5 Things You Should Never Do When Writing an Essay
You are peacefully sitting in class, when all of a sudden, your instructor hands you a piece of paper that makes your stomach do somersaults. You have to write an essay Before you have a panic attack, remember that essays are not difficult as long as you avoid the five biggest essay writing mistakes.
Don’t Get Personal
You should always write your essays from the third person perspective (he, she, they) and not in the first person (I, me, my). Academic writing is supposed to be neutral. You should not write, “I read in our textbook that solar home heating is 25% more efficient than natural gas.” A better way to phrase the sentence would be, “According to Bourse and Watson’s Environmental Science for Tomorrow, solar home heating is 25% more efficient than natural gas.”
Don’t Plagiarize
Plagiarism is the most serious academic offense. Whether it is intentional or unintentional, not citing your sources properly will earn you a big red F. The most obvious type of plagiarism is copy and pasting text from a source into your paper without giving the original author(s) credit. However, even if you take another person’s information or ideas and rewrite them in your own words without citing the source, it is still plagiarism. Always cite your sources of information.
Don’t Just Spell Check
You should always check for grammar and spelling mistakes in your word processing program, but that is just the first step. There is no substitute for a real live proofreader. There are many commonly misused words like too and to or their and there that your program might not catch. If you feel like your proofreading skills are not that strong, ask a friend to look at the paper for you.
Don’t Use Filler Words
Many students think that writing long, rambling sentences makes their writing seem “smarter”. That is not the case. Do not write, “At the height of the industrial era many workers died of Pneumoconiosis causing their families to be displaced from their homes while their wives were forced to settle for low paying jobs and their children were often pulled out of school.” Keep it simple and use an active voice. A better version would be, “During the industrial era many coal workers died from lung disease and left their families with very little means of support.”
Don’t Be Haphazard
Start with you introduction and build on it with your next paragraph. Each paragraph you write should lead into the next, forming a straight line all the way to your conclusion. Organize your ideas so that you do not throw them out all over the place. Present all your information in a logical order so that the paper flows well from beginning to end.
Do you feel a little better now? Knowing what you instructor does not want to see is just as important as knowing what he or she does want. The more essays you write, the more your skills will improve. Once you have the art of writing essays mastered, you will never need to feel anxious about writing one again.
About the Author: Zelda Shellhorn loves helping her students create the best essay papers possible. She encourages her college level students to seek out free research papers online for examples of both good and bad papers.
Published in Education