diff --git a/src/main/java/uta/cse3310/WordList.java b/src/main/java/uta/cse3310/WordList.java
index 0739692..b8e0f2c 100644
--- a/src/main/java/uta/cse3310/WordList.java
+++ b/src/main/java/uta/cse3310/WordList.java
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 package uta.cse3310;
 
+import java.io.IOException;
 import java.io.*;
 import java.util.ArrayList;
 import java.util.Collections;
@@ -8,55 +9,50 @@
 import java.nio.file.Path;
 import java.nio.file.Paths;
 
-public class WordList //extends Direction 
-{
+public class WordList {
     public static List<String> list;
-    //private [] words;
 
-    //method for accesing the word list from file
-    public static ArrayList<String> getWordList(String wordsFile) 
-    {
+    public static ArrayList<String> getWordList(String wordsFile) {
         ArrayList<String> wordList = new ArrayList<>();
-        
+
         try {
-            list = Files.readAllLines(Paths.get(wordsFile));
+            List<String> lines = Files.readAllLines(Paths.get(wordsFile));
+            if (lines.isEmpty()) {
+                System.out.println("The file is empty: " + wordsFile);
+                return wordList; // Return empty list if the file is empty
+            }
+            
+            list = new ArrayList<>(lines);
             shuffleWords();
             wordList.addAll(list);
         } catch (IOException e) {
-           System.out.println("not a valid file!");
+            System.out.println("Error reading the file: " + wordsFile);
+            e.printStackTrace(); // Print the stack trace for debugging
         }
-        
+
         return wordList;
     }
 
-    //method for word shuffling
-    public static void shuffleWords() 
-    {
-      Collections.shuffle(list);
+    public static void shuffleWords() {
+        Collections.shuffle(list);
     }
 
-    public static ArrayList<String> updatedWordList(ArrayList<String> wordBank)
-    {
+    public static ArrayList<String> updatedWordList(ArrayList<String> wordBank) {
         int totalCharacters = 0;
         int index = 0;
         ArrayList<String> updatedList = new ArrayList<>();
 
-        while (totalCharacters < 500 && index < wordBank.size())
-        {
+        while (totalCharacters < 500 && index < wordBank.size()) {
             String word = wordBank.get(index);
-            if (totalCharacters < 500)
-            {
+            if (totalCharacters + word.length() <= 500) {
                 updatedList.add(word);
                 totalCharacters += word.length();
-            } else
-            {
+            } else {
                 break;
             }
             index++;
         }
-        
+
         return updatedList;
     }
-
-}
-
+}
\ No newline at end of file