Writing an essay isn’t an easy task to accomplish, but it’s part of the everyday life of students in high schools and colleges. Knowing the basic rules of essay writing, such as having a solid thesis statement, sticking to a structure, writing an exciting introduction, and finishing off with an unforgettable conclusion, doesn’t make the task easier to accomplish. Although these are good points to note when writing an excellent essay, they don’t help you avoid the many writing errors students make when facing this obligatory task.
It is understandable that many students still can’t show other people their works because they’re not confident in writing error-free essays. There are many avoidable mistakes that you can make when writing essays, and there’s no universal law or template to avoid them. However, knowing a few of these mistakes will allow you to keep them at the back of your mind when writing essays so you can avoid them and improve the quality of your work. Some of these essay mistakes to avoid are:
Not Writing a Thesis Statement
Both the introduction and the body of your essay should include a thesis statement. It is the central message of your essay. However, many students fail to include their thesis statement in the introductory part of the essay, which is the most exciting part. When you fail to reveal this statement as your essay’s main idea, the readers have no way to determine what direction the essay will take.
This is a mistake you must avoid by ensuring to write your thesis statement clearly and engagingly in the introductory paragraph of your essay. The best place to include your thesis statement is towards the end of your introduction. This ensures that it blends with the essay body.
Plagiarism
In the education and academic world, plagiarism is an offense taken very seriously, yet some students still fall for it. Your lecturers and instructors expect you to provide evidence and arguments for your thesis statement from different sources, and reference them properly in your essay, instead of page-lifting another person’s work and posing it as yours. Many students also fail to realize that even when they don’t page-lift others’ work, paraphrasing and submitting it as their idea is still plagiarism.
These days, professors use anti-plagiarism search engines to check their students’ work and ensure it’s clean. However, there’s no hiding place, and you don’t want to get caught engaging in academic dishonesty. So, when writing an essay, you must use several references to support your argument and follow a unique approach to avoid plagiarizing. If you cannot do this, you should consider outsourcing your essays to the essay services, where you’re sure to get high-quality and plagiarism-free articles from qualified and experienced writers.
Making The Essay Hard-to-Read
Creating complex structures in your essay is not the same as writing a good essay. You’re only making the essay harder to read, and the best essays are the easy-to-read ones written in plain and straightforward language. Although there’s a style guide that you’re supposed to adhere to, you’re not supposed to make your work difficult to understand. Presenting your essay in simple language is the way to go. As a rule, you should avoid fluffy words or extra phrases in your essay and always stick to the essay’s central point.
Confusing The Introduction and Conclusion
The introductory paragraph of your essay introduces the essay’s central theme and the thesis statement for your argument. In contrast, the concluding paragraph restates the thesis and summarizes the main points. Although this sounds simple enough, students still confuse both, and it’s one of the commonest mistakes made in essay writing. Many students tend to mention new points (not discussed in the essay body) in the conclusion. All points should be introduced and discussed in the body instead. Also, rather than summarizing the points in the body in the conclusion, some students repeat the introduction as the conclusion.
Both the introductory and concluding paragraph is crucial to writing an excellent essay. Hence, you must revise them until they are perfect.
Too Many Grammar and Typo Errors
No matter how good the point you’re making is, nothing screams a ‘bad essay’ like too many grammar and typo errors in the essay. Both are not only bad for your essay but your learning and status as a student. Grammar errors are worse and should be avoided at all costs. While many posit that having typos in your essay doesn’t indicate your language proficiency and grammar knowledge, it’s impossible to argue that it means you’re not attentive, and that’s equally as bad.
Ensure to check your essays with spell checkers and proofread by yourself repetitively. You must revise your essay thoroughly until you’re sure it doesn’t have spelling mistakes, typos, and incorrect constructions in it.
Conclusion
Writing an essay isn’t an easy task, and the possibility of making these errors doesn’t make it any easier. However, knowing these errors and avoiding them improves the quality of your work.
