Top 10 Errors Made by College Students in Writing

All throughout your college years, you will be required to write and submit various assignments. From essays to research papers, you have to create quality work that will meet the standards and requirements set by your professors as these will determine your grade. For students, writing papers can be extremely difficult since not everyone has strong writing skills. There are various elements and components that comprise a well-written work like the grammar, structure, creativity, etc. Most of the time college students commit errors and whether it is a major or a minor mistake, it can still affect the over-all quality of your work. 

1. Spelling

This is one of the common errors that students commit especially when there are hard to spell words included in their assignments. Submitting a flawless and spelling-free work is essential so make sure you proofread your wok a lot of times before you submit.

2. Inconsistent Tense

When writing a research or any other assignment, you have to be mindful of your grammar. One of the usual mistakes is the use of wrong tense or having inconsistent tense all throughout the paper. Be consistent with your choice of tense especially when writing about certain events.

3. Incomplete Sentences

A complete sentence should have a subject and a verb. However, there are some students who commit mistakes without them knowing that they include incomplete sentences in their written work.

4. Use of prepositions and conjunctions

There are cases where students would fail to notice that they use the wrong prepositions and conjunctions. Many would think that this can be a minimal error. But in reality, these seemingly minor errors can negatively affect the quality of your paper.

5. Punctuation

Among the common errors, some would think that punctuation error is one of the least committed errors. But unfortunately, there are a lot of students who commit punctuation mistakes in particular comma errors. 

6. Wrong use of adverbs and adjectives

Many would often fail to notice that they used the wrong adverbs or adjectives in their paper. Some students may use the wrong choice of adjectives. Another error is when you do not know the right placement of adverbs.

7. Apostrophes

It might appear like a negligible error when you fail to use apostrophes if you want to indicate ownership in certain parts of your sentences. This is widely committed by students especially since when you are typing you might fail to notice that you didn’t use the apostrophes when they are needed.

8. Too short or too lengthy paper

The quality of your paper will not entirely depend on its length. Even if it is a short one for as long as it is well-written and concise, it can still be a good academic work. Having a written work that is too lengthy without substance is also not a good thing.

9. Wrong subject verb agreement

Let’s face it not all students are proficient with grammar. There are still a lot of students who struggle when it comes to their grammar skills. This is a major mistake that you should not make. Make sure that you use the right subject verb agreement and if you are uncertain, you can always use the Internet to check.

10.  Incomplete or no proper citations

Without proper citations, you are committing plagiarism as you fail to cite  your sources and acknowledge the author. Do not copy any content from other author’s work without proper citation and quotation.