In addition to writing assignments in natural sciences, case studies, term papers, exams, students are faced with an equally tricky task: writing an essay. A distinctive feature of the essay is a clear plan and well-thought-out structure. Also, the essay reflects the author’s point of view and does imply a logical distribution of information. Therefore, almost all students find it challenging to write an essay. We’ve highlighted the top five common mistakes, which are admitted by 50% of students.
Phrase Length
The length of the phrases affects the impression the reader will have after analyzing the essay. Long and wordy sentences do not mean the high quality of the article. However, short sentences best demonstrate and confirm the correctness of the author’s position. The jumble of participial phrases, adjectives, modal and introductory verbs creates a ponderous writing style, distracting from the essence of the composition.
A simple reading of the work out loud helps to identify a common mistake. For example, if you are short of breath to read one sentence, it should be divided into simpler ones. When in doubt about adding punctuation, use a simpler sentence construction. Please demonstrate writing skills rather than illiteracy.
Verbosity
Freedom of creativity encourages the desire to express themselves eloquently and at length. But the number of words in the essay genre has its limitations because this is not a term paper or a diploma. An essay is a short article describing the topic, so it is essential to consider volume rules properly.
You will have to get rid of many ideas and unnecessary details that mask the topic’s essence. The volume of an essay is made up of several factors:
- The complexity of the topic.
- The degree of preparation of the author.
- Author’s way of thinking.
- The amount of time devoted to work.
It would help if you wrote an article that clearly reveals the issues of the article. Failure to clearly describe the problem is indicative of insufficient vocabulary. Expressing a thought, you need to formulate it according to the basics of stylistics correctly. At the same time, you should avoid one-sided gaze and faceless narration. The essay is appreciated for its uniqueness, revealing the identity of the author.
The problem with arguing your position is one of the typical shortcomings of an essay. It is caused by improper work with information, lack of analytical skills, and social experience. The presence of inaccurate data, assessments, provocative statements is a consequence of the incorrect perception of information from the media or the Internet. The body of the essay should be based on sound arguments in favor of the thesis.
The desire to make an impression often prompts the author to use rarely used words. Facts, terms, you should use concepts sparingly. Demonstration of abstruse phrases from an encyclopedia will only alienate the reader.
Essay Parts Not Tied Together
Another widespread mistake is the introduction, conclusion, the central part, and other parts of the essay are not related. Often, students present them as a set of acceptable phrases for a single part but inappropriate for the work as a whole. Also, there is often unnecessary information in the introduction and conclusion that only aggravates the text. Few people combine the introduction and conclusion in 1/3 of the entire work, leaving 2/3 for the central part, as the academic rules dictate. Gaps in the construction of the composition are found in 7 out of 10 students – they are not very successful in assembling their composition by the main idea.
Plagiarism
Checking an essay for plagiarism is a mandatory requirement fulfilled before sending the work to the teacher. This is done to avoid duplication of your own or borrowed thoughts in articles. Unfortunately, however, students are increasingly ignoring this requirement and submitting documents with a high plagiarism percentage, negatively affecting their academic reputation.
Plagiarism is the misappropriation of other people’s ideas, thoughts, and research results through deliberate borrowing of another author’s text without reference to his scientific work. The problem of illegal copying does not lose its relevance to this day, despite the availability of modern methods of checking scientific articles for plagiarism in the form of online programs.
There are no general guidelines for the permissible percentage of essay uniqueness – each educational institution puts forward its requirements. Some teachers indicate the percentage of plagiarism that all texts must comply with. Other teachers point out that the article should be original, author’s, and not borrowed from other authors or already published earlier. Each of you should know the main thing – under no circumstances should someone else’s work be passed off as your own.
Bad Check
Checking is not only about eliminating grammatical and punctuation errors. It is required to exclude ambiguous sentences, unsuccessful phrases, stylistic mistakes from the essay. A competent essay must comply with the norms of the genre and the English language rules – most often, you must write an essay in the style of a written statement with elements of reasoning. Due to stylistic, grammatical, punctuation errors, your essay may not be accepted at all. Therefore we strongly recommend using the proofreading service – professional editors of native speakers know all the flaws and instantly correct the shortcomings.