5 College Paper Writing Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them

Once you reach the university things change. Nothing is the same in an educational sense after elementary and middle school. College is a completely different animal, and most people learn this the hard way. Once you’re a student at a university from the first day, one of the main ways to express yourself and get graded is through writing papers. You’ll have so many subjects and different themes to write about. This is what will make matters complicated. If you don’t know how to approach writing on an academic level you’re going to be in a lot of trouble. But nothing is lost, you can require Ibuyessay.com for help.

The main reason why you might fail is that you won’t know where to look. Mistakes can be big in college that weren’t noticed before during your schooling. While you might think everything is in order, your professor might beg to differ. This is what we’re going to try and help you with.

Writing a great paper is not an easy task, and if you’re reading this article this is something you already know. That’s why we’re going to talk about college paper writing pitfalls and how to avoid them. We’re sure that you’ll find this article to be a great help in your future academic ventures.

1. Making Lists

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The world of writing is vast. When you reach a certain subject, it will appear to you that you need to answer it in the form of a list. While this might appear logical, it usually isn’t. it doesn’t matter if the subject is a historical one, like Korean War. Yes, you could answer it as a list, starting with the reasons for the war, continuing with the war years, and concluding everything with the end solution. But, this can be done differently.

All you need is to dilute the questions a little bit. Don’t answer them in order, and don’t focus only on the big questions. Find smaller questions and provide smaller answers. This is the best way to avoid making an essay that will end up being a list with counted facts.

2. No Run-On Sentences

This might be something that flies over your head when writing. Many younger people haven’t even heard about the run-on sentences. What we’re talking about are long, conjured sentences that are one big mess due to the fact they lack punctuation. This creates confusion, and an idea you had, might be lost in the process, or two ideas could create one less understandable. This is why it is important to learn to write in shorter sentences early on. Focus on the subject, and the predicate.

This is where you start. In college, you’ll need to broaden your vocabulary and sentence length. But, you must never forget the basics. It all starts with the writing habits you developed early. While college is a different animal compared to high school or elementary school, you shouldn’t forget what you learned when the foundations for your writing were laid down.

3. Plagiarism

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When we’re talking about pitfalls, this might be one of the biggest ones. You must never succumb to plagiarism. First of all, it is not nice nor ethical. Second of all, colleges are allergic to plagiarism. Every written submission is checked for plagiarism so the chances are you’re going to be discovered if this was your plan all along. The best way to avoid plagiarism is to use official sources and put your thoughts into writing. This is not a hard thing to do. Your education is your weapon for future success.

Not all of us can be college drop-outs such as Elon Musk, Bill Gates, or Mark Zuckerberg. No, they’re people with genius IQ, and things do come easier for them. The rest of us, you included, must do things the hard way. But, being original in your writing is not a hard task. It is a basic requirement for university studies. If you can’t handle this much, you need outside help as we suggested above.

4. Wordiness

Word count is a serious thing in writing. You’re usually tasked with the required amount of words needed for your essay to be accepted. For example, this article needs to be longer than one thousand words. This doesn’t mean we’re going to pile up on words and speak gibberish to reach that number.

No, we’re going to remain focused on the subject, deal with facts, and try to help our readers. The best way to help yourself when writing is to keep up with the word number but in a manner, that benefits the subject and not the word count. If you use too many words to reach the word count some things might get lost within your subject. Every professor is going to notice this real quick. So, keep the word count down to the subject, and don’t be a slave to counting words.

5. Abundance of Footnotes

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Having footnotes as a part of your paper is required. But, how much is enough? This is not the part of your essay where you want to go too far. Yes, it is nice giving your readers directions on how and where to find out more about the subject. Also, it is vital to show everyone where your sources came from, and how much you studied the subject. But, between a few useful footnotes, and too many of them, the border is thin. If you have too many of them, your readers might get confused.

In the worst-case scenario, some of them might net too annoyed to even continue reading what you wrote. So, have a measure with your footnotes. They’re necessary, but there’s no need for your essay to overflow with them. You don’t want to drown your reader in footnotes. Keep them focused on what you wrote. With this and everything from above, you can see that we covered the most pitfalls that are a big no-no. Watch out for them.