Writing Term Papers: Top 6 Transgressions Students Commit
Inasmuch as term papers need logic and scientific reasoning to make them credible, another factor that plays a crucial role in these scholastic writings is the author’s style. Whereas reason is the heart of a good term paper, style serves to communicate to the readers what the author is trying to say. No matter how great the students’ ideas are for their term papers, if they cannot convey these ideas effectively in the way that they write all is for naught. Hence, students must strike a good balance between substance and style.
To help students improve their writing skills, here are the top stylistic transgressions they must avoid:
• Run-on Sentences
An oft-committed mistake, run-on sentences are awkward fusions and improper connections of statements. To avoid them, students can use semicolon when connecting two independent clauses. Also, the use of transitional devices such as however, nonetheless, furthermore and others is a good strategy to avoid run-on sentences.
• Fragments
As an academic paper, professors expect students to use a formal tone and diction for their papers. Thus, when writing their term papers, students should make sure that they write statements and not mere fragments. The difference between a statement and a sentence fragment is that the latter cannot stand alone.
• Subject-Verb Agreement
The crux of all grammar lessons, subject verb agreement is the no.1 problem of professors. In their hurry to write their term papers, students often wreak havoc to the English language. Hence, they should make it a point to ensure that the singular subject goes with a singular verb and the plural subject goes with a plural verb.
• Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement
Albeit not as prevalent as the subject verb agreement, the pronoun antecedent agreement also creates mayhem in term papers. Students should remember that masculine names entail masculine pronouns, feminine names entail feminine pronouns, singular subjects require singular pronouns and plural subjects require plural pronouns.
• Consistency of Tense
Apart from the issues on agreement, consistency is also a prevalent transgression. Students often shift their tenses from past to present. This practice tends to confuse the readers. As a rule, when students use the present tense let this be the consistent verb tense, unless they have good reason to shift to the past tense.
• Parallelism
In writing term papers, students should bear in mind the stylistic importance of parallel construction. For instance, use to dance, to sing, to act rather than to dance, singing, and acting. The first example utilizes parallel infinitive construction rather than combining infinitives and gerunds.
To avoid these stylistic and grammatical lapses, it is important that students proofread their term papers before submitting them. This way, they can double check their papers for the aforementioned errors as well as for typographical ones. Thorough proofreading increases the students’ chances of getting a higher mark.