Two Thousand Words: Too many or Too few?

Two thousand words: is that too many or too few?

When one is given the task to writing a paper in college or for some other reason, like a blog, one of the most common guidelines is the 2000 word requirement. There are a lot of good reasons for such a guideline such as to limit the time it takes to write it, it tells you how many words and not how many pages to write, which could vary greatly depending on the format of the document and it keeps the document readable for the average reader.

So, what does 2000 words look like, and how can you plan your information in a way that makes the entire article not too wordy and not to technical?  I am asking this as a rhetorical question because I actually don’t know myself. This article is here as a self answering question article, if such a thing exists. The word counter has me at about 160 words so far.

I guess the first consideration is to recognize what you are writing for and what you are writing about. This may seem logical, but I have found that in writing it is important to know what format you are writing for such as a letter to a friend, a newspaper article, a magazine, or a technical paper. Is it a short story telling of an incident out of your life or to illustrate a point? Is it an in depth study or is it a short guideline to how to do something like taking care of you house plants?

Mostly, no matter what type of writing you do or why, holding the attention of the reader is one of the biggest challenges. One area I believe that can be massively improved upon is the writing for textbooks. Generally they are very dry and frankly extremely dry to read. Speaking or teaching is much the same. How do you best convey information that will actually be listened to and not tuned out? How do you make a bland topic flavorful without the audience forgetting what the topic at hand is? Sometimes a story can be compelling but you lose the content of what is actually being said and it often has the affect of creating different interpretations by the listeners who miss the core content altogether.

I have been teaching music appreciation, and one of the assignments for the class is that they go to a live concert of real music in an acoustic space so they can experience the music as it is meant to be heard. I published a guideline for my students telling them what to write about and those who used the guideline and prepared their papers as I requested did an excellent job in the report. So, I believe that creating an outline or a guideline is a great way to organize your writing. The students who wrote a readable report listed everything throughout the report and added personal observations in their own language which was actually very entertaining to read.

So, it is possible to deliver the content in an entertaining and informative way that flows and creates interest in the reader.

Some of the things I have found to make effective writing is to use

  • subtitles
  • bullet points
  • small text area paragraphs for quotes

because I find a varied format give the eyes a clearer view of what is being said and breaks the monotony of paragraphs and sentences. Again, much of the ability to use these elements depends on the format of your medium.

“I would have written you a shorter letter but I didn’t have enough time.”
Abraham Lincoln

Being concise and editing are two of the most important skills as a writer. Rambling is not a great idea unless you are Charles Dickens or Mark Twain who can hypnotize you with their descriptive powers. I used to get impatient reading Dickens because he would take so long to describe a character and the plot wouldn’t move forward, but now after all of these years I realize he was painting a picture in the mind of the reader which is as much of the art of literature as the story.

But, for people who write a lot of blogs and publish materials often, being concise and editing slow down the process. As Lincoln said, it is takes more time to write a short concise letter than it does to just free flow. I’ll be the first to admit that this article is going to be published with very little editing as I am in a hurry to get it done.

Running out of gas in the middle of Berlin, Germany at midnight.

One of the most challenging things about writing something that is 2000 words long is to have enough to write about without simply filling the white space with words so it can come to a total of 2000 words.

It reminds me of an incident I had in Germany. I was visiting a friend in Berlin and we were out driving through town at around midnight when all of the sudden his car stalled. His car was a late model Volkswagen that was fuel efficient and in great shape. I asked him what happened and he sheepishly answered, “We’re out of gas.” I couldn’t believe it. Here we were in the capitol of Germany, right in the dead center of downtown, and he runs out of gas? Luckily there isn’t a whole lot of traffic in Berlin that late in the evening and we could easily push the car to a station to get gas, but still, it was completely unnecessary.

So, having enough material to write about is a lot like that, you don’t want to run out of gas in the middle of our article, which by way of the word counter says I am likely to do because I am getting close to the 1000 word mark right now and I am not sure I have enough content to fill out a 2000 word post.

Practice writing 2000 words often.

In just about everything you do in life it is difficult to do it if you don’t do it often enough. Just doing something often will teach you, either consciously or unconsciously, what the right amount is. Writing 2000 words isn’t so bad if you don’t look at the clock and worry about time. When you let your juices flow and enjoy the activity of writing down your thoughts then a 2000 word piece will not be difficult. But, you will never know what it is like to write 2000 words unless you do it often.

At the university music department, recitals and concerts are now often done without an intermission and have about an hour duration. The reasoning is that people will leave at the intermission or get bored if you try to put too much on them. In my own personal experience I always considered about a 45 minute first “half” and a 30 minute second “half” to be the minimum a concert should be. Some of my recitals went on for 2 hours plus an intermission in the middle. So, really, it is all about how you condition yourself and your audience.

I tell my music appreciation students that part of what listening to classical music does is increase your attention span capabilities. They are used to listening to 3 to 4 minute songs on the radio or their devices. Classical pieces last much longer and listening to them requires more time and patience but the reward is much deeper if not as gratifying in the moment. So, while listening to a 20 minute piece in the beginning may seem like an eternity, after a while they will realize that the 3-4 minute song is in fact really short and simplistic. Not that there is anything wrong with short and simplistic, it just doesn’t go as deep as an extended piece.

The same is true for writing a 2000 piece article. It gives you time to go deeper about the topic and give a more lasting impression than the 200 word article. It all depends on the factors mentioned above: the medium, the audience and the content type.

Write a little about a lot, or a lot about a little.

Pulling yet again from my music appreciation class I use the idea of the pyramid of difficulty for how I teach a class and as such you can use the same parameter for writing.

In universities, the classes are numbered using 100 level, 200 level, 300 level, and 400 level. Each type of class is presented in the same amount of time, a semester. So, the difference between each level isn’t the amount of time it takes to do the class but the specificity of the information given. People incorrectly assume that a 100 level class is easier than a 400 level class but in fact it isn’t.

While the 100 level class isn’t as specific it does cover a lot more topics than the 400 level class and therefore each topic can’t get the same amount of attention that a 400 level topic can achieve. This is why it is possible to test out of 100 level classes, because it is possible for someone to study that material with a less specific knowledge base and be able to pass a test on it than it would be to test out of a 400 level class that goes far beyond a general knowledge of a topic.

Writing is the same way. When you write generally, you can present many ideas without going into much depth and come up with 2000 words to define and explain those concepts. However, you can also pick fewer topics and write more in depth about them giving a fuller understanding of the content to your reader and be able to express yourself with more detail.

One is not necessarily better than the other in terms of effectiveness due to the audience and format of the piece. But, if you want to dive deep into a topic and explore the inner sanctum of your intellectual vault, then choosing fewer talking points and explore them with more depth and a higher level of descriptive writing.

Reading and Writing are Mirror Activities

When I am instructing my kids to read a text I tell them to take notes. I call it “breaking down the text” into a list of content details and adding a short description of each term used in the text. This not only helps them cover the material, it makes it possible for them to revisit it in an efficient manner. Reading then isn’t just in one eye and out the other but an activity which produces a result for them, something they can use in the future.

Writing then is the same but mirrors that practice. You organize what it is you want to write about in an outline form, with brief definitions about each point and then go to create a compelling prose about the topics of your article. This gives you an idea about the number of content points you want to cover and the depth of information about each point you want to present, which will bring you to your 2000 word goal.

Just like the classification of classes at the university level is the decision on the part of the writer to detail their writing depending on the generality or specificity of their article. Both have equal merit but they are different.

Research and Writing

Finally, writing requires a certain amount of proof. In other words it is not a bad idea to offer back up resources to your findings if you can. I wrote this article basically out of my own mind and experience. In order to get it done and to find out what 2000 words actually looks like, it was more of an exercise than a research paper.

That doesn’t make this article any less compelling, at least I don’t think so, but it does make it less “reliable.”

One of the most interesting things about writing is to discover that you will not always be able to come up with a topic which you can write 2000 words about or much less even find something to write about. This is where research is a bountiful resource for your writing practice.

Now I am over 2000 words!

I continue…

You can write about anything you want as long as you research it.

Let us take a common problem for people like knowing which Cell Phone provider to use.

I know nothing about this topic, but neither do my readers…well for the most part. This is why this is valuable information. You are solving a problem people have with Cell Phone providers.

I can go out and visit stores or go online and get all of the facts together on plans that serve the local area. You can interview people and ask which provider they use. You can research online for other reviews of the providers.

This all takes time, but you see, you have work to do and you know what you are looking for and you can create an article that is both up to date for your area and useful to you and your community.

While this is one example of how research can make you a great writer, which by the way is much of what they teach at a university, it also gives you a much deeper understanding of more topics which will position you as an authority on any subject your chose to write about. Remember to always document your resources. This not only protects you from copyright infringement but it also shows people that you have done your legwork and you aren’t just some guy with an opinion.

So, now these are some thoughts on writing 2000 words and honestly, I am ready to stop writing. 2000 words is a stretch for me right now, but maybe in the future it will become less of a stretch.

I hope you enjoyed this article and have found it useful in some way.