We are talking about grammar, structure, organization and others that confuse a lot of people and can completely change the meaning of a text. So that this doesn’t happen to you, see what the most common mistakes are in order to avoid them and make an excellent essay. Keep reading and improve your techniques!
1. Get off topic
Regardless of whether there is a proposal or whether you are willing to write about a certain subject, it is essential to be faithful to it during production. Leaving the topic is one of the worst mistakes that can be made when writing an essay.
In the title, it is important that the reader knows what the text is about, and this needs to be maintained throughout it. After all, the person creates an expectation when they start reading, and the material produced must bring relevant information about that subject, so that it actually has a good quality and is useful for those who read.
2. Not making a draft
It is natural to want to quickly finish the text to check the result achieved. However, if you want a good quality for your composition, you will need to have a little patience to finish it. In this case, avoid writing directly on the final sheet.
Ideally, compose a draft that should be based on a skeleton. This means defining the points that will be covered in the essay, creating subtitles and doing the development. Then review, reread and only then finalize.
In this way you will correct errors, observe if the structure is good, the arguments adequate, the organization coherent and so on. Writing the text as a finished work is not a good strategy, because most of the time it will need adjustments.
3. Being inconsistent
There is no way to make a good essay if you sin in the consistency of the information recorded in it. After all, it is essential that the arguments make sense and bring truthful facts or data and that they do not deviate from the theme.
Inconsistencies are committed when there are contradictions throughout the writing, we are not sure what we are talking about or we record wrong information. All this demonstrates a lack of organization of ideas and mastery of the subject, which compromises the author’s credibility and the quality of his production.
4. Sin in cohesion
A cohesive text is one that presents a good chaining of ideas, sentences and paragraphs, allowing its structure to be well organized. Thus, the person reads more fluidly, and the message is successfully conveyed.
In order not to make errors of cohesion, it is necessary to correctly structure the sentences and paragraphs, in addition to correctly using articles, pronouns, adverbs and connectives. Knowing different components of a sentence and their functions allows you to connect passages without making agreement errors or inadequacies, preventing the same word from being repeated many times.
5. Failing grammar and spelling
Even if you have excellent ideas and arguments and know how to defend them correctly, there is no way to write a good essay if you don’t have satisfactory knowledge of grammar and spelling. Remember that there is a cultured norm of the Portuguese language and it must be followed.
In order for you to acquire more knowledge about this, it is important to study grammar rules and cultivate the habit of reading. Try to keep as much contact as possible with the written productions to observe the structures of periods and complete texts. This also allows you to expand your vocabulary.
6. Compose very long sentences
If you have a lot to say about a subject, that’s great! But be careful when composing your sentences and paragraphs, because some people “get carried away” and end up forgetting to use commas and periods.
As a result, periods become too long, with too many words, and this can make it difficult for the reader to understand. After all, the sentence starts by saying one thing, and the thought goes on a lot, until the initial information is lost.
So, try to express yourself in shorter sentences and be objective in your information. In this way, the reader will be able to follow your thoughts and not be lost in the midst of words. In addition, short periods prevent you from getting confused and creating incoherent or ambiguous text.
7. Use slang and popular expressions
With the exception of texts that present an informal or popular style, the ideal is that slang and regionalisms are avoided. Remember that an essay needs to follow the cultured norm of the language, respecting grammar.
These terms are not wrong, but in a formal composition they are considered inappropriate. They can interfere with the reader’s understanding and make it difficult to understand, so reserve their use only for productions that, in fact, allow their use.
8. Compose ambiguities
Ambiguity consists of writing a sentence, for example, that brings information that allows a double interpretation. To understand better, we would say that “the boy found his friend hungry”. In that case, who was hungry? Both situations are possible, right?
Try to arrange the words so that there is no more than one option, and use punctuation to your advantage as well. The comma can make all the difference in the sentence, as well as the correct use of articles or pronouns.
