Developers write more than most of us admit. READMEs, pull request descriptions, API docs, error messages, changelog entries, incident notes. Most of it is written in a hurry, and most of it is longer than it needs to be.

I am not talking about style. I am talking about a simpler problem: nobody finishes a 600-word README introduction. They skim the first paragraph, jump to the install command, and leave with half the context. Word count will not fix unclear thinking, but it catches bloat early, before it ships.

Here is the checklist I use now, on my own writing and on docs I review.

Start with a target, not a blank page

A target stops the two usual failures: the three-sentence explanation that leaves out the setup step, and the essay that buries the answer. These are starting points from my own editing, not rules. Adjust them to your project, but pick a number before you start.

  • Pull request description: 50 to 150 words. What changed, why, and how to test it.
  • README introduction: 100 to 200 words. What it does, who it is for, one quick example. Details go further down.
  • Tutorial or how-to guide: 800 to 1,500 words. If it goes past that, it is probably two guides.
  • API endpoint description: 25 to 75 words, plus the example. The example does most of the work.
  • Error message shown to users: under 25 words, plus what to do next.
  • Changelog entry: 20 to 60 words per change. If one entry needs a paragraph, link to the docs instead.

The point of the target is not hitting it exactly. It is noticing early when a short explanation has quietly become a long one.

The checklist

1. Write first, count second. Counting while drafting kills momentum. Get the messy version out, then measure it. I paste the draft into a free word counter tool to get the word count, character count, and estimated reading time in one look. Character count matters more than people expect when you are writing UI strings, meta descriptions, or commit messages with a hard limit.

2. Cut one sentence from every paragraph. Read each paragraph and ask which sentence the reader could live without. In my drafts, it is usually the first sentence. Developers (me included) tend to warm up with throat-clearing: "In this document, we will discuss..." Delete it. Start with the fact.

3. One idea per paragraph. If a paragraph does two jobs, split it. Short paragraphs are not dumbing down. On a phone screen, a 12-line paragraph looks like a wall, and walls get skipped. Two to four sentences per paragraph is a good default for docs.

4. Add a heading every 150 to 200 words. Headings are not decoration. They are the table of contents for a skimmer. If a reader can understand the shape of your doc from the headings alone, the structure is right. If they cannot, the doc needs restructuring, not more words.

5. Read the tricky paragraph out loud. Anything you stumble over while reading aloud will trip a reader too. This catches the 45-word sentence with three clauses that looked fine on screen. Rewrite it as two short sentences. Your future self, debugging at midnight, will thank you.

6. Check the count twice: draft and final. The draft check tells you if you overshot the target. The final check catches the edits that quietly added 200 words back. I check once after the first full draft, and once after review comments are addressed. It takes thirty seconds.

What word count cannot tell you

A short doc can still be wrong, and a long doc can still be necessary. Reference documentation, migration guides, and postmortems earn their length. The checklist is for the everyday writing where length is usually an accident: the README, the PR description, the onboarding note.

Also, do not game the number. Cutting words by removing the example, the warning, or the edge case makes the doc shorter and worse. Cut repetition and filler, never the information the reader came for.

A 10-minute routine

Next time you write docs, try this. Set a target before you start. Draft without counting. Paste the draft into a word counter and compare. Cut one sentence per paragraph. Add headings where a skimmer would get lost. Read one paragraph aloud. Ship it.

Most developer writing improves more from subtraction than from addition. The checklist just makes the subtraction a habit instead of an accident.

Awais Arshad is the founder of FastToolKit, a free collection of online tools for students and developers, including PDF tools, image tools, SEO tools, and calculators. No signup required.