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Common Essay Mistakes Students Commit – How to Avoid Them

Indeed, Essay writing is one of the most essential tasks of every student. Whether you are a school student, college, or university student. You will be asked to write an essay when taking an exam. If you struggle in writing an essay then this article is for you, because in this article I am going to talk about the common essay mistakes students commit on and also tell you how to avoid those mistakes to help you improve your marks when you are taking any essay writing test.

Common Essay Mistakes Students Commit

1. Copying the Same Wording of the Title

The very first mistake students commit while writing an essay is repeating exactly the same wording of the title. For instance, if the title is: “Education is the most important element in the headway of a country” Do you agree or disagree?” Now the mistake students might have in their answer to this question or title, is they start writing: “Okay, education is the most important element in the headway of a country, yes I agree, or I disagree” Or I agree education is the most important element in the headway of a country.

This is actually a big problem to use the same wording as in the title and it can cause you to lose your marks because you are not showing your ability, you just copy the same wording what someone else has said or what the title is.

Instead what you can do is change the question into a proper answer by paraphrasing it. When you paraphrase a sentence, it means that you change somebody else sentence into your own words. You may change the sentence structure but keep the same meaning. To do this you can use synonyms.

For instance, Yes, schooling is the most significant factor in the development of a country…..

2. Choosing Common Topics

If you are given the free will of choosing a title for your essay, you might choose a common topic. This is what most students do, they choose a common topic, common connections, and common language. What you should do is instead, choose an uncommon topic, make uncommon connections, and use uncommon language.

3. Not Using Transition Words and Phrases

Transition words and phrases are words to link words, phrases, or sentences in your writing. Moreover, they help the readers to progress from one idea and help you to build up coherent relationships within your essay. Hence using transitional words will help you clarify, contrast, illustrate, summarize, introduce also conclude your essay properly. Use proper transitional words in the right place in your essay to help the reader comprehend the meaning of your writing and beautify your essay.

4. Plagiarism

Have you heard of plagiarism? According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, to “plagiarize” means:

  • to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one’s own
  • to use (another’s production) without crediting the source
  • to commit literary theft
  • to present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source

Every content has a creator and if someone steals the content, then the creator has the right to claim a copyright strike on the person. Actually, plagiarism is the act of stealing the original work of someone else and using it as our own. Hence when writing an essay you should avoid plagiarism in order not to lose marks.

When you write any quote in your essay, don’t skip to mention the writer’s name. It’s not only about quotations; In fact, if you are mentioning any poetry, facts, or reviews of prominent personalities, try to mention their names too.

5. Avoiding Proofreading

You have written a strong introductory paragraph and revised a good thesis, given compelling examples and written exciting body paragraphs, and came up with an excellent conclusion that will definitely be going to convince and attract your reader. Do you think you are done with your essay writing? Not indeed, there is one more step which is actually the most important step that you need to go for it is proofreading your essay. Some of you might skip this step, but remember a single common mistake can sometimes ruin the whole value of your written essay.

Proofreading is the last step in revising your essay, where you check your typos, grammar, punctuation marks, spelling, and missing words within your essay. Despite writing a phenomenal essay and being pro in writing, the final step is a must to go for because being a human we all commit mistakes.

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