As you glance at your assignment sheet, you see you need to write a 1000-word essay. That number might seem daunting at first, but what does it really mean? How many pages will that fill? The answer varies based on a few key factors:
- Double or single spacing
- Font size and type
- The size of margins
- Header and footer
Usually, you are supposed to write an essay following a specific formatting style (APA, MLA, etc.). If that’s the case, you don’t have much choice when it comes to your document’s settings. But, let’s say that you’re using a conventional font — Times New Roman 12pt — and your margins are set to default.
In such a case, we can estimate that:
The medium length of a 1000-word essay is two single-spaced pages and four double-spaced pages.
The table below serves as a helpful guide for papers of various lengths, including 600, 750, 800, 1000, 1200, 1500, 2000, 2500, and 3000 words. All entries follow the formatting we’ve outlined earlier.
How Else Can I Check My Essay’s Length?
You can easily find out how many pages your paper will have by using your word processor. Programs like MS Word and LibreOffice show the page and word count while you type. You’ll typically see this information at the bottom left corner of the screen.
Note: If you can’t stretch your essay to 1000 words, read this article — How to Lengthen an Essay.
To see how long your 1000-word essay will be in pages even before writing, you can try a “dummy” article method. Take a random article from any source and make it 1000 words long. You can use any word counter tool for that. Then, insert that text into a word processor of your choice and look at the page count it shows. If you must use a particular style, change all formatting settings accordingly first.
Mini-FAQ
Usually, you would get a range of 800–1000 words, so here’s an 800-word sample with explanatory comments provided by Massey University. Two more examples of a 1000-word essay can be found in this detailed step-by-step writing guide by Charles Darwin University. Besides the samples, it also offers great writing tips for students.
The principle stays the same. You can read our article on how to write a basic essay to learn more. Also, you can take a look at this structure outline provided by Dr. Dianne Fitzpatrick from La Trobe University, who gives a rough estimate on how many words each part should take.
It will take you about four to five hours to write a 1000-word essay if you want to go for quality, which implies planning and proofreading. It’s hard to name just one number. It depends on a set of things like how much research you have to do, how good you are at writing such assignments, how quickly you can type, and how thoroughly you prepare.