From time to time I need to squeeze things in a paper to get things to fit. I might as well list my usual ideas in case I need them in the future:
- shorten paragraphs. Particularly, make sure the last line is as full as possible – if there’s only a couple hanging words, perhaps a little editing can cut enough to save that line.
- move figures as close as possible to text. Also related is to crop the figures to eliminate empty space
- remove sentences which duplicate content – any time a phrase is repeated, see if it is really necessary, or if it is possible to rearrange to avoid extra occurrences
- simplify – this helps clarity which is also good, but shorter, more direct wording, avoid “weasel wording”
- Often times a lot of small short words are unnecessary
- use common abbreviations/abbreviate long complex phrases
- Avoid multiline titles/headings (since the font for those is big!)
- watch out of extra carriage returns between sections
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