How Long Is 1500 Words?

There are many times throughout our lives when we might be tasked with writing things like essays, projects or other works that have word limits.

1500 words is quite a common word limit, but it’s not always easy to know how long that actually is. 

In terms of pages, 1500 words is about 3 pages long – assuming you’re single spacing and using an arial font. 

But there’s much more to know than this. We’re going to examine how long 1500 words is exactly in terms of pages, characters and the time it takes to complete. 

So, if you’re soon to be writing 1500 words – read on to learn much more. 

1500 Words Standard 

Before we go any further, we must preface the rest of this guide by explaining that a lot of these numbers provided will be estimates – so it’s important to recognize that you may go over or under some of these. 

However, we’ll give you the general guidelines. If you’re writing 1500 words on a single spaced document – then you’ll be writing about three pages worth of words. 

1500 Words Double Spaced 

If you’re writing double spaced, naturally you will need to multiply the pages by two.

Therefore, if you’re writing three pages in a single spaced format, then double spacing will cover about six pages worth of words. 

1500 Words In Characters 

This is probably the area that will change the most depending on what you are writing and what format you are writing it in. 

However, as a general rule of thumb – 1500 words in characters is about 200 to 400 words when you account for spaces. If you do not include spaces, this can be lower. 

1500 Words When Handwritten 

Although this is quite uncommon nowadays, some people may choose to write whatever it is they’ve been tasked with by hand. As a result, the amount of pages may vary. 

Due to the fact that some people have very large handwriting and some people have very small handwriting, it can be much more difficult to estimate the number of pages that 1500 words will be.

However, we can generalize and say that handwriting is give or take about double the size of a 12 point arial font.

Therefore, we would use handwriting when single spaced in the same estimates as double spacing. 

In layman’s terms, if double spacing 1500 words accounts for six pages worth of words, then we can say single spaced handwriting is about the same. 

1500 Words In Paragraphs 

This is another area that may wildly change depending on what you are writing.

1500 words can be anywhere from seven paragraphs to thirty paragraphs. 

If you are writing something with a reader-friendly format in mind, you will likely be writing many more paragraphs.

This format is much more common with things like journalistic posts or posts for the web.

However, this may be decreased if you are writing something like a scientific paper, which normally tries to simplify the complex points using diagrams, charts or graphs. 

Will The Font Choice Make A Difference?

Yes, it can. Generally speaking, when 1500 words are requested by someone – you will be given requirements for the types of font you may decide to use. 

Even more generally, the choices provided will be arial or times new roman. These fonts cover less space than that of verdana. 

Why Font Matters 

As an add-on point to this, the choice of font matters beyond simply the amount of space it will cover. 

If you want your work to be taken seriously, whether that be professionally or academically, the choice of font you use will make a huge difference. 

Not only does font like arial make your work appear more professional and therefore can be taken more seriously, but it will improve the readability of your work. 

Resulting from this, the points you wish to make in your work will be more likely read than skimmed over. 

Not only this, but the organization that requests the 1500 words – such as a college for example – may have a stipulation that you must use a specific font. 

Always ensure you have checked any guidelines before you begin writing – it will save you time in the future if you must edit your work!

What Might 1500 Words Be?

1500 words, as we mentioned earlier, is quite a common word limit. It’s often used for online journalism, academic papers and even blog posts. 

How Long Will This Take?

Depending on which of these things you have to write, and depending on you as a writer, the time it takes to complete 1500 words may change. 

Some writers can write more quickly than others – but there’s more to it than this.

When it comes to academic papers, generally, these take longer to write for research or experiment purposes.

This is also true for some journalistic papers and other research pieces for employers.

However, entertainment or opinion pieces will likely take much less time to write. 

As a general rule of thumb though, the average writer can type about 40 words a minute.

This means you can likely expect 1500 words to take you 37.5 minutes to write. 

But as we said earlier, this is simply an estimate and a guideline, so don’t take this as a fundamental rule. 

How Long Will It Take To Read 1500 Words?

For the average reader, and when 1500 words are written with excellent reader-friendly formats, it will take around 5 minutes to cover 1500 words. 

Again though, some people take much longer to read than others – but it’s always better to improve the readability of your paper. 

The Bottom Line 

1500 words is about 3 pages single spaced and 6 pages double spaced.