The Word Count Game

I call it a game. Others might not. Nevertheless, it is something that’s helped me improve my writing tremendously. In a nutshell, here's what you do: check the number of words in an essay, paragraph, or sentence, and then set a goal of how many words you want to condense it down to. So if you have a paragraph that is about 220 words long, you set your sights on getting it closer to 190 words, or maybe 150, or you have an essay that's 1200 words long and you want to get it down to 1000.

Now, this is not a matter of finding the least important sentences in a paragraph or essay and deleting them. This is all about training yourself to scrutinize your writing closely by forcing you to ask just how important every single word is. Suddenly, the individual words are not simply a cluster of words dealing with a central theme, but each one suddenly serves an integral purpose to the structure and presentation of the information. When you play the Word Count Game, every word is accountable for its role in the sentence, and if there's a sentence that can be written with fewer words without losing any important purpose, style, or emphasis, then revise it to have fewer words.

Here's an example from my other blog, Narrative Nuance post “A Brief Introduction to Theme”:

Survival is an abstract concept. Any instance where you have a narrative where the characters are placed in a situation where their main concern becomes one where they need to either find food and shelter or die, it is safe to say that you're dealing with a theme of survival. This abstract concept is a theme because it is shared with plenty of other narratives that don't unfold the same way, like The Lord of the Flies or Hatchet.

That selection of 79 words was revised down to 62 words as:

Survival is an abstract concept. Any narrative where the characters are placed in a situation where the main concern is to find food and shelter or die, is safe to say it’s a tale of survival. Because survival is an abstract concept and because it appears in other narratives, like Lord of the Flies or Hatchet, we can call it a theme.

This revised version removes unnecessary clauses and phrases like “where you have a narrative” and the third sentence is entirely rewritten, but, most importantly, it gives the same information.

There is, however, much more to this process than just finding unnecessary words or swapping out groups of words with fewer words. It is about a close reading and looking for the purpose of your essay. You shouldn't go about this asking yourself “what words can I do without” but rather, “is this the best way for me to say what I want to say?” It makes you go back and think about the purpose of every word, and as you think about the purpose of every word, you'll think of the sentence these words add up to, and from there, the paragraph. It can help eliminate fluff and tangents as you create a clearer, more streamlined piece of writing.

One of the best things that can come from it, though, is getting more ideas. Sometimes, I end up with more words than I started, not because I failed at the game, but because as I looked so closely at what I was writing about I came across ideas and concepts I didn't think of the first time through. The next thing I know, I put the Word Count on hold and explore this new idea I came across.

“Who: Everyone!”: Misusing the Six Journalistic Questions

Here is my opening metaphor: you're at a restaurant. As you are led to your table, you see all of the food everyone else is eating. You don't know the names of the different meals, nor what are appetizers, entrees, or even desserts. It's all food. And it all looks good. So when the waiter hands you a menu, you don't thank them and look for something you want. You simply respond by saying you want everything. Every salad, every soup, every steak, ever sandwich, every pasta, every drink, every desert, every appetizer, every special. 

This is what happens when you are establishing criteria using the Six Journalistic Questions and use the words “every” or “all” or even anything all-inclusive like “Americans” and “parents”. It's misusing a tool by not using it for its specific purpose. Anytime you say, “Who am I writing about? Well, everyone of course” you make serious assumptions that neglect aspects of humanity.

Saying “Everyone” takes every single possible permutation of human demographics and lumps them all together. It's trusting that all of humanity has the same perspectives, backgrounds, histories, cultures, economic statuses, medical conditions, blood types, diet habits, political affiliation, religious beliefs, living conditions, education levels, etc. It's a claim that everyone is the same. As one of my students once said, “it includes the babies in India.” I'll expand this to say it includes the babies that were in India thousands of years ago. Everyone means everyone is alive, will be alive, and has been alive.

The purpose of the six journalistic questions is to avoid these kinds of fallacious decisions by providing a means to make distinctions between criteria and narrowing one's focus. Going through the Six Journalistic Questions’ process is not a slapdash matter: it requires serious consideration.

There are two solutions to this. The first is to recognize you may not need a “who” as part of your Six Journalistic Questions. Not every criteria has to be filled and forcing criteria in can do more harm than good. When a physicist researches and writes about physics principles, they're not concerned with groups of people or demographics, so they wouldn't have any.

The second is the most important and goes back to what the Six Journalistic Questions are for in the first place: asking who does this involve. In these situations, it would be wise to put “who” on hold and go over the other criteria. Once the what, where, when, how, and why are filled, it can be easier to go back and determine if you even need a “who” and look at it in the light of the rest of your criteria.

There are, however, issues that do involve humans, but not demographics. These deal with issues like health, nutrition, education, safety, etc.. I've never seen a Nutrition facts label divided up by demographic or economic level. In these situations, as counterintuitive it may be, there still is not a “who.” This is because the focus of such studies is on the efficacy or validity of certain things.

There are issues, like medical conditions, that can require differentiation. For example, if you're writing about diabetics, “Diabetics” will appear in the “Who,” and if you're dealing with a control group, you'd also have “not diabetics.” But for a health oriented study looking at diabetes, this works because you've singled it down to specific criteria and other “who” may or may not factor in. Good guidelines for one diabetic generally will be good for another. There are of course other ways to focus the study, like looking at how diabetes appears and affects people of different racial backgrounds, but not ever study of diabetes needs to take that course. Odds are, if it is something affecting people in general, you don't need to specify a “who.”

I chose to focus on “who” for this post because it seems to be the main offender, but the same issue can appear anywhere else in the Six Journalistic Questions. Don't make hasty generalizations about the breadth of your topic or misunderstand the purpose of this tool. Like anything, it can be misused. The final piece of advice on this matter is take your time, ask yourself questions, and use this to narrow it down. It isn't a matter of checking off boxes: it’s a matter of refining your writing.

Research All Grown Up: The Literature Review

All Annotated Bibliographies want to be Literature Reviews when they grow up.

So you’ve done your research, you’ve developed your thesis, you have a good idea of what you want to do for your research essay. You have all this helpful research, but you’re at a loss of how to incorporate it it, and prove you’re not just spouting random things, that you’re ideas are grounded in the work of the experts.

This is why we have Literature Reviews. The granddaddy of the Annotated Bibliography, this is a form of writing that fulfills many of the same purposes of the Annotated Bibliography, but while putting them into the essay itself. This isn’t literature as in fiction; rather, this refers to the influential works and writings of the scholars and experts in a field. Basically, you’re taking what the experts have said and bringing it all together.

Both genres, the Annotated Bibliography and the Literature Review, are ways for researchers to present their research. However, Annotated Bibliographies are preliminary pieces, done before the main ideas and concepts are formed, generally so the author can catalogue and make sure they have a basic understanding of their topic and what the experts say about it. Annotated Bibliographies are rarely published and remain a resource for the researcher as they work on a larger piece. The Annotated Bibliography is work researchers do for themselves, which is why it is a popular assignment in writing classes: go through the process of understanding and evaluating your research early on.

Literature Reviews are different. First and foremost, they get published, though not usually independently; they are significant parts of larger pieces of research and fulfill specific purposes. Find a major scientific study and the first couple of pages will likely focus on work other people have done, identifying current theories and concepts. They won’t be comprehensive, i.e., bringing every piece of research ever that’s related to the topic, but it will focus on more recent and more significant ones.

The Literature Review, though, is not where authors provide and discuss their own ideas and conclusions. The Literature Review opens a piece as a kind of information genealogy. In a way, you are taking your Annotated Bibliography and sorting the information by theme or concept (generally using a graduated or comparative method of organization), and showing how different scholars and researchers have addressed similar issues that contribute to your own work. It is a matter of showing how you can take other’s ideas and concepts and synthesize them. Therefore, Literature Reviews generally do three closely related things.

First, it’s how researchers can demonstrate their expertise. Major research pieces can have bibliographies that go on for pages, but some of these sources can be mentioned a handful of times in a research piece. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s the researcher’s opportunity to show the work they’ve done, and the extent of their knowledge and familiarity with the information.

Second, it is where the researcher traces how they developed their ideas, and that their work fits with the rest of the literature. They can take different ideas and synthesize them, bring them together to generate new knowledge and information, tracing the history of their topic, within their own research, and contextualize their work within the greater picture.

Third, it shows how your research fits in the bigger picture. You don't want to just know a lot of stuff, but show you can fit your work in with the work of others. Writing and research don’t take place in a vacuum, and if you try to, or even if you only do some research, you’ll likely just make claims others have made, and done a better job making, before. It’s a good way to showcase your ignorance, and you don’t want to do that.

There’s a lot riding on a Literature Review. It’s an exercise in establishing your credibility and showing the people who know about your topic you’re worth taking seriously. A bad Literature Review can break your piece faster than a bad idea. You could have a great idea, but if you can’t show where it fits with the rest of the research being done, nor can you demonstrate your own familiarity with the discipline, it’s going to be really hard for those who do know to take you seriously.