Essay wordcounts

<p>How bad is it to go a little bit over? ND wants 400-500, what if mine was 550? 600?</p>

<p>Also -- a person i know swears by their life that in measuring essay length, words like "a", "in", "the" etc don't count, and that therefore Microsoft Word's "Wordcount" will give you a higher number than the real length.</p>

<p>Is this true? I never heard it before, but this person is positive.
thanks</p>

<ol>
<li>It's fine.</li>
<li>He's wrong.</li>
</ol>