Most common mistakes in academic essays writing

sineadoc

I'm not sure if a thread of this kind has been posted already.

I'll be starting university in a few weeks and I thought it would be very helpful to hear from current students what were their mistakes or main challanges to writing assignments, particularly academic essays. What do lecturers expect from essays? where did you go wrong? or if you want to put it another way, what made your essay successful?

Thanks!

Xxsparkyxx

Moving away from the question that was asked is quite a major one I think....always think back to the question and don't stray from the topic

Grammar and punctuation have to be perfect

Referencing also has to be perfectly done. Depending on what subject your doing some things are just not ok to reference(in first year I referenced a you tube video and got ripped to pieces by the tutor over it:L)


These are just a few that come to mind!!I'm sure there are loads more:)

Xxsparkyxx

Oh and also a bit of warning...Boole library is chaotic....in first year you have like 400 students looking for the same book...of which there are no more than 4 or 5 copies!try and get to the library soon after you get an essay title...or else you may be stuck with a book from open reserve which means you have to sit in the library and read it for a maximum of 4 hours at which point you have to return it ...you cnt take it outside the library!

Plautus

Good thread idea!

Referencing is a major pitfall. Lecturers are often heard to complain that first years hand up essays with no citations whatsoever and no bibliography. You might not have intended it, but this gives the impression that everything in the essay was inborn and came from no source other than yourself. That's a serious problem and it's called plagiarism.

It doesn't mean you're 'unoriginal' or 'copying' when you cite sources. In fact, quite the opposite. When you cite material you're showing you've read widely and then your opinion relates back to that work and 'builds' on it which is best scholarly practice in any discipline. 'Originality' is often misinterpreted by students to mean that they must make a new contribution to knowledge. That's for PhDs, not undergrads! Your job is to sound like yourself, but a well-read 'you' at that.

So the more citations, generally, the better, and the more sources the better. And don't restrict yourself to a reading list or even expect to be given all of the material, or pointed towards a textbook of 'everything'. It doesn't exist. Simply search in the academic databases (linked to on the UCC Library website) relevant to your subject for journal articles (which you can then download in PDF). This also helps if there's a rush on hard copies of books.

Sticking to the question asked is also, of course, a good idea. And what that means is that the dumping of facts onto a page, not ordered into an argument or coherent structure, will lose you marks. It's not like the Leaving Cert. where marks are awarded for any fragments of information you can remember. When you think about it, this is actually making it easier on you - you only need to research with the question in mind and that limits how much you have to find and read.

Finally, remember that the grading system, at least in Humanities, has, by convention, been capped at the 70-79% range. So if you were to get 70% in an essay that isn't a B3 (and a middling to good grade) that's actually a 1:1 and a top class mark

sineadoc

Thank you!

I know they will be holding some course about academic writing and if I have time I'll definitely attend...
I was thinking of buying some book about essays writing... but it's also interesting to hear from students were they got it wrong..

Thanks for advice, will definitely run to Boole Library with essay title

rebel girl 15

Referencing is the biggest one - and the college take plagiarism very seriously.

Microsoft Word has an inbuilt feature that can help you reference correctly - references. You can input the data you need for the reference in the manage sources section, and as you need a reference, it is only a click of a button. I've used it all the time for APA referencing, don't know how it would work with Harvard referencing, but I presume it would.

Getting work done early is also something that is advisible - especially if using the library. The library gets very busy around the end of October, Christmas, middle of Feburary and March-May when people have work to submit and exams to be studying for. Don't fall into the trap of leaving stuff till the last minute

Manach

My 2p, with a little industry experience throw in.
- an over reliance on referencing wikipedia
- do not use in-house jargon unless absolutely needed. Provide glossaries.
- have a explanation at the start on why this topic is of interest to the reader, and keep reminding the reader of this. The Open University has a good content on this.

rebel girl 15

Manach wrote: »

My 2p, with a little industry experience throw in.
- an over reliance on referencing wikipedia
- do not use in-house jargon unless absolutely needed. Provide glossaries.
- have a explanation at the start on why this topic is of interest to the reader, and keep reminding the reader of this. The Open University has a good content on this.

Now that you mention wikipedia - we were advised in first year never to use wikipedia as a source on its own, the information on there is too easily altered. You can look it up alright for information if you are completely lost about a subject for an initial direction to go. Better to reference peer reviewed journals and books

Xxsparkyxx

sineadoc wrote: »

I'm not sure if a thread of this kind has been posted already.

I'll be starting university in a few weeks and I thought it would be very helpful to hear from current students what were their mistakes or main challanges to writing assignments, particularly academic essays. What do lecturers expect from essays? where did you go wrong? or if you want to put it another way, what made your essay successful?

Thanks!

Ya nearly every lecturer will tell you to stay away from wikipedia...but one of the politics lecturers last year told us that he loved using Wikipedia:P guess that was rare tho!

ReacherCreature

Much of this is from the perspective of a history student.

Don't use "I". Say, "this writer thinks", "it's of the opinion", "according to this essay...". Saying "I think that was wrong" isn't desired and to be honest, not totally professional unless you're Ian Kershaw.

Leave the introduction and conclusion to last. Use a rough introduction to highlight where you're going.

Make numerous points/paragraphs. If it's a 1500 word essay, write 3-5 points. If it's more, write more.

Make the essay flow and readable, and accessible. If it flows well, it makes a comprehensive piece. I've looked at essays that were only "meh" in content but the paragraphs jumped from piece to piece really well.

Provide evidence. This is one of the vital rules. If you were to say: "Philip II of Spain planned the Spanish Armada many years before 1588" or that "the US and Coalition bombing campaign of Iraq in 1991 was devastatingly accurate in crippling Saddam's Ba'athist regime" you'll have to provide a footnote with your reference.

UCC uses the following system of referencing, that I've used with History, Greek/Roman Civilisation, French, and I think in English:

Author surname, First name or Initial. Title of text in italics. (Place and date of publication) page number/s.

So that becomes: McPhee, Peter. The French Revolution 1789-1799. (Oxford, 2002) page 195

After that, if you want to quote again from the same book, write:

McPhee, The French Revolution, p. 198.

Don't be profusely verbose, just write coherently, objectively, intelligent and decisively.

Give your opinion, but without saying "I" etc. Shape the essay in your own way. No bias.

Critical analysis is important. "Some say it's the essence of writing history and involves the interrogation of each and every document under a number of headings: Who wrote it? Who was the intended audience? Why was it written? Is the information contained within supported by other sources? Examine each and every statement. Do not take anything on face value. Question everything you read until you are satisfied with your conclusions. Make it clear in your essay how you have reached this conclusion. Check your facts."
That last paragraph was taken from a lecturer of mine. It's pretty self explanatory. Check your facts! The Easter Rising took place in 1916, you say 1917, you'll be in dire straits. Use Wikipedia to check facts, remember you don't need to quote all the facts, it's common knowledge the US battled Al-Qaeda and the Taliban from 2001 onward, for example.

Stick to the question. I cannot emphasize this more. It's absolutely paramount. "Why did Hitler begin WWII?", therefore discuss the reasoning why he did. Not the actions of the war, his death etc. Stick to the question being asked and come back to it frequently. It will be cringeworthy and a waste of time going off on tangents, which are barely related to the initial question.

Write in the past tense. Try not to forget your tenses.

Correct spelling is essential. Make good use of full stops, commas. No question marks, or exclamation marks.

On the essays, attach a cover sheet with your name, title, lecturer/tutor, date, student number. Better to be safe than sorry. Put in page numbers. Attach a bibliography as its own page. Cover sheet, then your main work, then the bibliography. All stapled together. Several departments require two copies.

Type, don't write freehand. You can do the latter for a year or so, but typing is vastly superior for editing. The department will later ask for typed. Use MS Word, or MS Works.

Listen to your tutors and lecturers intently if there's anything regarding to tips being mentioned.

Use "there was" and "they were" instead of "they're" etc.

Try write scholarly. You'll pick this up over years.

Don't be daunted by word counts. They're frightening but you'll find ways to work with them.

If you've any more questions, don't hesitate to send a PM or reply.

deRanged

from the perspective of an occasional corrector (in science):

there are some very good tips above.
Remember that the person correcting these is a human. They want to read it, mark it and move on. Your goal should be to help them to do this, get your marks and move on to the next piece of work.

Keep it clear, try to have a narrative. The flow will allow the marker to understand what you're saying more easily, which means marks. If they have to re-read over and over, it's not going to help your marks.

Keep it clean and tidy. I've seen essays handed up on torn sheets of paper, dog eared, stained with coffee ....
This presents a shocking impression, and even if the work is top notch, you're starting from a bad place.
Mark your name & student number on everything. Every time I corrected a batch of work I had a pile of anonymous ones left over.

Your department and lecturer will have a style and method they want you to follow. Follow this, no matter what you think of it. You may or may not need the third person passive voice, if you do, use it.

Citations and references are very important. Believe it or not these do get checked. Wikipedia is not an authorative source. There are plenty of reference sources available.

On copying/plagiarism, please don't.

Just answer the question. You may have an in-depth knowledge of something and want to put on paper, but you won't get marks. Say what you need to say as precisely as possible.

sineadoc

Thanks everybody for your detailed advice!
very interesting tips! I think I'll print them actually!

ReacherCreature

Just to expound a tiny bit more on plagiarism and references.

Like deRanged said, please don't. You'll be in terrible trouble if caught. Lecturers have an ability to see if you've directly copied from somewhere else if you haven't referenced. Students don't refer their work primarily to look "smart" and show how they've introduced new ideas into their fields. Lecturers cop onto this instantly, by seeing the dramatic language change, and even word formatting. I have heard that there's technology to recognise it! I've seen this in my own work when I refer, if I drop the reference, the gap between my style of writing and the author's is stark.

I've read about cases of people copying their work from someone else in-class and being called to the college board over this plagiarism.

Lecturers do check references. Each essay might have a minimum of 10 references to 100 for example - they glance over them mostly but there's some times when they look up a note. I remember in one of my classes, a student was called out over a footnote that didn't exist. It was marked on his paper and it docked his overall mark with her.

Avoid Wikipedia. Don't source it. I made the mistake of doing so way back in 1st year. My tutor (sound lad) told me not to. Lesson learned; move on. Wikipedia is great for chasing down a figure, date, or event, and providing compelling reading at times, but don't use it. A lecturer told the class, "don't use Wikipedia, make sh!t up if you have to!", the class laughed, but the fact that he'd rather you go on tangents over using Wiki, speaks volumes.

The amount of information on this planet is absolutely enormous. It's baffling how it exists. There is always information out there.

TL;DR? Avoid plagiarism and always reference.

Plautus

Write in the past tense. Try not to forget your tenses.

This wouldn't be a hard rule (i.e. write only in the past tense all of the time). I think not mixing the tenses is important as a rule of grammar, but it's acceptable in historical writing to use the imperfect, the past continuous tense and even the present tense, e.g.

'DeValera desired the return of the treaty ports; towards which he reassured Britain that this represented no security risk.'

compared with

'DeValera's task can be seen as two-fold: to seek the return of the treaty ports and also to assuage the security concerns of the British government in order to facilitate this.'

I have heard that there's technology to recognise it!

Indeed, it's the Turnitin submission software on Blackboard. All taught postgrads in the History department are using it at this point, but not the undergrads (yet).

rebel girl 15

Plautus wrote: »

Indeed, it's the Turnitin submission software on Blackboard. All taught postgrads in the History department are using it at this point, but not the undergrads (yet).

That is that software on blackboard if submitting the work digitally, which I know we used for one assignment last year (and somehow said that our project was 85% plagiarized???), but there are other systems that lecturers have where they can scan in sections of an essay and it will tell them very quickly as to whether it was copied or not. Its easy to spot in essays as well, where you know it is not the students own work. Its so easy these days that lecturers hardly need software to find it - instead just put the phrase into Google and more often than not the article will come up word for word.

There are a huge number of free online plagiarism checkers, so you do really have no excuse except possibly the one below!

Very funny story I heard from a lecturer was about plagiarism - a Chinese student came in front of the plagiarism board because he handed up a number of essays with absolutely no referencing done, and the board were going to come down hard on him because of it, it was an open and shut case. However, in China, they do not reference academic essays because it is seen as offensive to the lecturer - it is presumed that the lecturer knows all the work out there on his/her own subject, so the students telling them where to find the information is regarded as offensive!