Expand text
Expanding takes a passage that is too thin and develops it. The mechanism is the paragraph assistant with a higher word count; the skill is in specifying what should grow.
See Write and revise a paragraph in the visual editor for the dialog.
Two ways to expand
Rewrite longer. Choose Rewrite current content with other words and set Word Count above the current length. The passage is restated at greater length, in place.
Continue. Choose Write new content that continues your content and ask for the specific addition. The new material is appended and the original stays exactly as written.
Prefer continuing when the existing wording is good, because it is non-destructive. Prefer rewriting longer when the passage is compressed throughout and needs to breathe.
Say what should grow
This is the whole difference between useful expansion and padding. "Make this longer" produces more words about the same amount of content. Name the missing dimension:
| What is missing | Prompt |
|---|---|
| Evidence | Expand with concrete examples of where this applies |
| Mechanism | Explain how this actually works, step by step |
| Consequence | Develop what this means in practice for the reader |
| Counterargument | Add the cases where this is not the right choice |
| Detail | Expand the second point with the specifics a buyer would need |
| Context | Add the background a reader unfamiliar with this field would need |
If you cannot name what is missing, the passage may not need expanding. Length is not a quality.
Realistic targets
Roughly doubling a passage works well. Asking for five times the length in one step reliably produces padding: restatement, throat-clearing and sentences that announce the next sentence.
For a substantial increase, expand in two rounds along two different dimensions — examples first, then implications — rather than in one large jump.
What to cut afterwards
Expanded text arrives with recognisable filler. Read for these:
- an opening sentence that restates what was already said;
- transitional phrases that transition nowhere: "it's worth noting", "importantly", "as we can see";
- lists where every item makes the same point in different words;
- a closing summary of a passage the reader just read;
- adjectives doing the work that a fact should do.
Cutting is free. A generated 400-word expansion that survives editing at 250 words is a good outcome, not a failure.
Checking what was added
Expansion invents. That is what you asked for, but it means new claims arrive with the same confidence as the original ones and none of the provenance.
Check every new specific: figures, dates, standards, product capabilities, comparisons. Anything that appeared during expansion and that you did not know before is unverified by definition.
Be especially careful when expanding into evidence. "Add concrete examples" can produce examples that are plausible and fictional.
Where expansion is a bad idea
- A deliberately terse passage. Summaries, definitions, captions and calls to action are short on purpose.
- Anything with an approved wording. Legal notices, warranties, safety statements.
- A page that is thin because it has nothing to say. Adding words does not add substance, and a padded page serves nobody.
- Meeting a word count for its own sake. If length is the only goal, the reader is not the audience.
After expanding
Read the whole section, not just the new part. Expansion can make a passage inconsistent with what precedes and follows it — a point now made twice, or a level of detail that no longer matches its neighbours.
If the result went too far, shorten is the direct correction, but manual cutting is usually faster and always cheaper.