Writing essays is difficult, right? Such a lengthy procedure with so many rules. I’ve worked one-on-one over the past four years with hundreds of students to help them develop their essay-writing abilities. And now I’d like to share with you the most typical essay writing mistakes I encounter so you can see where you need to improve.
Increase your essay writing skills to get better grades and streamline the process.
10 Errors In Essay Writing
1.Believing That You Can Write Good Essays Right Immediately
Nobody is naturally talented as a writer. Learning how to spell, communicate your thoughts, write correctly, etc., requires years of practice. But believing we should be experts at it right immediately, and that if we aren’t, then we must simply be not very good at it, is a rather common essay writing mistake.
If you think you’re not particularly good at writing essays, you’re more likely to put it off, wait until the last minute, and not put in enough effort to achieve a good mark. Holding onto this idea will harm your confidence and growth.
You must write a few essays to improve your writing skills, just as you must bake a lot of cakes to get good at baking.
Adopt an apprentice mentality and concentrate on learning because writing essays is a craft. Develop your writing abilities by reading one of my blog entries or purchasing my book, practising your skills with each essay, and asking your teacher for criticism and guidance.
2.You Began Your Essay Too Late
How do you know when a student’s essay is due?
Their kitchen cabinets are labelled alphabetically, and their bathroom is clean.
Since it takes a lot of mental effort to create anything new, writing an essay involves a lot of uncertainty. This is why our mind searches for a more tangible task with a faster payoff, like cleaning or organising.
It’s a particularly bad idea to wait until the last minute to finish an essay because you won’t have enough time to write it correctly. A superb essay develops across several stages, and it takes time to develop compelling, well-organised ideas. To make sure your thoughts are solid and, most crucially, that your essay addresses the question you’ve been given, you should allow time for several rounds of editing.
Breaking the process down into steps will help you avoid this essay-writing error by making the task seem less overwhelming and allowing you to gain momentum as you go.
3.Missing The Designated Question
An essay’s goal is not only to regurgitate all of your knowledge regarding a subject but also to present a defence in response to the question you were given. When I read over student writings, I all too frequently find that, while they wrote an engaging essay, they did not properly address the question they were given, which resulted in low grades.
It’s a typical and dangerous essay-writing error to begin writing before fully understanding the question. So be careful to comprehend the commands (doing words) in your essay, such as “describe,” “assess,” “critically analyze,” “illustrate,” etc.
4.Writing Without Any Prior Forethought
Students are frequently divided into two groups: those who organise their thoughts before writing and those who jump right in.
Unfortunately, the second set of eager beavers is committing a critical essay-writing error by not planning. According to a remark attributed to Benjamin Franklin, “If you don’t plan, you are intending to fail.”
When you don’t plan, you’re much more likely to start answering a different question, incorporate irrelevant concepts, and make weaker arguments since you haven’t planned your evidence—all of which will result in you receiving bad scores for your essay.
Spend time organising your next essay so you can pick only the pertinent information to mention and create a logical flow that will lead the reader (your tutor) to your solution.
5.Not Supporting Your Points With Relevant Course Material
The purpose of an essay is not to provide an immediate, off-the-cuff response to a question. Your essay is an opportunity to show both your comprehension of the content covered in your course and your capacity to use it to resolve a query or problem.
Not enough reference to the course materials is a common error I observe in my clients’ essays. They incorporate entire paragraphs without citing their sources or making any mention of what they have learned. This can be the one of the biggest essay writing mistakes.
Every argument you make must be supported by facts.
6.Unintentional Or Willful Plagiarism
The biggest essay writing mistakes is plagiarism. It’s a huge concern for institutions, and depending on the severity, you may flunk assignments, and entire courses, or even get expelled.
To present someone else’s work as your own is plagiarism. This can involve stealing words or paragraphs from the internet or someone else’s essay to use on your own, all the way up to duplicating an entire essay. It can also involve accidentally using someone else’s ideas without citing them.
Students have contacted me in the past seeking my opinion on essay mills—those websites that purport to write original essays for you.
These are shaky for the following reasons:
- By not giving yourself the chance to master these abilities on your own and deepen your grasp of the course material, you are fooling yourself.
- The essay you get will probably be poorly written and will possibly be a copy of another essay. You’re in trouble if your university makes use of a plagiarism detector (most do).
- If your university learns this, you’re also out of luck.
- Therefore, if you’ve ever plagiarized unintentionally, work on refining your skills in referencing, citing sources, and generating original content.
- And if you intentionally steal ideas, you need to stop. I’ll tell you, you CAN accomplish this on your own.
Online essay help from AssignmentHelpersUK might be the solution for you.
7.Biased Writing
One of my tutor’s most valuable bits of advice was, “I don’t care what you think personally.” I’m interested in the argument you can make and the supporting data you can provide.
When a student introduces bias into their work, it’s one of the worst essay writing mistakes I notice. I provide an essay proofreading service. They use their personal opinions, their theories, or common sense as support for their statements, and they challenge the assertions of an established theorist, but they offer no proof to back up their criticism. If a student writes biasedly, it is quite unlikely that they will receive a high mark.
Your responsibility as the author is to provide an objective case. You must consider the relevant evidence unbiasedly and construct a logical, reasoned argument without taking your own convictions into account. If you do decide to convey your own opinions, give the reader a reason to believe you by providing strong counterarguments.
8.Lack Of Examination And Critical Thinking
Many students dread the term “critical thinking,” but failing to use it when writing an essay is a fairly typical error. The process of examining information to determine its value is known as critical thinking. It involves challenging concepts and facts, looking for all available viewpoints, and identifying any possible bias in your source.
For instance, a social media influencer who promotes a supplement for weight loss can say that the drink “will help melt away your fat.”
However, the firm paying the influencer to promote this product is likely to distort or make up altogether the advantages of their offering. Does that imply that their claims are false? No. But it implies that to find the proof and assess its worth, we must delve much, much deeper.
It is crucial that you develop these skills because you will be expected to think critically and analysis the evidence you read and use as you move forward with your studies. Check out my more in-depth blog post on critical thinking as a starting point.
9.Careless Writing
I could reduce this lengthy blog post to a few hundred words that just contain the essential information. To help you comprehend these topics, I’ve chosen to include further explanations and facts.
However, academic writing must be succinct, so there is no need to go on and on. Although fluffy writing won’t immediately cost you points, it can hinder your tutor’s ability to understand your thoughts and consume valuable word count that could be utilized to earn you more. This is a critical essay-writing error that you should avoid.
So, when you edit, go through each sentence and see where you can eliminate superfluous words or rearrange them to cut down on fluff. You’ll have written fewer words, and your ideas will be stronger.
You can always take the help of the best essay writing services UK to get your essay done.
10.Ignoring Typos, Incorrect Spelling, And Improper Punctuation
Using spell checkers excessively when writing essays is a common mistake, even though most word processors include them. Even though you might not lose many (or any) points for poor language, it DOES make it a LOT more difficult for your teacher to grasp what the hell you’re saying. If people have to continually pause to understand your phrases, they won’t likely understand the full impact of your amazing arguments.
Learn the standards of grammar, spelling, and punctuation so you can thoroughly proofread your work and essay writing mistakes.