If you've ever suspected you lean on the same few words, this will confirm it. The Word Frequency Counter ranks the words in a piece of writing by how often they appear, with counts and percentages. It can hide the dull function words (the, and, of) so the interesting vocabulary stands out, which also makes it a decent quick look at what a long document is actually about.
How to use it
- Paste an article, essay, transcript or chapter.
- Choose how many top words to show and the shortest word length to count.
- Keep "skip common words" on unless you want a complete tally.
- Read the ranked list.
When it helps
- Catching overused words in your own draft before an editor does.
- Getting a feel for the main topics in a long document you haven't read yet.
- Finding candidate keywords for a page or title.
- Comparing the vocabulary of two pieces of writing.
Good to know
- Raising the minimum word length to 4 or 5 filters out most of the small words the common-word list misses.
- Everything is lower-cased first, so Tool and tool count as one word.
- The filter list is English. Other languages still get counted, but their filler words stay in.
How words are counted
The tool lowers the case of everything, splits the text into words (letters, digits and internal apostrophes or hyphens), and counts each one. If the skip option is on, words from a standard English list of function words such as the, of, and, to and in are dropped, and so are words shorter than your minimum.
The percentage is each word's share of the words that were counted after filtering, not of the original total. That keeps the numbers meaningful: if you filter out half the text as filler, the remaining words still add up to a sensible picture of what's left.
Worked example: editing your own draft
Paste a 1,000-word article and set the minimum length to 4. If "really", "things" or "important" appear a dozen times, that's a prompt to vary your wording. Many writers are surprised by their own habits, such as starting three paragraphs with the same word.
For keyword research, look at the top ten words after filtering. If the page is meant to be about sourdough bread and the list is topped by "people" and "make", the writing may be too generic. Adding specific vocabulary usually helps readers and search engines both.
Limits to keep in mind
Counting individual words misses phrases. Two-word terms such as "machine learning" are split, so each half is counted separately. Plurals and verb forms count as different words, so "tool" and "tools" are listed on separate lines.
The skip list is English only. If your text is in another language, turn skipping off, or expect filler words to dominate the list. For long documents, take the numbers as a guide rather than a measurement.
Questions
What does the percentage mean?
It's that word's share of all the words counted after filtering.
Does it work on other languages?
It counts words in any language; only the skip list is English.