Writing an academic paper is different from other forms of writing. It requires patience, knowledge, and understanding of proper sentence construction. In addition, it should be informative, fine-tuned, and properly structured. As a student, most of you must be aware of all the mentioned elements, yet you make some dramatic mistakes that can take down the entire value of your paper.
If you are a student or researcher who is going to write an academic essay or research paper, you need to be aware of some bad habits and try to avoid them. So let us look into some bad habits you must avoid in academic writing.
Unnecessary usage of lengthy and complex sentences
When you wring an academic essay or research paper, clarity in sentence structure is vital. The sentence should be crisp and concise. But many students tend to use long sentences to make it look professional, making it very dull and challenging for the readers to understand. In addition, they use excessive conjunction and jargon to complete the sentence appealing.
Writers need to understand that complex and challenging words do not make your academic writing look professional and high-quality. Instead, excellent writing will use simple sentences and phrases to communicate with the audience. So, try to use simple sentences as much as possible. Also, try using subheadings to make it easy for the audience to understand.
Excessive usage of passive voice
One of the most common things most writers do is overuse passive voice. Passive voice makes a sentence complex and challenging to understand. In academic writing, the most important element is clarity. However, using excessive passive voice makes the sentence complicated, and it might lose its purpose.
Centering your research based on Wikipedia
The fundamental component of good academic research is solid research. But students and researchers sometimes gather information from Wikipedia to write academic papers. When you search for a specific topic in Google, the first page that will come up for most search queries will be the Wikipedia page. Even though this is the first site that pops up, we cannot consider Wikipedia an authentic resource. Anyone can make an edit on these pages, making them less of a scholarly resource. Instead, you can use the sites like Google scholar, where we can see research papers and articles published by scholars in the field.
Plagiarism
You need to avoid plagiarism at any cost, as it is against academic guidelines. Plagiarism refers to stealing someone’s work, idea, thought, or expression and writing it as your own. If your academic paper is found to be plagiarized, your paper will indeed get rejected, and it can affect your academic career in a bad way. In some cases, your paper will be subjected to fines and even imprisonment. So, ensure you cite every source from which you got the information or idea. Cite using the academic guidelines followed by your university. Understand that, as a writer, originality is essential.
While doing an academic paper, make sure to avoid these mistakes or just use best essay writing sites.