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Writing a College Paper Wrong (So You Get Better Grades)

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HOW TO WRITE A COLLEGE PAPER, BUT NOT (SO YOU GET BETTER GRADES) Although there are countless blogs instructing you how to write a college paper, I want to concentrate on what you SHOULDN’T do today.

These are errors that, in the perspective of a professor, could actually result in your paper being thrown out.

One professor I had even went so far as to state that he would automatically award a 50 percent to anyone who committed one of these errors, and a 0 percent if two errors were committed (I’m not kidding).

Therefore, review this list the next time you sit down to write a college paper to ensure you haven’t made any of these mistakes. You’ll rescue not only your grade but also your standing as a talented writer by doing this.

AVOID USING NON-SCHOLARLY WEBSITES AND RESOURCES Wikipedia may be able to provide you with the date of birth, height, filmography, romantic history, and every other bit of information on your favorite celebrity, but it is not the best source for accurate data and statistics for a college assignment.

Additionally, you should stay away from other general news websites, especially those that provide opinion pieces.

Now, if you do uncover some fantastic statistics on CNN that you would like to use, try tracking down the original source. The article should have a link that leads you to the relevant study or website!

A different strategy I prefer to employ while I’m writing a college assignment is to only visit websites that finish in.org,.edu, or.gov, with a focus on the latter two.

Ultimately, using the web databases in your school library will help you find reliable research for your project. There, you can filter the outcomes to display just papers that have undergone peer review, have been published recently, and can be downloaded as PDFs.

QUIT THE FORMATTING CRAZY Because formatting a college paper is not something that is really taught in high school, it is usual for students to struggle with it. Additionally, a lot of students are now required to learn how to format their writing using APA or another style.

Unfortunately, if you submit a paper with incorrect formatting, you’ll probably lose some points for not having it properly arranged. I’ve even saw professors deduct a full letter grade for this error!

Concentrate entirely on getting the formatting correct on one document to save time and anxiety. To make sure that all of your in-text citations and references are accurate, websites like the PurdueOWL are a useful resource.

You may now use it as a model for the rest of your papers because you got the formatting right the first time! For the subsequent paper you must write, merely replace the existing content with the revised version. It’s a quick hack that allowed me to save a ton of time while I was in school.

DON’T JUST ADD WORDS TO YOUR CONTENT BY USING FILLER CONTENT Most students have trouble writing college papers with the required word limit. The question, “How in the world am I going to write three pages about a topic that takes two sentences to describe?!” has definitely crossed your mind.

The easiest way to increase your word content at this point is to just start employing some filler text. This could entail lengthening sentences or injecting entire sentences that add nothing to the document itself.

Put an end to this!

Spend a few minutes looking up some research to better support your claims rather than depending on that pointless stuff. For instance, if I were to advocate against raising the legal drinking age, I could do so by locating statistics that demonstrate the number of fatalities caused by intoxicated drivers each year.

It’s so much more enticing to see a real figure than a bunch of meaningless words. Better more, it will demonstrate to your lecturers that you are able to carry out solid research and connect it to the themes you’ve already covered in your work.

Write a college paper without using filler language or material. REFUSE TO BE THE CENTER OF ATTENTION There is no justification for utilizing the pronouns “I” or “me” in your college paper unless you are penning a personal narrative.

Your capacity to draw connections between concepts from academic sources and develop academically sound solutions or hypotheses is what these tasks are all about. As soon as you start making “I think” remarks, your work is genuinely called into question.

Go look at some studies published in scholarly publications right now. You’ll see that the researchers place a lot of emphasis on correlations and how they affected whether a hypothesis was accepted or rejected. Instead of speaking for themselves, they let the results do the talking.

Therefore, pause while writing your next college assignment to evaluate your progress. Are you employing “I” statements, or are you relying on the findings of the research to present your case?

DO NOT IGNORE YOUR OUTLINES AND RUBRIC The Holy Grail is right in front of you if you were given a grading rubric.

You may learn everything you need to know about what is expected of you from this booklet. Unfortunately, the majority of pupils don’t study it thoroughly or apply it in a constructive way.

Instead, it frequently ends up being pushed into a corner and is never touched again. The student then continues to compose a paper that they believe adheres to the instructions. This occasionally works, but not always.

Instead of ignoring your rubric, keep it visible and close by while you’re writing. Line up each of your paragraphs with the appropriate rubric area as you go. This is a fantastic approach to arrange your work and make it flow easily!

I also advise using some of the keywords from the headings of the sections of your rubric in your paper headings. Instead of making your lecturer guess which paragraph purports to discuss the topic, use this to demonstrate to them that you have covered it.

Here’s an illustration:

Take the part on the rubric for analysis of supporting evidence as an example. You might use Analysis of Supporting Evidence as one of the headings in your essay. After that, you would assess the research-backed supporting evidence you had earlier supplied.

DO NOT BELIEVE THAT USING A SPELL CHECKER WILL FIX EVERYTHING Friends, it’s amazing how often something so basic is neglected. Almost every paper I evaluated for peer revisions in graduate school contained spelling and grammar mistakes, which I found.

Despite how fantastic it is, technology is not without flaws.

Spend some time reading your article aloud and then backwards to spot any mistakes you would not have caught otherwise. Additionally, you might wish to submit it to a buddy for further editing and advice.

Since once a document is turned in, it’s done, you can never have too many eyes on it!

Are you curious to discover more about producing a quality paper? Read How to Make Your College Paper Stand Out (in a Good Way) for more information.

How can you ensure that you only submit your best work when writing a college paper?

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