Whether you’re studying Arts, Math, English, Philosophy, or Sociology, you’re going to be assigned research papers, essays, and many other projects. Essays are among the most popular academic pieces of writing and for a good reason. They aren’t just written works, but your chance to practice and prepare for the documents that you may be dealing with in the future. Catching errors and typos in your project can benefit your scores and future career, so once you have run spellcheck and check your paper twice, search for these most common errors before you submit it.
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#1 Incorrect Apostrophes
In the English language, we use apostrophes in two cases. First of all, we indicate possession (“She is Antony’s daughter”). Second, we create contractions (“do not” > “don’t”).
Never use apostrophes in order to make words plural (“envelopes,” not “envelope’s”), not even if you’re discussing several members of your family (hence, Anny, Emma, and Juliet are “the Grinders”).
If you keep everything written above in mind, you will be able to avoid those mistakes. At the same time, it is also important to take into account the following issues:
Who’s is “who is” while whose is about possession: “Jimmy Smith is the manager whose experience is pretty vast.”
Its is also about the possession; however, you don’t use an apostrophe because it’s is “it is.”
#2 Plagiarism
As you may already know from high school, it is important to avoid plagiarism in your essay. A lot of schools use up-to-date software in order to detect if a student has stolen the written work somewhere online. If you think some copy-pasting won’t hurt your grades, you’re wrong. You don’t want to find yourself in a situation when your academic reputation is ruined just because you failed to produce an authentic piece of writing.
#3 Lack of Focus or Central Theme
There are loads of essays that have too many details. For instance, students who work on college application essays tend to include loads of their accomplishments and achievements within no focus or central theme. What is more, these papers usually don’t even provide the answer to the essay question.
When you work on your essay, it is important to make sure that your project responds to the essay prompt with a single clear topic, story, or theme, and that it has some solid support. Instead, a lot of undergrads make a serious mistake – they provide as many details as possible in order to impress college admission officers. As a result, they submit a document that is confusing and hard to understand.
To cut the long story, it is recommended to hone in on one story or message – perhaps some joke about why you’re so inspired to pursue architecture – and provide explanations to support your focused and unique essay.
#4 Too Short/Long Sentences
If you include too short or too long sentences in your essay, you will eventually end up with a piece that is hard to understand. On the other hand, the author of the essay may destroy the logical development of your idea if your sentences are too short or too long. Make sure to use a balance of both.
#5 Using Overly Formal Language
The reality is that college essays are more informal in style and tone than you think. What is more, your essay should sound like you were the author, not someone else. If you use formal language and submit an essay the sounds as if your mom, your friend, or your neighbor wrote it, you’re going to fail your academic progress.
#6 Too Many Passive Voice Structures
When you include the passive constructions in your essay, they sound quite objective and impersonal; however, they are also harder to read and longer. At the same time, an active voice makes your sentences direct and clear. Thus, if you want to produce a top-notch paper, make sure to include both constructions. A great rule of thumb here is to produce less than 20% of sentences based on passive constructions.
#7 Word Repetition
The reality is that your essay, book review, research paper, lab report, or any other assignment will look as if your little niece wrote it if you use the range of the same lexical sets. In other words, it is important to use word substitutes and synonyms in order to avoid repetitions of the name verbs and nouns.
Finally, one of the biggest mistakes that many students make is failure to look for help when they really need it. Whether you lack time to accomplish an essay or you have no idea where to start, make sure to buy academic papers from trusted custom writing companies. Online writers will guide you through the writing process and help you craft a piece that will correspond to the existing writing standards.
