I am currently in the process of finishing up my Master's thesis which requires me to disclose the exact word count.
My thesis contains a lot of mathematical symbols and equations and I am not sure whether those, together with table and figure captions, should be included in the final word count or not.
I know how many words, inline math and display math (in LaTeX terms) elements my document contains, but I am just not sure whether to count them or not.
My university has not given any guidance on what to include in the word count, so I am wondering if there are any general rules that apply in this situation? The only thing I could find on the internet was from APS Journals: "The word equivalent for displayed math is 16 words per row for single-column equations. Two-column equations count as 32 words per row."
Any guidance on this would be greatly appreciated!