Have you been told you need to trim a chapter? Do you suspect that one or more of your chapters is sprawling or unfocused? If the answer to either question is “yes,” you may be looking for chapter-wrangling strategies. Read on to get our best tips!
If you have to trim your chapter by a substantial percentage, chances are you won’t be able to do it efficiently just by deleting words and phrases. In this post, we’ll show you how to prune your chapter in a more systematic way. First, you’ll consider your notes. Then you’ll work from the largest to smallest unit in your chapter, proceeding from sections to sentences. Working in this way will help you identify larger chunks of prose to cut wholesale before you spend time trimming around the edges.
First, a note about chapter length. While the length of chapters in academic monographs can vary widely (approximately 7,500 to 18,000 words, all inclusive), a typical chapter runs about 8,000 to 10,000 words, including notes and references. (The usual caveat applies: norms differ from field to field.) Additionally, while it’s not uncommon for academic books to have one chapter that is longer than the rest, the word counts for body chapters should be roughly similar—–that is, within a few thousand words of each other.
Start by Ruthlessly Wrangling Your Notes
By definition, your notes are tangential to your main argument. When you’re trying to cut or condense without affecting your chapter’s argumentative development, it makes sense to start with the notes.
Pay particular attention to the following types of notes. Cutting or ruthlessly streamlining them will likely help you cut words without affecting your chapter’s main argument.
- “See also”: These notes send the reader beyond the text and introduce related concepts or ideas. While you should cite generously, ask whether these “see also” notes truly enhance your reader’s experience and add something to the conversation. If you’re not able or willing to make a compelling case that these references help you develop your argument, consider eliminating them.
- Genealogies of concepts: These notes should either give a secondary audience the information they might need to follow your argument or your primary audience some background on a concept with which they might not be familiar. They should not rehash well-worn disciplinary debates just to show you’re familiar with them. Ask: does my primary/secondary audience truly need this background information to follow my logic? If not, cut the note. If so, challenge yourself to offer the most streamlined genealogy possible.
- Explanatory text: Challenge yourself to keep these notes to a bare minimum. Cut interesting points that don’t deserve space in the chapter. We highly recommend, though, keeping these ideas in a separate “parking lot” or “cut” document so that you have the text in case you need it later.
Then Scrutinize the Sections’ Tasks
If your book chapter is the “whole,” then your sections are its major parts. Each section should have a major and distinct role to play in moving your chapter’s argument forward. And each section’s “task” within the chapter should be similar in scope to the other sections’ tasks. That is, argumentative work that can be achieved in one or a few paragraphs should not be promoted to occupy a full section.
To scrutinize your sections, assign each one a task. Ask: What argumentative work does this section do in this chapter? Or: What is the purpose of this section?
Then use the following guidelines to evaluate them:
- Do you have more than one section whose purpose is to “provide background”? (This could be background on an event/a person/a work, or theoretical background.) If yes, combine these sections and streamline them so that you only have one “background”/introductory section. Material without which the entire chapter cannot be understood goes in the chapter introduction. Material that applies to only one part of the section should go at the point of use.
- Look at the sections’ tasks. Do any seem unnecessary or tangential? Do any seem to be tasks better achieved in one or a few paragraphs? Cut, combine, and reorganize as necessary.
- For body sections, consider whether any of your sections sound repetitive—that is, they provide yet another example of something already explored in a previous section (i.e., We see [phenomenon A] in [realm A]. We also see [phenomenon A] in [realm B]. We also see [phenomenon A] in [realm C].). Ask: how is this section’s purpose distinct from that of the other body sections? Put differently, how does this section add new layers to your reader’s understanding of the chapter’s main ideas? Cut or combine sections that feel redundant.
Next, Challenge Full Paragraphs to Earn Their Place
Now treat each section as the “whole” and its paragraphs as the component parts. Each paragraph should demonstrably move your section forward (and not sideways) and should accomplish a paragraph-level task (and not one that is better accomplished in one or a few sentences).
To scrutinize your paragraphs, assign each one a task. Ask: what argumentative work does this paragraph do in this section? Or: What is the purpose of this paragraph? What argumentative claim does it make?
Then use the following guidelines to evaluate them:
- Is the purpose of more than a few paragraphs in a row to “provide background”? If yes, how can you combine these paragraphs and/or redistribute this background material?
- Look at the paragraphs’ tasks. Do any seem unnecessary or tangential? Do any seem to be tasks better achieved in one or a few sentences? Cut, combine, and reorganize as necessary.
- For paragraphs whose tasks are to introduce and analyze primary evidence, consider whether any of your sections sound repetitive—that is, they provide yet another example of something already explored in a previous paragraph (i.e., We see [phenomenon A] in [realm A]. We also see [phenomenon A] in [realm B]. We also see [phenomenon A] in [realm C].). Ask: How is this paragraph’s purpose distinct from that of other paragraphs? Put differently, how does this paragraph add new layers to your reader’s understanding of the section’s main ideas? Cut or combine sections that feel redundant.
Finally, Prune and Trim Sentences
Now that you’ve forced the larger units of writing to earn their spot in your chapter, you can turn your attention to the smallest scale: sentences and words.
Here we recommend that you use Wendy Belcher’s Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks (Week 11: Work on the microstructure of your article, editing your sentences for clarity) in which she presents the “Belcher Diagnostic Test,” which helps you eliminate unnecessary words, improve weak phrases, strengthen your verbs, and more. While it will likely take you several hours to run this test and revise your prose, completing it in its entirety several times will start to train you to write more effectively from the start!
We also highly recommend Helen Sword’s “Writer’s Diet” test, an online platform that highlights common areas for improvement (be-verbs, zombie nouns, prepositions, etc.) in excerpts of 100 to 1000 words. If you work in Microsoft Word and are interested in seeing your prose highlighted dynamically, you can download a free MS-Word app plugin of the test! Once you’ve diagnosed your prose, use Sword’s The Writer’s Diet: A Guide to Fit Prose to tighten it.
