Word Limits

Posted by Colin Edelman Apr 30, 2007

As you may or may not know, Suite101.org requires its writers minimum word limits on their articles (400 words) and blogs (250 words). While it is understandable that these are established to stop writers from throwing together real short articles, they truly limit the creativity of the writer.

Effective writers can get their point across in as few words as possible. This is a basic tenet of advertising, as well as screenwriting. Why bog down viewers/readers with word after word. When the point is made, there is no need to dwell on it. If one person does not understand the point, then they can ask the author or a fellow reader to clear the confusion. If many people do not understand it, then the problem stems from the writing.

But it's better to avoid insulting your audience's intelligence. Instead, follow the clichéd yet credible statement, less is more.

State your argument and support it with evidence. This is the easiest and most effective way to write, whether it be research paper, newspaper article, blog, manifesto, etc...

Tracing back to high school, I remember the a great feeling when getting a higher grade on an essay test than the kid who would cry if he didn't receive the best grade in the class. His paper was 3 pages, while mine was 1. I didn't go as far to rub it in his face, in fact, the next test I tried a repeat performance and got a terrible grade. Still, I stick to my argument that there's no point in repeating yourself, being redundant and repetitive is very annoying. The more you repeat the facts, the weaker your argument becomes because you are stuck on one point. To throw in another cliché, if you don't have anything positive to say, don't say anything at all.

So where is this all leading? I will be sending this to my editor and hoping that word limits can be reconsidered. Instead, I propose that the system flags all articles under the word limit. If the article is deemed to contain an insufficient amount of material, the writer will be penalized by writing another article. A three strike rule seems fair.

This would allow more freedom so that writers aren't forced to ramble when writing articles and blogs. To define a meaningful article by its word count is very questionable.