The length of an essay often forms a subject of debate in many student quarters. How long or short should an essay prove? What standard length should form part of a typical essay? Such questions about an essay length can only get answered when you consider some vital factors. It includes the subject of the essay, your level of education, your department, the teacher’s instructions and your course. 

In most cases, the length of your essay has to get indicated on your task sheet. It comes in the form of paragraphs, words, or at times pages. But what happens when you don’t have such length guidelines?

A Typical Essay’s Length

As already stated, the determiners when it comes to the length of your essay depends on diverse factors. However, in some cases, you will have to consider other aspects when not clearly indicated in your writing assignments. Depending on the purpose of your essay, either as part of your college admission application, part of your assignment, or for any other purpose, you have to consider different aspects.

College Assignment Essay Length Considerations

• A minimum of three paragraphs for the essay and this includes an introduction, body, and the conclusion. The common structure however includes a five-paragraph essay with an introductory and conclusive paragraph becoming relatively smaller compared to body paragraphs.
• Each of the body paragraphs has to cover only a single central idea which should translate to the topic sentence.
• A page should contain two hundred and seventy-five words when using double-space and a Times New Roman of twelve. The same but using a single spacing can fit double the word count which translates to around five-hundred and fifty words.
• For a four-hundred to a thousand-word short essay, each paragraph should contain a hundred to two hundred words. However, the conclusion and introduction which should have a similar length but shorter that what the general word count when it comes to the essay’s body text. Jennifer Duncan however, opines that the conclusion and introduction paragraphs have to contain four to five sentences each when writing a thousand-word essay. The length of the two sections however can contain multiple paragraphs when the word count has to become more.
• It’s crucial to note that in as much as the conversion table can get applied for shorter essays, longer essays don’t have to necessarily apply when scaling the paragraph to word ratio.

Admission Essay Length Considerations

• Most admission essays require two hundred and fifty to six hundred words, and as a rule, you must stick to this when writing one.
• Avoid exceeding the word range provided by a lot of words. For instance, in writing a five hundred to five hundred and fifty words, don’t exceed six hundred words.
• You can have the option of sending an essay sample of your write-up in some cases and this means limiting yourself to the word count required.
• Get a clue of the essay length from the description given or the prompt guidelines.
• In cases where you don’t have prompts and an option of sending a sample, try and search for requirement needed when it comes to length from that specific school.
• Finally, you can also consider calling the college’s admission office to get the required word count needed for your admissions essay.

Conclusion

The length of a typical essay can vary based on the intent and purpose of the essay. So carefully review your intention and the instructions provided before deciding on what length to adhere to.