From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The word count is the number of words in a document or passage of text. Word counting may be needed when a text is required to stay within certain numbers of words. This may particularly be the case in academia, legal proceedings, journalism and advertising. Word count is commonly used by translators to determine the price of a translation job. Word counts may also be used to calculate measures of readability and to measure typing and reading speeds (usually in words per minute). When converting character counts to words, a measure of 5 or 6 characters to a word is generally used for English.[1]
Details and variations of definition[edit]
Variations in the operational definitions of how to count the words can occur (namely, what «counts as» a word, and which words «don’t count» toward the total). However, especially since the advent of widespread word processing, there is a broad consensus on these operational definitions (and hence the bottom-line integer result). The consensus is to accept the text segmentation rules generally found in most word processing software (including how word boundaries are determined, which depends on how word dividers are defined). The first trait of that definition is that a space (any of various whitespace characters, such as a «regular» word space, an em space, or a tab character) is a word divider. Usually a hyphen or a slash is, too. Different word counting programs may give varying results, depending on the text segmentation rule details, and on whether words outside the main text (such as footnotes, endnotes, or hidden text) are counted. But the behavior of most major word processing applications is broadly similar.
However, during the era when school assignments were done in handwriting or with typewriters, the rules for these definitions often differed from today’s consensus. Most importantly, many students were drilled on the rule that «certain words don’t count», usually articles (namely, «a», «an», «the»), but sometimes also others, such as conjunctions (for example, «and», «or», «but») and some prepositions (usually «to», «of»). Hyphenated permanent compounds such as «follow-up» (noun) or «long-term» (adjective) were counted as one word. To save the time and effort of counting word-by-word, often a rule of thumb for the average number of words per line was used, such as 10 words per line. These «rules» have fallen by the wayside in the word processing era; the «word count» feature of such software (which follows the text segmentation rules mentioned earlier) is now the standard arbiter, because it is largely consistent (across documents and applications) and because it is fast, effortless, and costless (already included with the application).
As for which sections of a document «count» toward the total (such as footnotes, endnotes, abstracts, reference lists and bibliographies, tables, figure captions, hidden text), the person in charge (teacher, client) can define their choice, and users (students, workers) can simply select (or exclude) the elements accordingly, and watch the word count automatically update.
Software[edit]
Modern web browsers support word counting via extensions, via a JavaScript bookmarklet, or a script that is hosted in a website. Most word processors can also count words. Unix-like systems include a program, wc, specifically for word counting. There are a wide variety of word counting tools available online.
Different word counting programs may give varying results, depending on the text segmentation rule details. The exact number of words often is not a strict requirement, thus the variation is acceptable.
In fiction[edit]
Novelist Jane Smiley suggests that length is an important quality of the novel.[2] However, novels can vary tremendously in length; Smiley lists novels as typically being between 100,000 and 175,000 words,[3] while National Novel Writing Month requires its novels to be at least 50,000 words. There are no firm rules: for example, the boundary between a novella and a novel is arbitrary and a literary work may be difficult to categorise.[4] But while the length of a novel is to a large extent up to its writer,[5] lengths may also vary by subgenre; many chapter books for children start at a length of about 16,000 words,[6] and a typical mystery novel might be in the 60,000 to 80,000 word range while a thriller could be well over 100,000 words.[7]
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America specifies word lengths for each category of its Nebula Award categories:[8]
| Classification | Word count |
|---|---|
| Novel | 40,000 words or over |
| Novella | 17,500 to 39,999 words |
| Novelette | 7,500 to 17,499 words |
| Short story | up to 7,500 words |
In non-fiction[edit]
The acceptable length of an academic dissertation varies greatly, dependent predominantly on the subject. Numerous American universities limit Ph.D. dissertations to 100,000 words, barring special permission for exceeding this limit.[9]
See also[edit]
- Flash fiction
- Twitterature
- Word lists by frequency
References[edit]
- ^ The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America suggest 6 chars to a word
- ^ Smiley, Jane. 2005. Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel. NY: Alfred A. Knopf, p. 14.
- ^ Smiley, 2005, p. 15.
- ^ Edge, Tom, «Does Size Matter?» The Guardian (UK), Booksblog, Nov. 2, 2006. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2006/nov/02/doessizematter
- ^ Quindlen, Anna (September 23, 2002), «Writers on Writing: The Eye of the Reporter, the Heart of the Novelist», New York Times,
A novelist doesn’t write to space, of course; 80,000 words, 100,000, it is up to the writer to say when the story is done.
. - ^ Lamb, Nancy, Crafting Stories for Children. Cincinnati: Writer’s Digest Books, p. 24
- ^ Thurston, Carol (August 3, 1997), «Agents give writers the book on what’s hot and what’s not», Austin American-Statesman,
no one wants more than 60-80,000 words in a mystery, 110,000 for a thriller
. - ^ SFWA Awards FAQ, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America as follows:
- ^ Dunleavy, Patrick (2003), Authoring a PhD, Palgrave Macmillan, p. 46, ISBN 978-1-4039-1191-9.
Sources[edit]
- DeRocher, James E.; Miron, Murray S.; Patten, Sam M.; Pratt, Charles C. (1973), The Counting of Words: A Review of the History, Techniques and Theory of Word Counts with Annotated Bibliography (PDF), Syracuse University Research Corporation, p. 302, ED098814.
- Rothman, Chuck (2005), Word Counts: What Is a Word?, Science Fiction Writers of America. An article on various word count methods in fiction publishing.
- Michaels, Melisa (2005), Focusing on the Wrong Things, Science Fiction Writers of America, archived from the original on April 17, 2009 An article on the relative importance of various word count methods in fiction publishing.
Updated: 04/30/2020 by
A word count is a numerical count of the number of words in a document, file, or string of text. Below are different methods on how to get a word count on a computer.
Word count example
Below is an example of a sentence containing several words. If you had this sentence in a program capable of counting words, it would return «9» as the word count.
In this example sentence, the word count is nine.
Keep in mind that most programs count words by looking for any text separated by spaces in the line. If you had the following example of text, it would also return «9» as the word count.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Getting a word count in a program
There are many programs you may already have installed or can install on your computer to get a word count.
- Microsoft Word
- Google Docs
- Word Perfect
- Notepad++
- TextPad
Getting a word count in Microsoft Word
In Microsoft Word, the word count feature is found in the Tools menu or on the Review tab.
Tip
The word count feature in Microsoft Word also displays the number of pages, characters (with and without spaces), paragraphs, and lines in the document.
Note
If the Microsoft Word status bar is shown at the bottom, it also shows the document’s word count. If the status bar is shown but does not show the word count, right-click the status bar, and make sure that the Word count option has a checkmark.
Count the words in Google Docs
In Google Docs, you can find the word count feature by clicking Tools in the menu bar and select Word count. You can also press the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+C.
Count the words in WordPerfect
In Corel WordPerfect for Windows, the word count feature is found under Document information in the File menu.
Viewing the word count in Notepad++
In Notepad++, you can find the word count feature by clicking View in the menu bar and selecting Summary.
Viewing word count in TextPad
In TextPad, you can find the word count feature by clicking View in the menu bar and selecting Document Properties. You can also press the keyboard shortcut Alt+Enter.
An example of getting a word count in programming
In computer programming, there are several ways to get a word count of a variable or other text. Below is one example of how you could get a word count of a variable using Perl.
Tip
Some programming languages may have a function that calculates and shows a word count.
use strict; my $example = "Hello, this is an example"; my @example = split(/ /, $example);
my $countwords = $#example + 1; print "There are $countwords words in '$example'.n";
In the example above, we first define the «$example» variable with some generic text as an example. Next, we split that variable by spaces and add each word in to an array. Once the words are loaded to an array, we can count the elements and add one because the count starts as «0» and not «1».
There are five words in 'Hello, this is an example'.
As mentioned earlier, this is one of several ways you could count the words in a file, variable, or other text. The example above, or any other method, could also be made into a subroutine, allowing you to call it throughout the script.
How to View the word count of any text with online tools
There are many online tools to count the number of words in your document. To use an online service, copy any text, and then paste the text into the online tool.
- How to copy and paste text to a document or another program.
Online services
- Use our free online text tool to get a word count of any text.
- Wordcounter
How to get a word count in Linux
In Linux, and other Unix-like operating systems such as macOS, BSD, or WSL, use the wc command to count words.
You can pipe any text to wc (with no options) to view a count of lines, words, and characters in the text:
echo -e "One two three fourn five"
One two three four five
echo -e "One two three fourn five" | wc
2 5 25
Use the -w option to count words only:
echo -e "One two three fourn five" | wc -w
5
Provide one or more file names to wc to get a count for each file, and display a grand total:
wc -w words.txt words2.txt
5 words.txt
5 words2.txt
10 total
- For more information, see Linux wc command help and examples.
How to do a word count in HTML
Counting the words in HTML can be difficult because of the HTML tags and their contained attributes. For example, counting the words on this page with HTML gives us 3,112 words. However, if we were to remove the HTML, it would reduce the word count to 1,212. Unfortunately, removing HTML tags can also still include text you may not want to be counted.
To count HTML words, open the web page in a browser, highlight and copy the text, and then paste it into a program or online service capable of counting words. With the same text we used above, using this method gave us a word count of 1,082 on this page.
- Getting a word count in a program.
- Viewing the word count of any text with online tools.
- How to copy and paste text to a document or another program.
If you need to get the word count of a web page or text on a web page frequently, you can also install a browser add-on designed to get the word count.
- How to add extensions or add-ons to your browser.
Why would someone need to do a word count?
A word count is often needed because a writing project or assignment has a minimum length. For example, when writing a report for school or an article for a web page, it may have a minimum word count of 1,000. Using the word count helps verify you’re meeting or exceeding the requirement.
Software terms, Tally, Word
Table of Contents
- Why is a word count important?
- Why word count is important for SEO?
- What word count is best for SEO?
- Is it possible to write 2000 words in two hours?
- What does 10000 words look like?
- What does 150 words look like typed?
- How many sentences is 50 words?
- How many lines is 150 words typed?
- How many lines is 1000 words?
- How many sentences is 100 words?
- What is a 100 word story called?
- How many words is 10 sentences?
- Can a paragraph be 500 words?
- Is 500 words for a paragraph too long?
- What do 500 words look like?
- How do you write a killer essay?
- How do you write a perfect essay?
- How do you write 500 words in an hour?
- What does a 500 page essay look like?
- How can I write 500 words fast?
- Can you write 1000 words in 2 hours?
- Can you write 500 words in 15 minutes?
- Can you write 3000 words in 5 hours?
- Can I write 3000 words in 2 days?
Word count includes everything in the main body of the text (including headings, tables, citations, quotes, lists, etc).
Why is a word count important?
Why is word count important? Word count is important because it helps you select your readers. For example, if you write a novel and it is long, about 100,000 words long, then naturally there will be some readers to whom it is not suitable (just because of the word count).
Why word count is important for SEO?
Generally speaking, the higher the word count, the better the opportunity to answer the user’s search intent and the increase in opportunity for backlinks, which both are ranking factors.
What word count is best for SEO?
Correlation studies have consistently led to disastrous SEO practices. For example, a correlation study from 2012 concluded that 1500 words is a good target for optimizing for Google. As dumb as that may sound, even today in 2020 there are people who still push the idea of minimum and maximum word counts.
Is it possible to write 2000 words in two hours?
To write a 2,000 word essay in 2 hours, the following is necessary. There are 120 minutes in 2 hours. Dividing the total number of words (2000) by the number of minutes available for writing, yields the number of words needed for writing each minute. 2000 divided by 120 minutes = 16.66.
What does 10000 words look like?
10,000 words is the equivalent of 20 single-spaced A4 pages, or 40 double-spaced A4 pages.
What does 150 words look like typed?
Answer: 150 words is 0.3 pages single-spaced or 0.6 pages double-spaced. Documents that typically contain 150 words are short memos, blog posts, or marketing copy. A 150 word count will create about 0.3 pages single-spaced or 0.6 pages double-spaced when using normal margins (1″) and 12 pt.
How many sentences is 50 words?
2-4 sentences
How many lines is 150 words typed?
If you need proof, have a look at any of your essays and count how many words per line you write. The requirement for an essay is at least 250 words, which equals 28 lines and you should count the lines, not the words. Any letter or report should be at least 150 words long, that’s 17 lines.
How many lines is 1000 words?
An easy way to think of it is that the standard, double-spaced page contains approximately 250 words. This makes the math even faster and perfectly lines up 1,000 words and four pages.
How many sentences is 100 words?
5-7 sentences
What is a 100 word story called?
Drabble
How many words is 10 sentences?
There’s no set minimum or maximum, regardless of the type of report. I usually write about 250 words in each paragraph, ending up writing about 5 paragraphs. A sentence could be anywhere from 10 to 40 words (just as a guess–a sentence could be shorter or longer than that).
Can a paragraph be 500 words?
In a document with standard margins, single spacing and size 12 font, you can fit about 500 words in a page. This is because on average, there are about 5 letters in each word, about 15 words in a sentence, and the average paragraph is around 7 sentences.
Is 500 words for a paragraph too long?
Various educators teach rules governing the length of paragraphs. They may say that a paragraph should be 100 to 200 words long, or be no more than five or six sentences. But a good paragraph should not be measured in characters, words, or sentences. The true measure of your paragraphs should be ideas.
What do 500 words look like?
When it comes to comparing pages with word count, 500 words is an important number to remember. Using single spacing, 500 words is the same as 1 page. With double spacing, it’s around 2 pages. In both cases you’ll be using margins of a standard 1 inch and a font such as Times New Roman or Arial in 12pt size.
How do you write a killer essay?
How to write a killer essay
- Select a Suitable Topic. The topic you pick has a great influence on your overall essay.
- Outline your ideas for topic.
- Craft Your thesis statement.
- The body of the essay.
- Create an introduction.
- Create a conclusion.
- Go through the essay.
How do you write a perfect essay?
Start by writing a thorough plan. Ensure your essay has a clear structure and overall argument. Try to back up each point you make with a quotation. Answer the question in your introduction and conclusion but remember to be creative too.
How do you write 500 words in an hour?
How to Write a 500 Word Essay in an Hour
- Step 1: Realize that you’re not J.K Rowling.
- Step 2: Make Sure You Have a Plan.
- Step 3: Take Notes Efficiently.
- Step 4: Turn Your Notes Into an Outline (in 5 minutes)
- Step 5: Write Your Introduction and Get Your Essay Flowing.
- Step 7: You’re Finally Ready to Conclude!
What does a 500 page essay look like?
The answer is one page single spaced or two pages double spaced. Now, depending on how you’ve setup your document your page count may vary slightly, but with Arial or Times New Roman 12 point font and conventional margins you should see similar results.
How can I write 500 words fast?
Got 15 Minutes? How to Write 500+ Words
- Leave the Edit at The End.
- Start with the Research.
- Stay Away from Distractions.
- Come Up with an Outline.
- Improve Your Writing Speed.
- Conclusion.
Can you write 1000 words in 2 hours?
See how fast your fingers can move with this typing speed test. As you gain experience, your writing process will be way clearer, allowing you to craft better articles. You can write longer, more in-depth pieces. You should be able to write a one thousand word essay in 1 hour to 2 hours instead of 3 hours to 4 hours.
Can you write 500 words in 15 minutes?
The average person types 40 WPM, so it would take 12 minutes, 30 seconds to type 500 words, already taking you beyond 15 minutes. Minutes 12-15 – Read and edit typos, add hyperlinks to source knowledge, and post.
Can you write 3000 words in 5 hours?
For context, a 3000-word essay is around ten pages. A skilled writer with vast experience in academic writing can complete 3000 words within 3-5 hours.
Can I write 3000 words in 2 days?
You had every intention of getting your essay done before the deadline, but sometimes life can get in the way. We wouldn’t recommend writing an essay in such a short period of time, but the good news is that 3,000 words in a day is totally doable.
Learn how your words are counted in IELTS. This page explains about counting words, numbers and symbols. You need to know how words are counted for IELTS listening, reading and writing. If you make mistakes with the number of words, you can lose points which can affect your band score.
How words are counted in IELTS
1. Numbers, dates and time are counted as words in writing. For example 30,000 = one word / 55 = one word / 9.30am = one word / 12.06.2016 = one word. “Six million” is counted as two words in IELTS writing. In listening, 30,000 is counted as one number and 9.30AM is also counted as one number.
2. Dates written as both words and numbers are counted in this way: 12th July = one number and one word in IELTS listening and as two words in IELTS writing.
3. Symbols with numbers are not counted. For example, 55% = one number (the symbol “%” is not counted as a word). However, if you write “55 percent” it is counted as one word and one number.
4. Small words such as “a” or “an” are counted. All prepositions, such as “in” or “at” are also counted. All words are counted.
5. Hyphenated words like “up-to-date” are counted as one word.
6. Compound nouns which are written as one word are also counted as one word. For example, blackboard = one word.
7. Compound nouns which are written as two separate words, are counted as two words. For example, university bookshop = two words.
8. All words are counted, including words in brackets. For example in IELTS writing, “The majority of energy was generated by electricity (55%).”. This sentence is counted as 9 words. The number in brackets is counted. Brackets can be used in IELTS Writing Task 1, but not in IELTS Listening or IELTS Reading.
9. Some people have asked me if words such as “the” are counted only once regardless of how many times they are used. It is best to illustrate: “The man walked into the shop for the newspaper” = 9 words.
10. Contractions are counted as: it’s = one word / it is = two words.
Tips
- Get useful tips and advice about the word count for IELTS writing.
- Start learning how to write compound nouns correctly. Some are one word and some are written as two words. If you make a mistake, it can affect your band score. Here’s a link to tips about compound nouns.
- Learn more about the meaning of ” no more than one word and/or a number” in listening and reading, by watching the video on the main IELTS Listening Page.
An experienced word count user may already have noticed that there can be slight and even substantial differences in word counts results produced by different word count tools. Surprised? Let’s find out what is the reason for that.
Different word counters have different approaches to word count.
Microsoft Word Statistics, the most common unspecific word counting instrument, considers everything between two spaces of a word, be it a number or a symbol. On the other hand, Word doesn’t include in its word count statistics the text in text boxes or shapes. That may sometimes happen to add a significant number of words to your word, character, or line count.
How does Microsoft Word count words? Where do differences in word counts come from?
Currently, there are no rules or systems defining what instruments or schemes should be used for word count. Different word count tools use their own schemes for word count. And the most important question here is what to count. Well, words, obviously, but it appears that different programs include different meanings in this single object.
Accurate word count tool to avoid differences in word counts.
The specific character count tools are more accurate here. Usually, a user can define whether to count numbers or not and whether to include the text from additional objects to the character count statistics. The best character count tools are usually armed with character count opportunities in footers, headers, notes, footnotes, endnotes, text boxes, shapes, text in embedded and linked documents, comments, and hidden text. Also, they can provide the character count in a large number of file formats. For example, AnyCount counts text in 70 file formats! Try it absolutely free here.
It is also said that because of these differences the character or line count produced by specific word count tools usually scores more words/units than word count in Microsoft Word. But I guess I’d like to find that out myself and do some research on the matter. So just look forward to it!