If you realize the essay is not long as requires, you can break some of the paragraphs. Doing this not only makes the essay longer but also makes it easy to read. However, after reading through the list above, the essay should be longer without considering the spacing.
How to Make an Essay Longer Period Trick
Rather than inflating your essay with many filler words to get to the word count, you can also make it longer using punctuation. Do this by increasing the size of periods in the essay. You can noticeably and easily balloon it. The best thing about this trick is that the reader can’t distinguish between the normal periods and their updated brethren. Here’s the trick.
- Move to the Edit part of the word processor’s menu.
- Then tap on Find and Replace.
- With that done, type the normal 12-sized period on the find box.
- Next, add the 14-sized period in the Replace button with box.
- Then tap on the Replace All Button.
- Tap OK.
Congratulations! The essay now looks longer.

David Nilsen is the former editor of Fourth & Sycamore. He is a member of the National Book Critics Circle. You can find more of his writing on his website at davidnilsenwriter.com and follow him on Twitter as @NilsenDavid.