Word counts for letters to the editor

Most periodicals (newspapers and magazines) solicit letters from readers for publication. Due to space restrictions, these typically have restrictions on length, and often the restrictions are explicitly expressed as number of words that are allowed. It was to get counts of the words in letters (or sections of letters) that I wrote Wordcount.

Here are some examples of such guidelines.

New York Times

Letters should be limited to about 150 words.

San Francisco Chronicle

Please limit your letters to 200 or fewer words.

Providence Journal

We favor letters of 250 words or fewer.

Other publications don't give explicit word counts, preferring to just suggest brevity without defining it. You can check out existing letters on the web sites of these publications, and use Wordcount to see how long these are.