Introduction
Most students make some errors while writing an essay. The errors are pervasive among the students. Every student strives to write a good essay, but these mistakes are common. Writing good English helps you in making your teachers or professors happy with your work. It also improves your essay. In this article, we are going to discuss the errors that arise from the students’ essays.
Most common essay writing mistakes
- Page layout and use of paragraphs
Most students do not know how the design of the page should be or how to arrange their paragraphs hence making it harder for the readers. The following are ways in which your page should look like and the paragraphs;
- A 2cm margin
- Times New roman font should be used point 12
- Double-space the lines
- Essays do not need points, do not use bullets as they need to flow
- Use a complete paragraph and should not be broken. Leave a line after a paragraph or indent the first sentence of the paragraph when separating them
- Plagiarism
Essay writing may require you to go through other peoples work to grasp the points you should include in your essay. If you need to use the other peoples’ work, ensure that you put them in your own words and not to copy them directly, also if you are using the best essay writing service. Make sure to refer them when you use them. Use the following steps;
- Clearly show other people’s ideas when you put them in your essay
- Refer to someone’s’ work even after paraphrasing it. Paraphrasing does not make It your work.
- Use quotation marks when using someone else’s work.
- Use the correct words and cite them. Do not think that changing a word will remove plagiarism.
- Use your ideas, develop them. Do not try to outsource all the information on your essay
- Do not use websites majorly in your essay as a referencing tool.
- Incorrect referencing
Many students make mistakes when referencing their work. Try as much as possible to know the point of the essay where the reference will be used. In the bibliography, you need to provide a full reference of the source used.
- Contractions, abbreviations, slang
An essay must be formal and try as much as possible to avoid vague languages, abbreviations and contractions in it. The English in it must be formal. Do not use any abbreviation, slang or contractions.
- Incomplete sentence
A sentence should be completed and have a definite meaning. Do not use fragmented, mangled or incomplete sentences in your essay.
- Grammar
Students tend to misspell some words. It is highly recommended to proofread your article to correct all the spelling and misuse of words in it. There are plenty of websites that will help you in checking the spelling mistakes.
- Unformatted titles
The title of the essay should be different with the rest of the paper. Do not let the title of the article be similar to the rest of the words.
- Its/it’s
This is the most common error in essays among the students. Students sometimes misuse these words in a sentence. It’s- it is and its- possessive
Conclusion
Essay writing is a prevalent practice in school. Students write numerous essays in their school life. This article has tackled some of the most common errors that students face in school. I hope it will help you to avoid them.
