Five (Bad) Essay Writing Habits You Need to Break

Ever wonder why you always perform mediocre in your essay writing tests? Despite putting a lot of effort, are you still struggling to compete with your classmates? Well no more. While some people are good at producing great pieces of written work, some are simply not good at all. But fortunately, writing is a skill rather than an art. It is not a natural gift but a craft that comes with practice.

There are ample of writers who always make mistakes while being unaware. The problem is common among amateur writers. But sometimes even the most experienced ones can do blunders without knowing where they are falling short.

Hence, we are going to discuss five bad habits in your writing that you need to break. You will need a lot of practice to let go of your old fashion. However, once you are acquainted with these tricks, you can make yourself stand out among other writers.

Imitating the Ancestors:

Students read a lot of classics in their academic life. They are always told that these classics are the best writings ever produced. That is why they try to imitate these writers like Shakespeare, Hardy, Milton, and Chaucer, etc.

Imitating these writers is a habit you need to let go of. Not because they were not good. Actually they were exceptional. But it does not change the fact that they lived in a different era of history than us. Since then, the language has developed a lot and people are no more familiar in their common life with the style they used.

Moreover, this imitation disconnects you with a huge audience of current times that you could inspire otherwise. Read modern writers like J. K. Rowling (Harry Potter) and George R. R. Martin (A Song of Ice and Fire). This will help you learn how you can engage the modern audience with your writing style.

Writing Long Paragraphs:

There was a time when long paragraphs were considered a sign of the writer’s mastery over language. Classics are full of these long paragraphs and sentences.

However, fashion has changed in modern times. Short paragraphs are a new trend. People nowadays don’t like to read the whole essays. Instead, they skim through it. Their eyes only search for the ideas they are looking for, especially if they are reading something on the web.

A paragraph more than 3 to 4 sentences are usually neglected by a reader. In fact, sometimes a paragraph only contains one sentence to emphasize an idea.

Using Weak Adjectives:

One aspect of strong writing is using proper adjectives. It is imperative that you use strong adjectives when describing nouns and pronouns.

For example:

                You can use “filthy” instead of “dirty”.

                You can use “worn-out” or “drained” instead of “tired”.  

Furthermore, avoid using “really” and “very” to emphasize weak adjectives. For instance:

                Really good can be replaced by great or awesome.

                Really bad can be replaced by terrible.

Using Unnecessary Words:

This is the habit that is reported the most, especially in amateur writings. Why waste a lot of words when the message can be communicated without them. Unnecessary words in a sentence make your writing boring and the structure of the sentence is ruined.

Moreover, the conciseness of your speech can keep the reader interested in your piece of writing. Otherwise, they will just vanish without getting to the end.

For example:

“Due to the fact that people have become busy” can be said like this: “because people have become busy.”

Avoid Grammatical Expletives:

Grammatical expletives are the sentences that begin by words like, it or there. They are generally followed by a “to be” form of the verb. Using expletives shifts the emphasis from your main subject to these words and your writing becomes weaker.

For example:

                “There are some races in the world who consider themselves superior to others.”

When you remove expletives, the sentence becomes proper like this:

                “Some races in the world consider themselves superior…”

These simple, yet big mistakes in your writing can make a good subject matter seem boring. Whether you have to do essay writing or any other genre of creative writing, avoiding these mistakes will improve your skills and make you a better writer.

You can also give a little time and search for these problems if you have used an essay writing service because most of the time when we hire someone to write our essays we don’t usually pay attention that how it is written we just go on to submit it. Which is for sure not a good option.