Writing
Word Counter
Paste or type your text to count words, characters, sentences and paragraphs as you type. Your text never leaves your browser.
Free, no account
Counts update as you type.
Counts
- Words
- 0
- Characters (with spaces)
- 0
- Characters (without spaces)
- 0
- Sentences
- 0
- Paragraphs
- 0
- Reading time
- 0 minutes
- Speaking time
- 0 minutes
What should I do next?
Next in the research journey: references.
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Reference Checker
Checks reference lists and citations in APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago, IEEE and Harvard for structure, missing details, duplicates, order and mismatched citations.
How to choose a citation style
Who decides which citation style you use, how the main styles differ, and what to do when instructions are missing or conflict.
How we count
- A word is any run of characters between spaces that contains at least one letter or number, in any language. “State-of-the-art”, “don't” and “2020” each count as one word; a dash or emoji on its own does not.
- Characters are counted as you see them, so an accented letter or an emoji with a skin tone counts as one. “With spaces” includes spaces and tabs, but not line breaks.
- A sentence ends with a full stop, question mark, exclamation mark or ellipsis, or at the end of a paragraph.
- A paragraph is a line containing at least one letter or number. Blank lines are ignored.
- Reading time assumes 200 words per minute and speaking time 130 words per minute, rounded to the nearest minute.
What the counter can't know
- What your word limit includes. Institutions differ on headings, quotations, tables, footnotes and reference lists, so check your assignment brief.
- Languages written without spaces between words, such as Chinese, Japanese or Thai. Each unbroken run of text is counted as one word.
- Abbreviations such as “e.g.” or “Dr.”, which are counted as the end of a sentence.