How to check wordcount?

meadows_edge · Sep 7, 2008

Oh well - here goes.

I want to count the number of words on a page I've completed, but I don't know whether I should count the 'puny' ones like 'a', or 'or', or 'the', or 'is'...... Not that these little words can't be terribly important, their misuse or lack of can wreck a sentence. But if I count and include them, I feel like I am cheating.

Whatever.... is one supposed to include these itty, bitty words in a word count?

Elonna · Sep 7, 2008

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=26126

Look at the bottom of this article. It explains different ways to do word count.

HTH

meadows_edge · Sep 7, 2008

Thank you so much.

maestrowork · Sep 7, 2008

Make every word count.

(sorry, can't resist!)

(of course those "a"s and "the"s count as words, because they ARE words.)

Diana W. · Sep 8, 2008

I hope words like at and to count otherwise my count is off lol.

Old Hack · Sep 10, 2008

I've not checked the link, but I'd say just use the inbuilt Word word-counter, and don't worry. I've not yet met a writer who had work rejected because they used the wrong method for counting their words.

(I've blogged about this. My, that was a long and dull post!)

dpaterso · Sep 10, 2008

I find that the puny short words balance the slightly longer words in my current WIP, like floccinaucinihilipilification, pseudoantidisestablishmentarianism and pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, not to mention supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

Hey, you know I wouldn't just do a search for longest words in the English language and copy/paste some of these into my post! That would be cheating!

-Derek

jessicaorr · Sep 10, 2008

I was going to answer this but it seems you've already been pointed in the right direction, so instead I'll tell you a funny story about word/character count.

I was in an independent study course with a friend in college and we had to determine the length of a DNA segment we'd just sequenced. The thing was saved as a word file (about a page and a half of ACACAGGT....) and we had no idea how to make word count the characters in a document. We ended up taking a printout and counting the entire thing out ourselves... all 1532 base pairs of it!

OK, in retrospect maybe it isn't so much funny as extremely pathetic.

Bufty · Sep 10, 2008

The most dangerous thing of all is to get too many long words onto the odd-numbered pages -it can cause what is called 'reader's wrist' because of the constant effort needed to keep the book level when reading.

Not a lot of people know that - :snoopy:

dpaterso said:
I find that the puny short words balance the slightly longer words in my current WIP, like floccinaucinihilipilification, pseudoantidisestablishmentarianism and pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, not to mention supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

Hey, you know I wouldn't just do a search for longest words in the English language and copy/paste some of these into my post! That would be cheating!

-Derek

Shadow_Ferret · Sep 10, 2008

Old Hack said:
I've not checked the link, but I'd say just use the inbuilt Word word-counter, and don't worry. I've not yet met a writer who had work rejected because they used the wrong method for counting their words.

Well, I found that one of the methods, either the Word wordcounter or the averaging 250 words per page, gave me a HIGHER wordcount, and when my WIP was smaller, I used the higher wordcount to fluff its size up.

RJK · Sep 10, 2008

The 250 words per page method works only when you use the correct font fize and margins. Courier 12 with one inch margins all around SHOULD produce 25 lines of text per page (with widow orphans turned off). You may have to cheat a little (make them .98 inches) on the top and bottom margins to consistently get that 25th line.

If you randomly select 5 pages and 4 or more have 25 lines, then the 250 words per page will be accurate for the printer's purposes.

To save yourself all that work, use the word processor's word count.

How to check wordcount?

meadows_edge

Elonna

I'm a dork

meadows_edge

maestrowork

Fear the Death Ray

Diana W.

I'm evolving

Old Hack

Such a nasty woman

dpaterso

Patent pending

jessicaorr

Book fanatic

Bufty

Where have the last ten years gone?

Shadow_Ferret

Court Jester

RJK

Sheriff Bullwinkle the Poet says: