One fantastic way to help cut the fluff from something is to use a feature in Microsoft Word that picks out essential text.
Go to the TOOLS menu then choose Autosummarise.
This is a great way to make summaries of your text as well.
To cut down text, choose the "Highligfht Key Points" option and then set your percentage. So, if you are 20% over the word limit, set the summary percentage to about 80% and hit OK.
Then you can review what the computer thinks is essential and cut, edit and so on to get the word limit down. This is a great tool and helped me cut 7500 words down to 5000 for a Uni essay and made it a tighter, more specific essay without the unnecessary fluff.
Hope this helps.