The line under your title in the journal editor is worked out in your browser from the blocks in the editor, and it updates as you type. Reading time is your word count divided by 200 and rounded up, so anything from 1 to 200 words reads as 1 Min read, 201 to 400 as 2, and so on.
The line only appears once the count is above zero, which is why a journal with a title and a cover but no body shows nothing.
What is counted
Four kinds of block contribute words:
- Paragraphs.
- Headings.
- List items, each item counted separately.
- Quotes, including the attribution line under a quote.
Every other kind of block counts as zero. Images and their captions, embeds and anything you have pasted in as media add nothing, so a piece carrying a lot of drawings will always read as shorter than it takes to go through.
How a word is counted
Formatting is stripped before counting, so bold, italics and links do not change the total. What is left is split on spaces, which means a hyphenated term such as mixed-use counts as one word and a number counts as one word.
There is no minimum and no maximum. The figure is only a description of what you have written, and it has no effect on whether your journal can be published.
The figure on the published page is not this one
The reading time shown on your journal's public page is not calculated from your text. It is a fixed value that reads the same on every journal on UNI regardless of length. Only the counter inside the editor reflects what you actually wrote, so use that one when you want to know where a piece stands.
Nothing you do in the editor changes the published figure, and it is not a sign that your journal saved incorrectly.