5 Ways to Use ProWritingAid to Improve Your Essay, with Hayley Milliman

Clarity beats vocabulary flexing in essays: stuffing writing with “fantasy vocabulary” and convoluted sentence structures tends to bury the thesis, distract readers, and make the work look amateur. The core goal is to let ideas do the heavy lifting—using language that’s precise, readable, and purposeful—so professors can quickly grasp the argument and stay engaged.

Hayley Milliman, content lead at ProWritingAid, frames essay writing as an editing problem rather than a drafting problem. Professors read many papers, so language that’s overly complex, vague, repetitive, or padded with extra words forces readers to work harder than necessary. When that happens, the main thesis gets lost, readers get bored or annoyed, and the writing can appear unfocused—even if the writer knows the subject. Milliman distinguishes “rich words” from “complicated words”: strong, descriptive language (like “enormous” instead of “very big”) can add meaning without making sentences harder to follow. Likewise, varying sentence structure and avoiding wordiness help maintain momentum and readability.

From there, the session lays out five practical improvement targets that align with recommendations from the Harvard College Writing Center. First is eliminating unnecessary words by reducing “glue words”—the connective filler that makes sentences clunky without adding essential information. Milliman introduces a “glue index” concept, recommending an average target around 40% glue words, and demonstrates how a long, padded sentence can be rewritten into a shorter one that says the same thing with fewer words.

Second is replacing vague or wishy-washy language. Terms like “some improvements,” “worth more,” or “existing structures” don’t specify what changed or by how much. The fix is to swap in concrete details and stronger verbs, and to remove indefinite hedges such as “could,” “might,” or “whenever possible” when the claim can be stated more firmly. Milliman emphasizes that meeting word counts shouldn’t mean stuffing; it should mean adding analysis and specificity.

Third is improving readability by reducing jargon, pompous language, clichés, and overly complex structures. She offers a “chips” metaphor for domain-specific vocabulary: use challenging technical terms when needed, but keep the surrounding verbs and explanations simple. She also recommends active voice when possible, warns against nominalizations (turning verbs into nouns), and suggests keeping most sentences in a practical range—often cited as 11–18 words—while breaking up sentences that run too long.

Fourth is avoiding repetitive sentence structure by varying sentence length, sentence starters, and rhythm so the prose doesn’t become monotonous. Fifth is ensuring every word does important work by cutting crutches and superfluous phrases that inflate length without adding meaning.

Throughout, Milliman connects each editing goal to ProWritingAid features—especially tools like Sticky Sentences, Style reports, Clichés checks, Sentence Length reports, and readability diagnostics—while stressing that the software flags issues but doesn’t rewrite in a way that preserves the writer’s voice. The takeaway is straightforward: edit for clarity, precision, and reader experience, and use word count as a byproduct of stronger ideas rather than a target that drives padding.