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For this blog post, I will choose to focus on the argumentative style of essays. Right off the bat, a common pitfall for an essay writer constructing an argument is a lack of support or evidence. In such cases, the writer may have included paragraphs with no empirical support or paragraphs lacking a clear idea. Simply toss such paragraphs out of your writing.
Most people will have the experience of writing an academic essay that simply crashes. There can be almost no avoiding this, given that writing is not innately simple, especially when conveying an idea or argument as coherently as possible. There are numerous tutorials, workshops, and related material available that can help, fortunately. Below is a breakdown of some of the pitfalls to avoid so another of your essays does not have to fall into the trash bin.
Very broadly, pitfalls that can doom an essay can be either of a technical nature, such as too many grammatical or sentence structure errors, or more philosophical, such as an unclear thesis statement. These sorts of errors are avoidable if paid attention to during the revision and editing of your essay. Of course, one needs to be aware of the pitfalls first, so let’s dive in.
Also, it can be the case that while constructing your outline and writing your first draft, you forget to include the opposing argument. Sometimes this might be out of fear of negating the position you are taking and creating doubt in the reader’s mind. However, confidence in your ability to argue your position should make the inclusion of counter-arguments a more compelling essay.
Among the many reasons, one primary benefit of the inclusion of opposing arguments or contradictory positions is that it allows you to offer your rebuttal to those positions in your essay. This will only enhance the depth of your writing by showing the reader the confidence you have in your position. So always be ready to take on any subject from more than one angle.
Continuing with the more philosophical types of errors, one common pitfall can be the ‘weighting scales’ issue. This is where your essay takes a neutral position on a controversial topic. One way that I have overcome such an issue is to focus on how I write my essay. Ensuring that the body paragraphs and thesis statement take a stance is the best way to avoid this pitfall.
Of course, it can be important to present all of the sides of a controversial topic but often the aim of an essay is to convince the audience of the merits of one position over the other. Of course, there are times when this is not necessarily the aim of the essay, and instead, it is just to present a whole picture of the subject at hand. Here it may be useful to provide what is considered an avenue to navigating out from between the opposing positions.
Focusing now on the more technical pitfalls that writers can fall into, one common one is a failure to logically construct paragraphs. Here, some writers may provide a premise but infer a conclusion that does not derive from that premise. So, it is important to make sure the conclusion you have reached is linked directly to the claim or premise you have made earlier in the paragraph.
Related to poor paragraph structuring is the reliance on too many complex sentences that can become confusing if not deftly handled. Here, the writer might feel that they are creating depth in their writing but often it can lead to an incoherent argument. In order to avoid this, simply break up the sentences and link ideas more clearly.
Going in the other direction, another pitfall of essay writing can be of the polemic writer. This is where the author of the essay makes the position that they are taking very clear but goes too overboard in their argument. If passed on to a professional essay writing service, such an essay will be returned with feedback highlighting a complete lack of opposing arguments or mentions of different viewpoints. Do make sure to avoid this by effectively using your outline.
There are times when an essay can rely too heavily on quotes or descriptions provided by other authors. This can include, for example, using an already established position and simply providing validation without carrying out any analysis or interpretation of your own. It can be difficult to place your own opinions on a subject into writing, but an argumentative essay means doing exactly that.
Usually, the pitfall of relying too heavily on other work can be a result of including too many facts and simply describing them. One way to avoid this can be during the construction of your outline. When writing down the facts, try and quickly include into your outline any meaning you can derive from the facts. You can even try and link the various elements together later in the outline to achieve a similar result.
Finally, when writing up a conclusion to their essay, some writers may accidentally or inadvertently introduce new ideas or concepts. This can be a significant red flag because an essay conclusion should be very concise and only summarize what has already been presented. Always revisit this section once you have read over the entire body section of the essay to ensure this mistake is not made.
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