7 Common Essay Writing Mistakes To Avoid in your Assignments

Students are never given proper training in high schools to write essays. All they are provided with is a topic and a few relevant sources to take the information from. Other than this, there is no one to guide them or teach them what it means to write. Plus, they are also not warned about the complexities that they may face or demonstrate how a flawless paper looks like. That’s why most of them dread the writing task and show no interest in using their creative minds to attempt their homework and contact credible assignment writing help for assistance. On the other hand, those who like writing, struggle to put their ideas into words and eventually give up due to inadequate knowledge. 

Therefore, without a doubt, writing is a difficult skill to master. But do you know that every student has the potential to write well and create exceptional pieces only if they know about the mistakes they make? So, here is our contribution to sharing the list of common writing mistakes that writers do not know about. We believe this will help you in better understanding your writing style and improve your overall writing proficiency in no time. 

7 Essay Mistakes To Avoid

1. Content Mistakes 

A brilliant introduction, detailed body paragraph, and a concise but precise conclusion are a few things that make an essay perfect. However, you must have also read papers that are well-written but are not appealing to the eyes. So, to know what could be the possible reasons, take a look below.  

• Insufficient Detailing in the Paragraphs 

If you are writing a descriptive, argumentative, or any other type of essay without enough background information, then it will be vague and dull. However, this also doesn’t mean that you start filling the content with irrelevant information. Just make sure your paper has enough relevant material for the readers to be satisfied once they have finished reading.  

• Main Idea Without Enough Supporting Ideas 

A thesis statement is like the focal point of your essay. This means the entire content revolves around that one statement from top to the bottom. Therefore, if you think you don’t have enough supporting arguments to defend your thesis statement then you must pick another one. Because you don’t only have to meet the word count but also the requirements of the given topic. 

• Unclear and Baseless Ideas 

Credibility is important when it comes to writing essays for academic purposes. If you keep writing ideas without giving references or mentioning the sources, it affects the overall quality of your content. So, to give your readers a clear idea, you must always give appropriate examples with sources. 

2. Styling Mistakes 

No matter how inspiring your content is, if it lacks the correct style, all of your hard work goes in vain. That is why cheap essay writing services advise focusing on content styling as much as you do on the content itself. 

• Informal or Overly Formal Approach 

Since essays are academic assignments, you can’t write the words or phrases you say in your everyday routine. Also, slang language and offensive words are discouraged. In other words, essays require a refined high-level vocabulary that includes sophisticated yet simple phrases and an excellent choice of words. 

• Use of Passive Voice 

Do you want to write an easy-to-read essay in a passive voice? Well, it is not possible. Because passive voice makes the content hard to interpret and makes the sentences unnecessarily longer. Therefore, experts suggest using active voice so that the content is clear and straight-forward. However, write as per your instructor’s guidelines.

• Long Sentences or Paragraphs

When a sentence becomes long, it gives room for errors. Similarly, when a paragraph exceeds the expected length, know that it includes irrelevant information. You might not notice at first but upon rechecking, it will be visible to you. So, try to keep the entire content short. This will it will be easier for the readers to read and understand what exactly are you trying to say.  

• Redundant Expressions 

Repetition in any form must be discouraged in all types of writing, especially in essay writing. Whether it is a repetition of words, phrases, ideas, or stated facts, it makes the professor question your creative skills. Therefore, what you can do is use synonyms or substitute words/phrases to avoid repeating the same thing again and again. 

3. Vocabulary Mistakes 

Your essay quality depends mostly on the vocabulary that it holds. If every other thing in your essay is on-point but you’ve made vocabulary mistakes, then this becomes he reason of your falling grades.  

• Incorrect Word Form 

Have you ever noticed that when you try to pen down the idea you had in mind, it comes out differently? Well, this is because of incorrect word forms that you might have used in the content. So, try to learn that there is a difference between verb form and adjectives so that you choose the right one at the right time. 

• Use of Confused Words 

Remember that you are aiming for clarity when you are writing an academic paper. Therefore, first, try to understand the difference between words that sound similar or are written in the same way. For instance, affect-effect, accept-except, lose-loose, quite-quiet and many more.  

• Misuse of Homonyms 

Homonyms or homophones are taught to us in our early schooling days but most of the students still get confused about which one to use where. Here is a list of a few homonyms that are commonly used in the essay composition.

• Here, hear
• Hole, Whole, 
• Their, There 
• Male, mail 
• Ate, eight 

4. Structural Mistakes 

Proper organization of thoughts and planning is important to achieve the true potential of your writing skills. While you can’t control the sequence you think things in, but you can organize the space where you write them and this is what is called the content structure. However, for this, you must have a clear sense of which information needs to come first and which one can be added later. 

• Sentence Formation Errors

You must have seen write-ups where the author tries to convey a message and fails miserably. This is usually because the stated words hold no meaning which ultimately makes the whole content meaningless and unclear. Moreover, it is also possible that the content is written without proper punctuation, making it hard to read or understand.  

• Content Structure Mistakes 

Before writing an essay, you must know that an essay includes at least four sections – introduction, two body paragraphs, and a conclusion. If you require more than two paragraphs in the main section, you can add accordingly. However, just make sure that each paragraph is equally divided to give the entire content a synchronized look. 

5. Grammatical Mistakes 

Grammar is the basics of writing. If it is not correct then the paper is considered to be of low quality. If you want to avoid the grammatical mistakes in your essay, consider the list below.  

• Misuse of Verb Form 

As there are three main types of verbs, action verbs, linking verbs, and helping verbs, you must know about each type. If not then start learning today so that you can avoid using incorrect forms of verbs in your content. 

• Misuse of Noun Form 

Choosing the correct form of a noun for your content is difficult when it comes to singular or plural nouns. If you do not understand any of the grammatical rules related to nouns, go back to learning rules and basics before you mess up your essay. 

• Incorrect Pronouns 

Pronouns as the name suggests are used to replace nouns in the sentence. It means “for nouns”.  Plus, there are seven types of pronouns that you must recognize before you start writing. Because if you use the wrong pronoun in place of a noun then know that the content’s meaning might change along with the increase in repetitive words/ideas.  

6. Spelling Mistakes 

The English Vocabulary is vast, therefore, it is not possible even for the brightest student to be perfect in all spellings. However, what you can do is use an online assessment tool to evaluate your paper and correct the spelling mistakes that you might have made. Moreover, if you find specific words difficult to write, make a separate list for them, and practice it. Other than this, reading can also help in improving your spellings. 

7. Punctuation Mistakes 

Punctuation plays a great role in improving the overall content quality of your essay. It separates two sentences, unrelated ideas, and give sentences a clear meaning. Still, punctuation is the least focused writing skill. Indeed, finding punctuation mistakes is difficult than finding misspelled words but it is equally important. Especially the use of commas, hyphens, and apostrophes is something that every writer of any level must be familiar with. 

Lastly, it doesn’t matter how many essays you’ve written in your academic life because each essay tests you differently. You might have aced your previous essay by structuring it properly and avoiding styling mistakes but there is a chance that you make grammatical and vocabulary mistakes in your next essay. 

So, consider the above-mentioned essay prompts to always keep the essay writing mistakes on the tip of your fingers. This will you will never submit a low-grade essay ever again!