Does anyone actually stick to 500 word essay length? Professor wants 'exactly 500' 🙄

[temp_user_2024]

like... srsly? been trying to write this 500 word essay for hours but keep going over. my prof is super strict about word count and says it has to be EXACTLY 500 words. not 499. not 501. fr who even counts that precisely???

 

[CircuitDesigner]

word limits are KILLING ME this semester! got three 500 word essays due next week and they all gotta be exact... profs be power trippin fr fr

 

[Noah84]

my prof is super strict about word count

wait till u hear this
submitted my 500 word essay last week (was like 513 words), prof legit returned it ungraded and said "learn to follow instructions" like?????

 

[Wervas]

hot take: strict 500 word essay length requirements are dumb af. how u supposed to fully develop an argument that precisely?? @temp_user_2024 which prof is this btw?

 

[temp_user_2024]

@Wervas its wilson apparently she uses some word counter tool to check EVERY essay length... like does she not have better things to do than count words??

 

[picasso]

ngl i just discovered that different word counters give different results for 500 word essays?? like Word says 500 but Google Docs says 487?? which one do profs even use lmaooo

 

[tight_writer]

@picasso BROOO THIS!! just spent 30 mins trying to hit exactly 500 words in my essay and then realized the online word counter i used shows different numbers than Word we're literally out here playing word count roulette

 

[Anto2004]

pro tip: prepositions and conjunctions count as full words in ur 500 word essay length. found this out the hard way when i tried to cheat the system by combining words with hyphens

 

[Chou1980]

lmaooo y'all really stressing about exact 500 word essay length? just write 485-490 and add bs transitions like "moreover" "furthermore" "consequently" till u hit 500. works every time

 

[CircuitDesigner]

@Chou1980 tried that but apparently "furthermore" appeared 12 times in my essay and prof called me out maybe there IS such thing as too many transition words in a 500 word essay...

 

[homeric]

k but real talk - if ur essay is good, do they actually count every word? like who has time for that? my 500 word essay from last week was probs closer to 550 but got an A-

 

[homeric]

ended up writing 472 words and just added "it can be concluded that" at the end... if wilson comes for me tomorrow imma just drop the class

 

[acc_283746]

@temp_user_2024 wait till u get to grad school - they ask for 500 word essay but expect doctoral dissertation level analysis undergrad word counts are paradise compared to this hell

 

[Wervas]

hot take 2.0: if u can say everything u need in 450 words, that should be better than stretching it to exactly 500 with fluff. why we being graded on word count instead of content?? make it make sense

 

[temp_user_2024]

@Wervas PERIOD!! might put this in my course evaluation tbh. these 500 word essay requirements are just

 

[Noah84]

professor: make it exactly 500 words
me: writes 500 words of complete sense
also me: adds "in conclusion, to sum up everything that has been stated before" just to be safe
word count: 515
me: