Essay Writing Mistakes

Essay Writing in General

When it comes to essay writing, it is undoubtedly one of the activities that a great number of people from all walks of life are involved in. Take for instance writers, teachers and students. These people can actually come from a many walks of life yet many of them dread essay writing and even more of them make countless mistakes with the essays they are given to write. Making mistakes in your writing, especially when it is to be graded, is expensive. This is because as you go along, each of the silly blunders can gradually reduce your overall grades, leaving you with not much to boost your GPA. These days, especially based on what the essay is being used for, essay writing has become very tactical and requires a whole lot of learning and training. This may not have been the case long ago but currently, essays are being regulated by outlines, fancy rules and regulations, it’s no wonder that making a mistake is very easy. There are some mistakes that are common, like when autocorrect messes you up with their insinuations and typographical errors, and you are unable to look over your work before handing it over. There are also some grammatical errors that you might constantly make as you write these essays. Some of them you might not even be aware that you are making them. These are reasons why essay writing is definitely not most people’s favourite thing in the world.

Some Really Common Mistakes

Most of the mistakes essay writers make have it do with grammar. Here are a few outlined that you should try to avoid at all costs.

1. Not structuring your essay properly

Some people, as they write, tend to become complacent and then forget about the fundamentals of essay writing. Every essay, no matter how long and complicated it looks, should have an introduction, a body and a conclusion, in that order. Some people over time fail to give as much attention to these fundamental structures that it becomes difficult to tell which is which. For example you have a concluding paragraph that you cannot tell if it is in fact a conclusion because it brings in a totally different point, or your introduction gives no hint about what is actually being said. These are mistakes to avoid.

2. Glossing over your introduction

The introduction of an essay can be termed as the most powerful part of the essay, because it is what hooks the reader and gives a grande insight to the direction of the essay. It is of p utmost importance that your introduction is in fact a good one. For it to fulfill it’s role as an introduction, it shouldn’t contain too many details, yet it should be able to captivate the reader. Have some literary devices in the introduction to sort of lure your reader in. Keep your introduction simple, yet embellished enough to be tasteful, and nothing more.

3. Disregarding the structure given

If your essay is an assignment, there is a 80% chance that the assignment given has a preferred structure attached to it. It would not only be a big mistake, but it would be awfully negligent on any essay writer’s part to deviate from the structure given. Once the essay and the structure is given, I’d whatever you need to do to make sure that you follow it.

4. Not reading over your work

This one is several mistakes rolled into one because you not reading over your work stems most of the time, from you probably leaving your essay writing till the very last minute. Procrastinating leads to you rushing through your writing, making several mistakes and not proofreading your work because you may be behind schedule.

Grammatical Errors you should Avoid

There are some mistakes that you might not even be aware of, so you overlook all through your proofreading sessions. This is a good reasn why a grammar checker should be your best friend if essay writing is your life. Here are a few you should do away with:

1. Spelling mistakes

These kinds of errors might top the list as the most infuriating. For people who take what they read seriously, having more than a few spelling errors, or even having any at all in your writing, especially when the paper is supposed to be a serious paper, not only screams negligent but also screams ‘uneducated’. Spelling mistakes are the basest of all grammatical errors and should not be found in your paper.

2. Wrong subject-verb cohesion

This is another form of mistake that should be avoided. In the heat of the writing, some of these mistakes could escape through the cracks especially when a person is very tired. If the English language is not your first language, take some time to revise some of these fundamental rules of the English language, and verify your sentences with someone whose grasp over the English language you can trust. You might want to get a grammar checker that can easily correct these mistakes as you make them, so that you get familiar with it.

3. Sentences that run on

Writers often make this mistake, forgetting to put a comma between two independent clauses joined by a conjunction. The place of the comma is of utmost importance otherwise what is created is a run on sentence, and it is not very comfortable to read. Sometimes these sentences have to be read several times before they are made sense of. You really do not want people to struggle with understanding your paper.

4. Unnecessary wordiness

Some writers flood their sentences with long and uncomfortable words with the aim to quickly achieve the word limit. This is really frustrating to read because you realize that a lot of the words could have been done away with. You might even realize that a great number of the words are just repetitive, saying the same thing over and over again. When writing an essay, taking your time to write the essay does away with 60% of the errors you could make while writing. Always get someone to proofread your work, and have a grammar checker handy, for those days that you are alone. Once you employ all these helping tools, your writing will end up becoming much better than you think it is.