What are Essay Writing Mistakes

ESSAY WRITING MISTAKES

We learn from mistakes, yes; but why should you make a mistake in the first place when you can avoid it? Mistakes are inaccuracies that will adversely cost you in academics or any other undertaking in life. To avoid such costly mistakes in essay writing, the following  tips for writing quality academic papers  will help you to write essays that are free of mistakes.

Essay writing

Writing is a process that begins with the urge to communicate an idea, share knowledge, express feelings or share experiences. This urge is the same with composition writing but in essay writing, the opinion of the writer is a crucial element. The essay is meant to express your opinion on a particular subject matter or topic. This is the purpose of any essay: to express a personal opinion. As such, the essay can be written scientifically, imaginatively, formally, informally, humorously or in any form that is acceptable in essay writing. Ideas are not scarce and are limitless. The topic of your essay will be dictated by the idea you have in a given subject. Explore the idea fully and convert it into an opinion. Your opinion must be arguable based on your judgment. Your personal judgment is paramount in an essay because it is the one that leads to your honest opinion about the essay topic, and it is the one that makes you to develop a good thesis or thesis statement. An essay has a definite characteristic structure that should be followed. It must have an introduction showing what the essay is all about, a body section that presents your arguments, and a conclusion that gives a brief summary of your ideas presented in the essay.

Essay writing mistakes

However, it is not unusual for a writer to make mistakes, especially the freshmen. Mistakes made in writing essays are related to the whole process of language communication, mechanics of writing, target audience and structure of an essay . Some of the mistakes include: –

• Wrong topic selection
• Missing thesis statement
• Using unreliable sources
• Wordiness and
• Plagiarism

20 essay writing mistakes that lead to failure

Since essay writing is very necessary in academic work, these and many other mistakes must be identified and expressly avoided for a student writer to avoid failing. Essay writing is a requirement for students taking courses at college and university level; for example writing academic papers, writing research papers, dissertations and writing reports. Good and quality essays lack mistakes and some of the mistakes students make that may lead to failure are outlined below:

1. Selection of topic

Selecting a topic depends on the idea you are exploring although sometimes your instructor may assign you a particular topic to handle. The mistake students make here is to select a topic that is too general or too broad to focus and explore your idea fully, or to select a topic that has too little content to engage you throughout your essay writing. Your choice of topic must relate and connect to the idea fully within the subject of study. Wrong topic selection will certainly lead to poor presentation of your ideas in the essay hence leading to a failure in your assignment.

2. Thesis statement

Your opinion is developed from your ideas and the judgment you make about the topic. These are then propagated through the thesis. It is a big mistake to write an essay that is missing the thesis statement. The thesis statement tells the reader your point of view. Therefore, your write up cannot be rated as an essay when it has a missing thesis statement.

3. Essay sources

It is a grievous mistake to use unreliable sources in your essay. The validity and reliability of your essay will be lost. You must evaluate the quality of your sources for worthiness before you cite them in your essay. As an example, you may be using outdated sources to support your idea only to end up with an essay that is irrelevant. Always check your sources for originality, relevance, accuracy of facts and updates of information. Unreliable sources will distort your ideas and falsify your essay leading to failure.

4. Choice of words

Overuse of words or wordiness, use of unnecessary terminologies or overuse of phrases is a mistake. Wordiness makes your essay fluffy thereby ending up not precisely and clearly expressing your thoughts and ideas. This makes the reader to lose interest in the essay.

5. Plagiarism

Plagiarism in essay writing is stated as the false assumption of authorship. In this case, you as the writer, present another person’s idea or word as your own. This is stealing someone else’s intellect and it is a serious offence in writing practices. It is a mistake that can attract legal actions against the writer whether it was intentional or otherwise. To avoid plagiarism, you must acknowledge ideas and words that are not your own as a writer by making by using proper citation and referencing style. Use a plagiarism checker to ensure your work maintains originality standards required.

6. Structure

Basically an essay has three parts: introduction, body and conclusion. Neglecting this structure will lead to failure in the essay.

1. Introduction

Your introduction must begin in a general way with general sentences and then narrow down to your point of view contained in the thesis statement. Missing the thesis statement at the end of the introduction paragraph is a mistake. An introduction missing thesis statement does not catch the attention of the reader and it is incomplete. The wording of the introduction should be catchy and logical, naturally moving towards the thesis statement. You should not be superfluous and bombastic in your introduction.

1. Body

This section is the one that carries the logical development of your argument for and against your point of view. You must be careful with your vocabulary, tone, style, imagination and other writing skills. Start the body section by quickly conceding to the arguments against your point of view and then strongly and logically present your arguments sparing your strongest point for the last paragraph in this section. Each point should be expressed in its own paragraph. Do not do the following mistakes: –

1. Lump all your points in one paragraph.
2. Tackle more than one point in one paragraph.

• Give more strength to opposing arguments than your own point of view.

1. Fail to connect and logically link your paragraphs through transitions.
2. List too many points that cannot be supported by your work.

The climax of your argument is carried in the last paragraph of this section since it is the one with your strongest point. The number of paragraphs in the body section depends on the number of points that you have listed in the thesis.

1. Conclusion

Your conclusion is a paragraph that begins with the thesis statement as opposed to the introduction, and broadens out with sentences outlining the climax of your point of view. It is a mistake not to connect the thesis statement to your conclusion. It is also a mistake to list all your points as a summary in the conclusion. Use a few new words to connect to your view points, particularly to the strongest point as you conclude the essay. If you have a missing thesis statement, your conclusion will be weak.

7. Style

How can you write your essay in a way that easily, effectively and clearly expresses your opinion? The answer to this question will lay the foundation of style in your essay. Therefore, building up style in your writing requires you to avoid doing the following mistakes: –

1. Using the first person pronoun in the essay for example using ‘I feel…’ ‘I think…’ and such phrases that have the first person pronoun. You should use the third person pronoun in the essay as much as possible.
2. Using the word ‘there’ in the essay sentences. A sentence that contains this word kills the interest of the reader in the essay.
3. Paragraphs

The main purpose of creating a paragraph is to separate one idea from the other in the essay. Each fully developed paragraph will describe one point as outlined in the thesis. If the points are broken into smaller minor points, each minor point will still have its own fully developed paragraph as you logically work towards the last paragraph that carries the strongest point. It is a mistake to have a paragraph that does not address any of your ideas or to introduce a paragraph that brings in a new idea that is not in your thesis.

9. Transitions

Links between paragraphs help the reader to follow your line of argument throughout the essay. Such links include words like clearly, consequently, however, obviously and many more. It is a mistake to write paragraphs without linking connecting them one after the other.

10. Voice

Try as much as possible to have your sentences in the active voice. The passive voice blurs your essay and lowers the interest of the reader. It should therefore be avoided or used sparingly.

11. Sound

Monotony creates disinterest. It is a mistake to write your essay without varying the rhythm and sound of the discourse. This is achieved through effects like varying the length of the sentences, combining, shifting, converting and changing the sentences so as to keep the reader looking for more.

12. In essay writing, you should also check for mistakes in the following areas
13. Parallel structure used in representing ideas in a repetitive structure.
14. Vocabulary, synonyms and antonyms, metaphors and similes, and allusions.

• Avoid using the suffix –wise for example essay-wise.

1. Avoid using phrases like type of …, kind of…, sort of…
2. Do not use phrases with the words manner … and nature…
3. Correct use of phrases like as far as… is concerned, center on, different from, due to, feel bad, similar to, the reason is, different from, and draw conclusion.

• Misuse of the following words; fabulous and fantastic, fewer and less, imply and infer.
• Correct Punctuation or language mechanics.

13. It is a mistake not to check and revise your essay to correct mistakes.
14. It is a mistake not to proofread.
15. It is a big mistake not to follow instructions that have been given by the tutors.

For you to write a quality essay, avoid the mistakes outlined above. You can also get in touch with professional writers on their website: essaytutors.com for quality essay writing and client support.