Mostly yes

Yes, 6000 is a lot, even for a long paper. Your article will not be accepted at 8000. Always follow the journal instructions

Ali - It is very necessary to follow the journal guidelines in letter and spirit. If the journal asks for 6000 words, reduce your paper to the required length. Remove the unnecessary data including literature cited and findings from your paper to make it suitable to the paper guidelines. Many papers are rejected simply for not following the journal guidelines. It is advisable to follow step -by -step instructions of the journal before submitting your paper. Or you can find another journal that could be best suited for publishing your research paper of 8000 words.

Indeed many journals recommend the number of words depending on the type of the manuscript.

By my experience it is necessary to respect journal instructions for authors. In case of oversized ms it will be returned to authors for shortening, which prolongs the review process.

I guess that nobody likes that situation 😎

Yes, we should follow journal instructions in details. That's prerequisite for considering the manuscript for reviewing.

Yes, it is necessary. I tried to follow always the "instructions to authors". Although the number of words varies for different types of paper.

It is mandatory to follow the author guidelines for the journal, wherein the manuscript is submitted. The number of words vary according to the type of manuscript submitted. It is usually more for original articles.

Thank you so much all of you RG colleagues for your valuable answers.

It varies by journal how strictly these are enforced. For some it is a guideline and for others it is more strict (so it is a bit odd the comments given definitive answers as if all are the same). Published length is often longer than the original submission because the editor/reviewers request more info. If you are not sure, email the editor and explain why your contribution is so special that you intend to go over their rule/guideline. I've done that once that and the editor allowed it.

It is worth pointing out that "word count" isn't (is that one or two words?) well-defined (does that hyphen make a difference). And equations, tables, figures with words, and it varies by language.

Dear Ali,

My suggestion is to strictly follow the journal guideline from any aspect and hence, the word limit also. Actually, this kind of word restriction is journal specific. If you can not manage your word within the limit (here 6000), you can search for other journal where there is no restriction is imposed.

Wish you best of luck in your scholarly work.

Dear you should adhere to the instructions of the journal you want to submit your paper.

Thanks for all..

But I will try to do an Email to the editor if I can go over the rules an instructions..

yes that is the best way when you want to publish an article. Follow the instructions in any regard

Verbose reporting generally leads to outright rejection. We should bear in mind that these journals have limited spaces to publish their articles and naturally moderately economical nature must set in as we know that they spend huge in publishing. Any author that does not follow their guidelines not doing himself any favour with possible rejection and stress of submitting and re-submitting.

Yes

Yes of course. We should follow the guidelines.

Dear Ali

yes, you have to follow the journal instructions.

Dear colleagues,

thank you for providing informative answers and kind reacting with my question.

We should follow the instruction of the journal, otherwise editor may send you back and ask to rectify some points which unnecessary will delay the review process. You may ask the editor before submission about this problem or you may choose some other journal.

It is important to follow the word count instructions.You could sees some of my research papers to see the word count asked by the journal.

Yes,

please do follow the rules to avoid unnecessary delay in publishing

its vital, follow rules to enable publication

Mostly yes

Thank you

Yes of course

Yes

Your essay should be snappy so it captures everything that the audience need to know.

Yes, is very important to follow instructions of journal in order to make a meaningful thought to the readers.

Nice article

Please follow the instructions of the journal.

In general, I would agree with those who recommend adhering to a journal's instructions concerning word limits.

However, twice I have negotiated with a journal's editorial team to have a greater number of words, and on both occasions I was given permission to exceed the stated word limits - though only by 300 words in each case. However, I frequently notice articles in which the abstracts and the body of the manuscript obviously exceed the journal's stated word limits, so I'm not sure what "mechanisms" might have operated in the background in those instances.

There is sometimes a problem in that it's not clear whether the word limits refer to the whole manuscript or whether things such as the title, abstract, references, and tables and figures are included or excluded. Some author instructions are clear concerning that; some aren't.

In my view, therefore, the issue is not as simple as it might first appear.

My experience is that you are told of these journal page restrictions when you receive your referee reports and those of the editors. At that stage, you know you have an R1 or revise and resubmit. I believe that one should avoid R2 revision and you want to do everything the editor's want.

Bear in mind that your paper has been under view for 6 months! Do you really want anything that would cause one of the referees to reject your final version after 7 or 8 months? I do not think anyone would be that foolish not to follow the word count instructions required by a journal. It is really important to do anything required by the editors to conclude that event and eventually receive an acceptance letter.

It would appear that different ones of us have different experiences. From memory, all of the journals I have submitted articles to have had author instructions on their home pages that include some indication about maximum length of articles that they will accept - usually in terms of number of words but sometimes number of pages of double-spaced text. I have never been advised by editors or reviewers, after I had submitted an article, that it was too long.

That's not to say that things are always done that way, of course. And, indeed, I'm aware of journals that don't indicate size limits in their author instructions. Personally, I'd avoid those journals because I think they're too "risky". My view is that if they can't get their act together to indicate the parameters they want authors to work within, those journals probably don't have their act together in a variety of other respects and might be what I regard as bottom feeders.

Yes, should you follow the journal instructions in terms of number of words.