What are the Common Mistakes in Essay Writing and How to Avoid Them?

Essay writing is a technical skill and difficult to master therefore majority of students struggles through it during college or university years. It is not an easy task to write impressive and concise essays which really cause an impact on the reader. However, the more you practice your writing skills, the more it gets better and fluent.

There are some common mistakes which anyone can make while learning the art of writing. You don’t have to feel disappointed because these problems can be fixed. Here is a list of all common mistakes which you should know to learn how to avoid them.

• Content & Structure Mistakes

It is a quite common mistake because people forget to focus on the content and structure while writing an essay. It doesn’t grab the attention of the readers, as all they can see is the number of words scattered all around.

You can avoid this mistake easily by writing a good introduction, so the reader would know that what you are going to write about. Even if you don’t develop a thesis statement, present your ideas in a proper flow with the use of facts, details, and examples.

• Styling Mistakes

If you don’t use the correct style, it would make your essay uninteresting and cause a bad impression on the reader. The common styling mistakes are repetitive words, long sentences, informal words, and low-level vocabulary, and too many passive structures.

What you can do to eradicate this problem is quite simple and easy. Avoid repetitions with the use of better words substitutes, keep a good balance of short and long sentences, don’t use slang expressions, consult a good dictionary to use impactful words, and use more active voice and less passive voice sentences.

• Grammar Mistakes

It is important for an essay to be grammatically correct to be successful and influential. But people make noun, verb, and pronoun mistakes frequently which need to be avoided.

You can simply review the rules to make sure that you are using ‘right determining factor with singular & plural nouns’, ‘correct modal and infinite verbs’, and ‘suitable pronouns which refer to the nouns’. You must also proofread your essay when you are done writing.

• Vocabulary Mistakes

If you make vocabulary mistakes, your essay can actually turn out to be a disaster even if everything else is in the right place. People usually misuse homonyms, get confused with a pair of words, and end up writing a wrong word that can cause an unintended change in the meaning of the sentence or essay.

You must divide your time evenly. You must have enough time to proofread and pay attention to the main problem areas of your essay even after you are done writing your essay.

• Spelling Mistakes

There will always be some difficult words whose spellings you won’t be able to memorize easily. Such spelling mistakes will leave a really odd and non-serious impression on the readers about you and your essay.

 You can make a list of the words which you usually misspell and start practice writing and using these words separately over and over again. Only your practice and attention can make you overcome this problem.

• Punctuation Mistakes

It may sound to some of you like not a big deal. But a punctuation mistake can clutter the ideas you have presented by changing the whole meaning. It is on you that how seriously you want your readers to take you. If you end up putting wrong punctuation marks here and there in your essay, it will leave the readers frustrated and confused.

All you need to do is keenly observe your mistakes to make sure that you have not placed even a comma incorrectly. You must also go over the rules of punctuation’s every time you start writing your essay.