Students who experiment with their writing and sometimes try to use shortcuts often fall victim to incorrect “life hacks” and “bulletproof tips,” receiving poor grades for poorly prepared assignments.

Unfortunately, not all tips work in practice, and the result is always a failure.

We don’t mean that writing an essay should always be a dissertation-like process. Yet, there are some critical steps nobody should ignore to get a high grade.

Here we cover the most common mistakes students make when completing essays and explain how to avoid them to achieve flawless, steady academic performance. 

 

1. No Planning and Pre-writing 

What do students do after receiving an essay assignment? In most cases, they rush to sit down and write that essay as soon as they have some spare time.

But such an approach inevitably brings problems at later stages of research and writing, as there should always be some time for the interpretation of the question. If you look at the issue deeper and approach it from several angles, you’ll see that even a self-obvious question has many perspectives and complexities. 

Let’s illustrate the point with an example. Suppose you received an assignment like this, “Are cats better than dogs?” Your first response is to write that cats are better as they cure illnesses, they are more patient, their owners don’t need to take them for a walk three times a day, and you had a cat named Dolly in your childhood… This may be a good essay, but not more than that. 

A critical reader would find many more shades of meaning rather than rushing to state that cats are better than dogs (or vice versa). Here are some avenues for discussion: 

  • What roles do cats and dogs play as people’s partners? How well can each of them substitute the other in these roles? 
  • What traits of people’s character can make people prefer dogs to cats and vice versa? 
  • For which households are cats better? And for which are dogs more suitable? 
  • How can people’s past experience affect their preferences of dogs versus cats? 
  • What do national laws say about keeping dogs or cats? 
  • Is it generally humane to keep animals at home? 

 

2. Doing Everything on Your Own 

Another issue most students face at different moments of their study lives is an overload of assignments. This often happens if they suspend the completion of homework until the last moment, and that last moment comes at once for several papers.

There is no need to stretch yourself beyond possible, spending several sleepless nights and trying to complete everything on your own. You can resort to the expert assistance of Studyfy.com, an academic writing company helping students with such critical situations.

Once in a while, they can become your helping hand, giving you a couple of hours of precious sleep and peace of mind about meeting all deadlines. 

 

3. Following an Obvious Answer 

As we illustrated in the point about planning and pre-writing, even a question about cats and dogs can hide many levels of meaning. Thus, following an obvious answer won’t result in an exceptional grade, as this is not what your tutor wants to see.

To impress your supervisor and to reveal deeper levels of critical thinking, you should dig deeper into the topic, expose its complexities and subtleties, and analyze them through the prism of your personal opinion. In such a way, your academic work will look distinguished rather than mediocre. 

 

4. Submitting Right After Completion 

Completing an essay 5 minutes before the deadline is probably the most common situation for students in a hurry. But even if you have a couple of minutes, still spend them on checking the paper and going through the entire content with a fresh, detached eye.

As an editor, you can notice the typos or syntactic inconsistencies you could have missed during the writing process. If these issues are not fixed, your tutor is certain to reduce the grade for careless writing. So, try to avoid submitting a non-proofread paper by all means as it may even look like disrespect. 

 

5. Ignoring Feedback 

Even if you’re not a good writer at this point of time, there is nothing to worry about as you can grow and improve day by day in the worst case, you can contact the Research Paper Writer service for help. But if you’re a bad listener, that’s a much bigger problem as people grow and become better only by incorporating productive feedback.

So, if you’re on the way to getting better at writing, never neglect feedback from peers and tutors as they are here with one purpose – to help you grow. Listening to them carefully will reveal your weak points that you may not see, giving you avenues for targeted work on those issues and gradual improvement as a writer. 


With these tips in mind, you can avoid the most common mistakes of student writers. Go on working on your style and mechanics, and A-grades will be a regular outcome of your hard work. 

Do you have any recommendations we have missed from our list? Let us know in the comments section below.