The
high school, college and the university students receive many essay writing
assignments from their instructors. Essay writing can take many forms,
including descriptive, persuasive, analytical, and narrative. While each style
requires certain elements to be effective, the challenges present in
constructing an essay can pertain to all forms of writing. Most of the common
challenges that the students encounter in essay writing include:
·
Plagiarism. Plagiarism
may be called a real scourge of the world of modern academic writing. In the
past, the copy pasted content was, on the one hand, harder to come by and, on
the other hand, more difficult to distinguish. The age of the internet
development made it widely available and produced the whole new discipline of
discerning plagiarized materials.
·
A poor thesis statement. A
thesis statement is a sentence, usually located at the end of the first or
second paragraph, that explains the essay's main point. Without a clear thesis
statement, it can be more difficult to structure and organize your ideas. One
good tactic is to draft your thesis statement before you begin writing the body
of the essay, then show it to teachers and fellow students for suggestions on
how to make it more specific.
·
Failure to cite the
sources. Documenting sources through in-text citations and works cited pages is
an important convention of academic writing. Unfortunately, confusion about how
to cite correctly can result in plagiarism. Because most universities punish
plagiarism regardless of intent, even one mistake citing a source can be
considered a violation.
·
Poor organization of your
work. To be effective, an essay must follow a logical sequence. The
five-paragraph essay is the most common essay format and includes an
introduction, three body paragraphs and a conclusion. For instance, if you are
writing a five-paragraph persuasive essay about whether colleges should pay
athletes, you will likely want each body paragraph to focus on one of your
supporting reasons as to why you feel they should.
·
Poor time management. You
can overcome all of these challenges easily, as long as you set aside enough
time to work on your essay. If the essay is due in two weeks, it may be
tempting to wait until the day before it's due to start, especially if your
schedule is rigorous or you're involved in other activities. Time management is
the key. You want to allow enough time to conduct research if needed, to write
a rough draft, to revise and to revise again if need be.
·
Lack of enough skills.
This one of the most common complaints students have when they encounter a
particularly difficult assignment. It may be an outcome of neglecting one’s
studies for a considerable period of time, poor education or something else. If
you want to get rid of this problem, there is, unfortunately, hardly any other
way of doing it in addition to practicing as often as possible.
