by Martin Jones
I've been a university lecturer for over three decades, and in that time I must have marked many thousands of undergraduate essays. There's always a variation in terms of quality, but it always strikes me how common the mistakes are. In other words, everyone seems to make the same mistakes, and if we could just cut these simple errors out, we'd see a real improvement in terms of both quality and grades. The aim of this page, then, is to go through some of the more common problems and mistakes and to hopefully show you once and for all how to avoid the major pitfalls.
1. The apostrophe
2. Colons and semi-colons
3. To "lie" and to "lay"
4. American spelling
This is an increasing problem. Many students at UK universities are tending to use American versions of English words, e.g. center instead of centre, mainly because the internet has opened up the scope for both academic and leisure reading and we're now bombarded with variations. Now I'm no hair-splitter, and I recognise the validity of American spellings, but it can be very annoying to be at a British university and read essays that are written in American English.
5. Bad presentation
6. Bad referencing
7. Wandering off the topic
8. Just plan wrong
It's amazing how students can let absurd facts slip into their work. One student wrote a whole essay about the English civil war but accidentally used mostly American civil war facts, e.g. he had Charles I fighting at Gettysberg. This was a simple mistake that resulted in a completely ridiculous piece of work, and I had no choice but to fail this particular student. You're probably laughing at someone making such an elementary mistake, but that's probably because you've at least partially familiar with the basic facts about both the English and American civil wars. Now imagine you were writing about, say, the Ethiopian and Sudanese civil wars in Africa, two wars that few people know much about - it would be easy to mix names, locations and even dates when writing about something you know nothing about. One of the key lessons here, then, is don't get cocky - check your facts!
Our Essay Tips section grows each month, so don't forget to check back soon for the latest addition to our advice pages.
__________________________________________________________________
Copyright © 2001 - 2009 24houressay.co.uk, 26 Wood Lane, London, W12 OHT
Sitemap | Custom Essays | Custom Dissertations | Cheap Essays | UK Essay Writing Company
LOG IN
