You need at least 5 pages for your class essay. And that, unfortunately, doesn’t include the title page or references.You’ve stretched your wording, using phrases like “can be beneficial to” in place of “can benefit, and have even included the long titles of your sources in your paragraphs. But you’re still short a page. So time to fluff your paper, right? Wrong.
I’ve worked with students who have admitted to fluffing their paper to reach the page minimum. While they may accomplish their goal (it’s worked in the past), they spend their time adding inconsequential and redundant words and ideas. The solution? Keep reading.
Add substance, not filler. Make your paper more profound, clear, and significant by seeing where you can address two questions: How so? and So what? Imagine that you make a claim in a sentence. Rather than moving on to make another claim and then another claim and then another until you run out of things to say, take time to explore the details behind the claim. The How so? allows you to prove or add substance to your point with explanation, examples, and connections. Through this elaboration, you make your point clear to your readers. The So what? connects your readers to the significance of your claim, your explanation, your example. Stop expecting readers to live inside your head and know what you know. They don’t. So, use your words of substance to add weight, not just empty words, to your writing.
If you’d like to sit down and discuss how to add substance and power to your writing and to remove the empty calories of filler words, we should chat. Follow the link to schedule a free sit-down with me. You’ll be amazed by what you can learn in one hour.
