THE MAJOR ERRORS TO AVOID IN WRITING

 Academic writing Mistakes and Errors

Introductions for academic papers

An introduction is the first paragraph of your paper. The goal of your introduction is to let your reader know the topic of the paper and what points will be made about the topic. The thesis statement that is included in the introduction tells your reader the specific purpose or main argument of your paper. These can be achieved by taking your introduction from "general" to "specific."

Think of an introduction paragraph in an academic paper as an upside-down triangle, with the broadest part on top and the sharpest point at the bottom. It should begin by providing your reader a general understanding of the overall topic. The middle of the introduction should narrow down the topic so your reader understands the relevance of the topic and what you plan to accomplish in your paper. Finally, direct your reader to your main point by stating your thesis clearly.

Sample Academic Introduction

What NOT to do

There is much to learn from what is NOT wanted. Following are some of the small but specific mistakes in style that are made (mainly unconsciously) in formal written work.

✍️Do not use colloquial language or slang

✍️Do not use shortened forms of words and phrases incorrectly

✍️Avoid using personal language

✍️Avoid using language that is emotional

✍️Avoid using words that express your opinion tooooooo strongly

✍️Avoid using unnecessary words

✍️Avoid using brackets and dashes to add information

✍️Do not use dot/bullet point lists unless you are instructed to

✍️Do not shift verb tense unnecessarily

✍️Do not use exclamation marks (!!!) in your essay

✍️Do not use questions and commands

✍️Do not misuse font and font styles (mainly italics & underlining)

Plagiarism comes in many forms, some more severe than others—from rephrasing someone’s ideas without acknowledgement to stealing a whole essay. These are the five most common types of plagiarism:

🌟Global plagiarism means passing off an entire text by someone else as your own work.

🌟Verbatim plagiarism means directly copying someone else’s words.

🌟Paraphrasing plagiarism means rephrasing someone else’s ideas to present them as your own.

🌟Patchwork plagiarism means stitching together parts of different sources to create your text.

🌟Self-plagiarism means recycling your own past work.

Formatting and Style 

Formatting plays a very important role as that is the first impression that an assessor would get when he goes through the paper. Apart from presenting the content in a neat manner, one must follow the guidelines that are provided by the student for formatting of a paper. The spacing, font, margins, paragraphs, page numbering, footnotes, highlighting all should be done as per assignment guidelines and requirements. The detailed instructions about formatting have been provided in the following sections.

Referencing

At the outset, referencing is a way of acknowledgment of the papers, books, and materials being used while researching for the report or essay.

The referencing styles namely, Harvard, APA, Chicago, OSCOLA, MLA, and Vancouver are mostly maintained in Academic writing. One should be thorough with the styles of writing the references as these carry huge weight in the entire academic paper. We use sources like books, Journals (most preferably peer-reviewed journals), newspapers, magazines and websites. One should make sure that only the authentic sources are used so that the research conducted can provide genuine and unbiased results. References give credibility to academic writings and so only genuine references should be used. Fake reference should never be used in the paper as they tend to spoil the hard work of the researcher and creates a wrong impression of the paper.

While writing, one must always refer to the sources from which the ideas have been in originated. In-text references are included in the main body of the academic writing and are inserted right after the facts or information being sourced from the original literature. It comprises of the surname of the author, and date of the publication of the source. This has been explained in thorough details in this guide.

Deadline

Deadline in academic writing does mean deadline beyond which the paper would not be accepted by the universities and the submission windows are closed. So this should be taken as topmost priority. Before embarking on the project, one must strategize time and divide the time by breaking down the entire paper into smaller segments. Missing deadline has rigorous implications over the students’ academic career, which could be fatal as well. Hence, one must be particularly concerned to submit the academic task before the assigned deadline.