Does the word count include references, footnotes, quotes and headings?

The short rule, and where it stops

The reference list never counts; almost everything inside the essay does; footnotes are the exception that splits universities. Thirteen published policies, from UK, Irish, Australian and New Zealand universities, were compared for this guide, and they agree on less than most advice suggests:

• Reference list or bibliography: excluded by every policy that mentions it.
• In-text citations: counted by every policy that mentions them, apart from one university's thesis regulations.
• Quotations and headings: counted wherever a policy says either way.
• Footnotes: counted at some universities, excluded at others, and half-counted at a third group.
• Tables, appendices, abstracts: appendices are excluded everywhere; tables and abstracts vary.

Every one of these policies says it can be overridden by the assessment brief or module handbook. The rule that decides your essay is the most specific one you have been given, which is why the last two sections of this guide are about finding it and counting to it.

Footnotes: the part universities disagree on

Whether footnotes count depends on the university, and two UK sources give opposite answers. The University of Hull's library tells students: "If you are using a footnote-based referencing format, the footnotes are also not included" (Hull Library FAQ, updated 2017). The University of Kent's law school says the reverse: "Footnotes (or endnotes) are included in the word count and include all citations (reference in OSCOLA style), explanation, or comment at the bottom of the page" (Kent Law School PGT Student Handbook 2021-22, page 17).

Neither is a mistake. They are different rules, and the policies compared here fall into three groups:

1. All footnote text counts. Kent Law School; SOAS, whose word count includes "in-text citations (regardless of the referencing style used), figure and table legends, quotations and footnotes" (SOAS REG-181-06, in force from 1 September 2026); and the University of Auckland's law faculty (word limits).
2. References in footnotes are out; anything else in them counts. UWA's thesis rules count footnotes but exclude footnote references where citing in footnotes is standard for the discipline, such as the Australian Guide to Legal Citation: "any other text in the footnotes will need to be included" (UWA, thesis word limits). UWE Bristol excludes footnotes and endnotes "provided footnotes and endnotes only include references" (UWE Assessment Content Limit Policy, September 2022).
3. No footnote text counts. Hull's library for footnote styles; ANU's College of Arts and Social Sciences, where "Bibliographies, footnotes and endnotes will not be included in the word count" (ANU CASS word limits); Staffordshire University (assessment limit guidance); and the University of Notre Dame Australia's library for Chicago style (AskUs FAQ).

The difference is large in a footnote-referenced subject such as law or history. A full OSCOLA case citation, Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 562 (HL), is seven words. An essay with 40 footnotes of that length carries 280 words of citations. Against a 2,000-word limit, that is 14% of the allowance spent on references at Kent, and none at all under Hull's library rule.

References and in-text citations

The reference list at the end is excluded everywhere; the citations in your sentences are counted almost everywhere. Hull's library states both halves: the reference list "is not included in your word count", while with Hull Harvard or APA "your in-text citations (the bits in brackets) are included" (Hull Library FAQ).

The other library answers agree with Hull on citations. Birmingham Newman: "quotations are included in your word count, as are in-text citations" (Newman FAQ). Limerick: "In Harvard UL referencing style, in-text citations usually are counted in the overall word count" (UL Glucksman Library). UWE Bristol counts "all citations (both in and out of brackets)". The Kent row from Brussels is a 2014 notice to that campus's students, which counts "The body of the paper, footnotes, in-text citations and any endnotes" (Kent Brussels).

The one exception found is Lancaster's postgraduate research regulations, which exclude "citations, and the material following the main text of the thesis" from a thesis's word length. Lancaster's own library adds that outside those regulations, excluding citations is "not a standard approach" (Lancaster Library FAQ).

In-text citations add less than footnotes but are not free. An author-date citation such as (Smith, 2021) is two words; (Smith and Jones, 2021) is four. Twenty-five citations in a 2,000-word essay add 50 to 100 words, up to 5% of the limit. The citation generator builds the reference list in APA, MLA or Chicago, and the in-text form beside each entry shows how many words a citation will cost.

Quotations, headings, tables and appendices

Quotations and headings count wherever a policy mentions them; appendices never do; tables and abstracts are where rules part. Staffordshire's list is typical of the newer policies: it counts "All headings and subheadings", "In-text citations (e.g., Smith, 2026)" and "Direct quotes and definitions", and excludes cover pages, contents, footnotes and the reference list.

Two details catch people out. The abstract is counted at SOAS, whose definition of the word count names "titles, headings, abstracts, summaries", but excluded at UWE Bristol and Auckland. Tables are counted in full at UWE Bristol, which also warns that "Text within images (such as an image of a table) may contribute to the word count", and excluded at Staffordshire and in UWA theses.

The pages around the essay are left out wherever they are mentioned. Hull's library lists "title pages, acknowledgements, contents pages, table of tables, table of figures" as outside the count (Hull Library FAQ), and SOAS adds the list of acronyms and the glossary. Appendices are excluded, but they are not a place to put argument: SOAS says they "will not normally be marked but they must not include material essential to the assessment", and Staffordshire treats misusing the exclusions to get round a limit as an academic conduct matter.

The advice that is wrong

The most repeated advice, that footnotes do not count unless you are told otherwise, is the riskier of the two assumptions. A word-counter blog post from 2016 that still appears in the results for this question, citing no university, tells students to assume footnotes do not count when there is no guidance. Kent Law School, SOAS and Auckland Law all count them, and SOAS's 2026 policy counts them whatever the referencing style. A student who assumes they are excluded and is wrong is over the limit; a student who assumes they count and is wrong has merely written a shorter essay.

The second widely repeated idea is that every essay may run 10% over. Some may: SOAS deducts nothing up to 10% over, ANU's College of Arts and Social Sciences applies no penalty "for the initial 10% excess words", and Kent's Brussels law dissertation guidelines allowed "10% deviation over the stated maximum word count" (Kent Brussels, 2016). Others do not.

Under-length work carries no penalty at Auckland or SOAS, which calls its limit "a maximum". A wrong declared count is a separate problem: SOAS treats "significant inaccuracies in declared word counts" under its academic misconduct policy, and UWE Bristol treats an intentionally inaccurate count as an assessment offence.

How to find your institution's rule

Read the rules from the most specific to the most general, and stop at the first one that answers. Every policy above defers downwards: Hull's library says "you need to check your module handbook or check with your tutor", and UWE Bristol's footnote exclusion applies "unless it is clearly stated in the assessment brief that the module is an exception".

1. The assessment brief. A rule written for this piece of work overrides everything else.
2. The module or course handbook. Kent's rule above is in a school handbook, not a university regulation.
3. The school or faculty handbook, often under "word count policy", "word limits" or "submission".
4. The university's assessment regulations. Search for the university's name with "word count policy" or "assessment content limit"; SOAS, UWE Bristol and Staffordshire publish theirs.
5. The library's referencing FAQ. Useful, but a library answer such as Hull's is general advice and says so.
6. Ask the module convenor in writing, naming the parts you are unsure of: footnotes, tables, the abstract. An email reply is a record you can point to.

If none of these answers a question, count the part. Including something that turns out to be excluded costs you words; excluding something that turns out to be counted puts you over.

Counting it the way your rule says

Count the body and the footnotes separately, then add what your rule includes. Each tool has a default that matches some of the rules above and not others:

• Count only the body. Select from the first word of the introduction to the last word of the conclusion. In Word, "To count the number of words in only part of your document, select the text you want to count" (Microsoft Support). This leaves out the title page, the reference list and the appendices in one step.
• Footnotes in Word. The Word Count box has a tick box, "Include textboxes, footnotes and endnotes", which decides whether they are in the total. Word's own programming interface leaves them out unless asked: its ComputeStatistics method includes footnotes only when told to, and "If this argument is omitted, the default value is False" (Microsoft Learn).
• Footnotes in Google Docs. "Unless you select a section of the document, word count applies to everything except headers, footers, and footnotes" (Google Docs Help). Under a rule that counts footnotes, Google's number is too low.
• Removing in-text citations, for the rare rule that excludes them. Lancaster's library gives a method for Word: in a copy of the file, delete the references, then Find and Replace with wildcards on the pattern \(*\). It removes every bracketed passage, not only citations, so check the result.

Simple Online Counter is a free, browser-based set of counters, and its word counter opens a .docx on your device and counts the body text, headings, lists and tables but not the footnotes, the same as Word with its footnote box unticked. Paste the footnotes in on their own to see what they add, and add the two figures if your rule counts both. Under a rule like Staffordshire's, which leaves out the text inside tables, subtract it.

Counters also split some words differently, such as hyphenated words, dates and web addresses in a reference, which is a separate question covered in why word counts differ between tools. SOAS recommends "Microsoft Word (or similar)" for the declared count, and UWE Bristol checks counts in Turnitin or Word, so declare the figure from the tool your institution names.

This guide compares coursework and thesis policies published by universities in the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand, and quotes each from its own page. Journals, publishers, competitions and exam boards set their own rules in their author or entry guidelines, and those rules decide for work sent to them.