You have cut individual words, possibly a sentence or two, but you must now take your job of cutting excess one step further. Look deeper and delve into the content, the meat of the article. When cutting content, you must first determine the focus of your article. With that determination, the writer has a goal in sight and should find it easier to fine tune the article to meet that goal.
Read over your work. Perhaps you have a paragraph that sounds great. You would like to leave it, but after re-reading the paragraph you cannot find any support toward the focus of the article. Still, the flow is good. It’s a good piece of material and interesting to boot. You have one choice. Omit it. Whine, if you must, but get rid of it. Perhaps you can use it as the focus in another article. It has no place in this one.
The following example may be helpful in learning to find your focus. Imagine writing an article on the subject of cats and types of food to feed the kitten, the grown cat and the mature cat. There is no need for a paragraph giving the kitten’s paternal pedigree, however impressive it may be. However, as we all know, there are exceptions to every rule. In this instance, an exception might be considered on pedigree inclusion provided one is writing about a famous cat and several generations of his family that have been fed a particular product which has proven long term benefits.
If you are writing an article focusing on the environment and the toll garbage is taking, it may be more effective if you leave in the portion about the new disposal system the local landfill is utilizing and omit the gripe session on the bad habit Garry’s Garbage Disposal has developed, being late on his route each week.
Keep in mind that every paragraph should lend something essential toward the focus. It should support the focus. If it does not, ask yourself why the paragraph is there. If your goal is tight writing, there is no place for redundancy. Trim all that is unnecessary. If you must add to an article to reach desired word count, be sure you are adding meat, not fluff. Write tight. Cut it to the bone.