4 Common Errors Many Students Make with Essay Writing

Image source: unsplash.com

Writing essays was never an easy thing to do. Unleashing creativity while following the rules and choosing the right information about the topic of choice sounds like a lot. And it usually is. However, writing essays is one of the first things that students learn when they start their academic journey. And it is so for a good reason. Why are there so many essays to write and why is writing them so important?

Why do students write essays?

Image source: unsplash.com

Students develop their analytical and persuasive skills, while also learning how to do research, how to determine what’s important and what isn’t, how to speak their mind in a business or academic way, improve their critical thinking and finally – find a job of their dreams.

In a chaotic, highly competitive environment, it’s important to have highly developed speaking and writing skills, along with the other essentials for success. What’s a better way to stand out from the rest of the group than to be well-spoken and then being able to turn those words into a fantastic writing article, blog or essay? Whether it’s a job application, a student’s classroom, or any other environment, being able to articulate your thoughts and be eloquent will bring you a lot of advantages is both your personal and business life.

The famous ‘What if’

However, what if the final result of our hard work disappoints us in the end? Every person experienced getting a bad grade at least once in their lifetime, while they weren’t sure what’s the exact reason behind it. Essays that seemed more than fabulous to us, can, later on, be evaluated as ‘not good enough, and with a blink of an eye, we find ourselves discovering a variety of small or even big mistakes. What can be done about it? It doesn’t come as a surprise that the old Latin saying ‘Repetition is the mother of learning’ is so popular and commonly used. It’s because writing is a form of learning too.

The only way to improve your writing skills is to write. Even if the journey is full of struggles. Or, you could use some help from platforms such as https://www.wiseessays.com/write-my-paper.

However, there are some tips and tricks that might help you get a good idea of what to focus on, what to avoid, and how to make the best of what you have. Unfortunately, rules and tips are usually not that helpful, since they are boring to read, even more, boring to consume, and finally – hard to apply when just read in theory. Luckily, there is another way to learn all you need to know. It’s been proven that people learn best when they learn by making mistakes!

To help you avoid the most common mistakes, we first need to address them and explain what they consist of. Here’s our list of the 4 most common mistakes students make when writing their assignments:

Not Checking Your Grammar And Spelling

Image source: pexels.com

This one is more than obvious. The worst mistake of them all is having a poorly written essay, that sends an overall message of a person who didn’t dedicate enough time to master grammar, nor to double-check what’s been written. Not only are there so many spell checks available, whether you just need to enable them in Word or Google Docs or you need to install an app such as Grammarly, it’s important to put it at least that much effort to make your essay sound more professional, but most of all – grammatically correct. It’s not just about the tenses, but the punctuation, quotation, spelling, homophones and nouns, and finally – the page layout.

According to PaperWriter, even as an expert in grammar, you can easily make a couple of mistakes while typing fast. That’s why you have to double-check everything, or even triple-check it. You’ll be more confident and you’ll probably deliver a better essay.

Staying  In Your Comfort Zone

Choosing the topic and the headline is a very delicate process. Still, the only thing at the very beginning of writing an essay is not being afraid to step out of your comfort zone. In this case, the comfort zone is the already-existing essays or articles on the given topic. By copying or paraphrasing, you might end up trapped in the world of plagiarism. Instead, you should focus on research and reading about the subject, but then you need to sit and brainstorm and try to think of something new, original, or even uncommon. Connecting the dots and thinking about certain topics from a different perspective is what makes an interesting, attention-grabbing and finally, high-quality essay. Also, avoid common language, phrases, and non-academic expressions. Use your imagination and creativity instead, combined with thorough analysis and research.

Having no Thesis Statment

Image source: pexels.com

The thesis statement is what drives the whole article. It’s the thought that acts like an anchor, main point, or a compass to what you initially wanted to say. It’s the heart and soul of your essay. Now imagine leaving it out! This essay would be sentenced to failure. The right place for this sentence is right at the beginning of your article, somewhere near the end of the introduction, so that people get to understand the main idea and continue reading your elaboration of that idea. It is also important not to mix the thesis statement with the topic, since the thesis statement is a specific opinion that can be further discussed, while the topic is only a general subject you’ve chosen to write about.

Lack of clarity

If you want to write a great essay, you need to express your opinion and your ideas. However, you need to be careful about how you do it. This means that the language you use should never be ‘watery’, meaning that you should go straight to the point and do what’s been required from you. For example, if you need to analyze something, you need to be ready to do as much research as you can so that you can analyze a phenomenon from an academic standpoint.

This means that you shouldn’t describe, evaluate or criticize, without having some strong arguments in the background. Clarity also includes the right conclusion, as well as a conclusion that matches the introduction – so make sure you stay focused and never use information from sources that are not reliable and reputable.