essay writing

Most common essay writing mistakes!

This mistake is the one you want to avoid above all others, and making this error can cost you your place at university. Plagiarism is passing off someone else’s work as if it is your own. The universities see it as stealing. Unfortunately, with the rise of cut-and-paste technology, this is becoming more common and the sad thing is that most people who plagiarise didn’t mean to do it. But this is not seen as a defence. Be very careful to put everything in your own words.

Essay writing preparation: the website critique

Using web pages as research resources is now common practice within academia, from undergraduate level right up to PhD, but although there are many reliable sources on the internet, there are some websites that provide inaccurate information. When you are basing an academic argument on a web page, you want to be sure that it provides reliable evidence.

Essay preparation: Reading Skills

As you prepare to write essays you will be faced with more reading than you are probably used to. How can you improve your reading skills so that you read with greater speed and efficiency than before? You may be reading books or essay examples, but if your reading is holding you may miss vital details.

Types of Essay: Writing a Book Review

As part of a postgraduate degree you may well be asked to write an academic book review. This is a different sort of essay writing experience. Here are 10 key points to bear in mind when preparing a great review:-

What even is an essay?

What is an essay and why have you been asked to write one? The word essay is from the French, essayer, meaning ‘to try’.For the purposes of writing, whether at school, college or university, the essay is an attempt to explain your opinion about an issue, namely the essay question that you have been set. Your lecturer wants to know that you have an opinion and see that you can express this clearly within the essay writing assignment.

Essay Help: Is it ‘-ize’ or ‘-ise’?

When you type up your essay and carry out editing, you want to be sure that your spelling and grammar aren’t going to let you down. Sloppy presentation and bad spelling, can make the reader concerned that if you’ve paid so little attention to your English usage, what other mistakes have you made during your essay editing?

But sometimes there is a spelling that even the experts can disagree on. The choice of whether to use -ize or –ise at the ends of some words is a topic that, surprisingly perhaps, stirs up plenty of feeling.
Essay editing decisionsEssay editing: ‘-ize’ or ‘-ise’

Always giving up? Essay writing and procrastination

Focusing on good essay writing technique is all very well, but for many of us sitting down to write an essay at all can be major hurdle. Maybe you have found yourself awake at 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning with an essay or assignment deadline looming, unable to write more than a few scribbled sentences? How can you break the deadlock?

Essay Help: Introductions, Paragraphs and Conclusions

– To set out the structure that the rest of the essay will take. This is called ‘signposting’ and it is vital to use this technique clearly throughout your essay. Signposting makes it clear where the argument will go next and makes sure that your reader does not get confused or disorientated.