Essay writing is part and parcel of every student’s academic life. You have to come across several essay writing task starting from the school level to the university level. It is not easy to write a perfect essay. In this blog, you will come across several essay writing mistakes that students commit and learn the ways to avoid them or they can take essay writing help.
Listed below are five essay writing mistakes and the tips to avoid them:
- 1. Not being specific – Failure to be specific is one of the big essay writing mistakes that students commit. Read the sentences to understand ‘The girls were dancing. She said she was dancing better.’ does not specify who said to whom. It is important to use specific names rather than pronouns (whenever possible). You can write the sentence as ‘Suzanne and Gracie were dancing. Suzanne said that Gracie was dancing better.’
- Repetition – Repetition is a sign of lazy writing. Most of the students tend to repeat same words in every sentence. In the sentence “The lady lived with his son, but the lady would not follow his son’s command.” the word ‘lady‘ has been used twice. In spite of using the same word more than once, you can add variety to your language by conveying the same thing differently. You can write the sentence as ‘The lady lived with his son but did not follow his son’s commands.’ or ‘The lady lived with his son. She did not follow his son’s commands. ’
- Plagiarism – Plagiarising can cost your grades. It is one of the biggest mistakes that students commit while writing their essays. There can be many types of plagiarism. Some are intentional, while some are mistakes. Most of the students find it tempting to copy and paste materials from the existing sources. Do not copy - paste from any source directly. Instead, paraphrase the text. Cite the sources as you proceed writing your essay. To detect the plagiarised content you can use online plagiarism detecting software.
- Faulty formatting – Poor formatting is another big mistake that students commit most of the time. It is vital to maintain a proper formatting style while writing an essay. A poorly formatted essay can make it difficult for your readers to go through your essay. Therefore, it is necessary to choose a font that is easy to read. Times New Roman can be a good choice. Check the spacing of your essay. Indentation and alignment are also important. The text of an essay should be aligned to the left. Each paragraph should have a 0.5 first line intend.
- Spell check errors– Spell check errors are common while writing an essay. Most of the students tend to procrastinate. As a result, they write their essays in a hurry to meet the submission deadline. It is the main reason behind those typos. For example, you wish to write ‘John wore a black hat upon his head’, but you end up writing something like this – ‘John wore a lack cat upon his head. ‘To avoid such typos, you can run your essay through automated spell checks. Start with the automated spell check and then do a secondary check yourself.
Essay writing errors will make your reader trip. It is vital to learn from your previous mistakes and from the feedback you get from your teachers. Above mentioned are the most common mistakes which can spoil your essay. Implement smart tips to avoid common mistakes.