<p>I have been working on short answers for prep school admission, and I found out that the word limit for some is 150. It is a a personal prompt, so it makes it difficult to fit the answer into two paragraphs. I'm a great essay writer, so I am trying to fit a 500 word essay into 150 words, and still keep the theme, thesis and conclusion the same. Any advice on how to do that?</p>
<p>Same here. If you’re a descriptive writer, and you use lots of descriptive words, try taking those out and using some vivid words. (lame example: the shades of red, yellow, and orange leaves in fall… the shades of colorful leaves in fall…)</p>
<p>You can cut down anything. It’s actually a very good thing to write more than what you need for an essay before. Just mercilessly cut down your essay only to the bare essentials.</p>
<p>I’m having the same problem! 150 words is like a long paragraph for me! What I end up doing is just cutting out stuff over and over again, basically anything that doesn’t contribute that much to the conclusion. (it gets really hard at the end.) And I basically dropped the intro and thesis. There was just no room for it. I just jumped right into the essay, and had a short conclusion. And if I needed to cut out just a few words, I made words plural. “Dogs” is one word shorter than “a dog” :P</p>
<p>Sounds good but it in the end is it actually decent?</p>
<p>Yes, in the end, they can be very good. It just takes practice. I’ve been forced to cut down my writing a lot (I write too much), and now, I’m a merciless editor. </p>
<p>If you’re really having trouble with an essay, put it away for a day or two, and come back to it. If that doesn’t do the trick, then you need to rewrite it. Though, trust me, you can cut down ANYTHING.</p>
<p>Swords out men. Prepare to chop, and make sure you skin the essay to the bone :)</p>
<p>One rule of thumb from a veteran English teacher: a strong verb can often say as much as a string of adjectives. When you’re chopping, the first thing on the block should be “to be” verbs–those sentences can always be tightened.</p>
<p>I’ll look for those. Thanks.</p>