Freelance writers are used to bulking up their copy. It really, really, really helps hit the word count. Sorry, that’s an old joke. A really, really, really old joke. Anyway, the reverse is true of the MW dissertation. 10,000 words is the limit here – generally agreed to be restrictive in extremis.
I have thus been practising new-founded concision in the writing of my literature review. Straggling words are shown no mercy. This is perhaps why academia reads so flatly: anything vaguely florid is expunged in the pursuit of brevity. Even so, mine currently weighs in at 2,300 words, which...