Essay Length Question, word count restriction

I have an essay due soon, the assignment needs to be five pages (1250 words) with double spacing. My problem is my essay is 1395 words but four pages long. Which restriction should I trust more?

If they said 1250 words, use that. Do they tell you how they want the margins" If you use 12 pt font Times New Roman and 1 inch margins all the way around, I think 125 words is only going to be 4 pages!! Ha ha, but if you can use 1.25 inch margins on the left and right, it will be longer.

Try going through and finding paragraphs that could stand to have better topic sentences added to them.. Post it here if you want help.

Good luck!!!

12 point Times New Roman font with one inch margins is what is required for the essay. I almost wish that it was a research paper so I could just find some more and run with it, but secondary sources are not allowed for this one. I'm going to try add as much as I can without being repetitive, so hopefully it will at least get to four and a half pages.

Thank You

Good luck! If your prof assigned 1250 words for 5 pages with that font and formatting, it is his/her mistake. Anyway, a good way to add length is to reinforce each paragraph with a new topic sentence. That way the existing topic sentences become elaborations for the new topic sentences. For each para, ask yourself what the main idea is and tack a sentence on to the beginning! :)

Go with the page count, not the word count. You are the victim of changing technology. The old typewriter standard was 250 words a page, and that is still what a lot of people use, especially if they are older. The professor is expecting five pages, though, so that is what you should give her. You can increase line spacing to 2.1 without anyone noticing, and that will give you a few more lines. Good luck.

I got to the 4.5 pages, almost 1700 words. My teacher said it was fine like it was, apparently plenty of other students complained about it too.

Thanks

glad someone ask this . im always worrying that its to short or just to much

Since your teacher was fine with your length, this is just some addvice for the future.
If you've done the best writing you can do, adding on will sometimes make it repetitive and bland. Margins usually get noticed, but if you end each paragraph with only a few words on the line below, you can add a few extra lines... :]