Usually limits are not that hard and fast--6700 is not that much longer than the prescribed 6000 limit (just a little over ten percent) and besides that number is typically a limit for the article itself rather than the ms including bibliography. I wish my writers would come that close to the limit--I recently got a 9000-word manuscript for an essays whose prescribed length is 3000-4000 words!

Barring such loopholes, might I suggest re-reading your article and removing superfluous words, phrases and sentences. e..g A simple change to active vs. passive voice (a frequent fault of folks writing in the sciences) really shaves off words. Another not so nice rule that my writing professor told us was to read over an article and if you found yourself loving or particularly attached to a phrase or sentence--"take it out." Will make for a tighter more succinct piece

All that said, I should stop this message in support of brevity. Good luck

Look at reducing your references, especially where you have multiple references cited. I have found this a good way to reduce the word count. Good luck!

Make sure what elements the journal includes in the word count.  Sometimes the abstract or references may not need to be counted.

Examine your appendicies.  You must include things that would help others reproduce your methodology, but are all of them needed?

Proofread and edit your paper again.  Make sure you use active voice, not passive voice.  Look for places where you can streamline wording.  Trimming a sentence or two here and there could easily account for much of the 700 words.

If your paoer remains slightly over 6,000, maybe submit it anyway.  Changes are almost always required by reviewers and your overall length is likely to grow, as a result, and still be allowed.

I would never intentionally submit a manuscript that did not comply with the journal's instructions for authors. Why give the editor a reason to not send your manuscript out for review?

Dear Pattinson, Marek and Kindle,

Thank you so much for your kindly comment ! I will consider.

Best wishes.

Generally the best place to edit down is the Introduction. Most authors take too long to get to the point, and they review papers that ultimately turned out to be tangential to their theme. 

You have to narrow down the word count to meet the set targets of the journal. The discussions of the findings from the study must always be rid of any information that is not directly related to the research questions. The discussions must be concise and scholarly. Many scholars over exemplify the findings from the data generated and this takes a great toll on the general word count of their papers. Best regards

Dickson Adom

Use the Supplementary Material resoource

previous advice all directed towards making the cuts. Some alternative reflections: 

The word limit that is communicated may be a hard limit. usually it is not. journals prefer maximum contribution per unit of text. Hence, if your include a substantial amount of work in a single paper there may be leeway. I even know of journals that deliberately do not give a word limit (even though they do have one as an internal editorial guideline), as authors tend to use it as a target, instead of a limitation. Hence, causing papers that should be much shorter to become wordy. 

To find out whether there is leeway, you could: 1) look at papers that are already published that are of a similar type as your manuscript, 2) enquire with the editor, or editorial assistant, 3) check with colleagues who have already published in this journal about their editorial experiences.

If you find the word limit is indeed a hard limit, consider submitting somewhere else.

If you really want to publish in this journal and the limit is hard, reflect on whether your paper makes a clear single contribution to the literature. If you are trying to make multiple, relatively independent points in your manuscript, it may result in complexity and wordiness. splitting your manuscript so that each paper constitutes a single, but well-supported contribution to the literature may be your way to go. 

Usually limits are not that hard and fast--6700 is not that much longer than the prescribed 6000 limit (just a little over ten percent) and besides that number is typically a limit for the article itself rather than the ms including bibliography. I wish my writers would come that close to the limit--I recently got a 9000-word manuscript for an essays whose prescribed length is 3000-4000 words!

Barring such loopholes, might I suggest re-reading your article and removing superfluous words, phrases and sentences. e..g A simple change to active vs. passive voice (a frequent fault of folks writing in the sciences) really shaves off words. Another not so nice rule that my writing professor told us was to read over an article and if you found yourself loving or particularly attached to a phrase or sentence--"take it out." Will make for a tighter more succinct piece

All that said, I should stop this message in support of brevity. Good luck

Thank you for all !  Your kindly reply and advises ! They are very helpful for me.

my question is, how to count the words? is the one displayed at the left bottom of MS word enough? or is there any preferred software or method?

thank you

@Mustapha Bello Muhammad Just use the MSWord count or the Apache Open Office Writer count.

Read through your text again. Paraphrase sentences. Make them concise and short.

Ian Kennedy thank you

you may minimize the literature review by focusing your literature related to your hypothesis development. You may put just the sections that the journal guidelines restrict you to put

6000 words is pretty low. Some papers cannot be taken so far down. What discipline are you writing in?

Give your audience the Readers' Digest version. They must trust you. Don't include every single measurement!