How to Say Nothing in 500 Words

Based on Roberts’ article, How to Say Nothing in 500 Words, I noticed that in my own writing I have a tendency to go writing about usual topics and, sometimes, I use the obvious padding; although, I feel that I do not use the padding on the same extreme levels given in the examples in the article. I may use a few extra words here and there but I can usually catch myself using the padding too much. I learned this skill of catching my own padding mistakes in writing from my junior year, high school, English teacher. I had written a ten page research paper and when I got my first draft back there was nearly a page a half marked off my paper because of unneeded “fluff,” as she would call it.


In addition to the padding and fluff, I did not realize that taking the usual route of a prompt was such a bad thing to do; as long as a person felt passionate about the subject, I did not think that it made a difference, which Roberts states as well by saying, “Go to the heart of the matter.” This means that as long as you feel strongly about the subject then, by all means, go and write about it because you know that you have plenty to say that could easily fill 500 words. Before reading this article, I figured that choosing the prompt was probably the least important part of writing a paper; however, after seeing that particular step through a professor’s eyes, I now have a better understanding on how picking a subject that is unlike what the rest of the students have chosen would be more beneficial to the professor and my grade; I can understand how reading the same thing over and over again would become rather boring after a long amount of time.

The most interesting part of this article to me was where Roberts talked about avoiding the obvious content. Before I read the section, to me, this meant that one should not simply continue to restate the beginning statement or argument; however, after reading it I realized how easy it is to just take the easy way out without even really knowing it. I do not think that I am one who only discusses the obvious content that is expected, but I do believe that I could go deeper within my writing. I think that by planning out a paper before writing it could be a big help in this area; I could plan by paragraph or idea to make sure that I am asking myself deeper questions in order to fill my paper with more interesting content. Therefore, the thoughts that are within the paper are closer to what I am really thinking rather than just filler text to get to the end of the assigned amount of work.

Roberts’ article really opened my eyes to many common mistakes in writing, some mistakes that I make and some that I do not make. As for the ones that I do not make he has now made me more aware of things to watch out for and habits that do not need to develop.