<p>People normally say that using contractions makes formal things seem informal. Should we use them to lower our word count?</p>
<p>I used them a lot, but if you want to lower the wordcount, you have to backspace and then retype in the quotation mark, to remove the extra word. Otherwise, it won’t work.</p>
<p>I used them; it lowers the word count, and to me at least, it sounds a bit more informal and in my voice ;)</p>
<p>Generally, for whatever college, you should not use contractions. Despite their personal nature, college essays are formal, and you should always spell out words in formal essays. If you truly need help with the word count, there are better ways to lower it than using contractions. You can always be more concise, take out unecessary adjectives and adverbs and focus on the nouns and verbs. Think creatively, think of ways in which you can express the same message but w/ less words. Check this out for more help with cutting down the words: <a href=“http://www.essayforum.com/general-writing-questions-13/concise-writing-guide-5699/[/url]”>http://www.essayforum.com/general-writing-questions-13/concise-writing-guide-5699/</a></p>