The errors that students make in their academic papers are not the same and shouldn't be treated equally. One type of error is structural and systemic; these "big" errors can't be easily fixed as they require a lot of time and energy to fix, and it is best to avoid making them in the first place.
The errors that students make in their academic papers are not the same and shouldn't be treated equally. One type of error is structural and systemic; these "big" errors can't be easily fixed as they require a lot of time and energy to fix, and it is best to avoid making them in the first place. The second type of error is grammatical, stylistic, and mechanical; these are easier to fix than "big" errors as they are the "little" errors or "not-so-big" errors. There are different types of mistakes that students tend to make while writing their academic papers, from relatively typical research papers to literature reviews, integrative reviews, and drafts of Master's theses and PhD dissertations.
In fact, "big" and "little" errors persist into professional writing as well; professors and researchers who submit their papers to be published in academic journals also make variations of the "big" and "little" errors (at least I do). There is no context in which academic life is free of writing and judgment. In this article and in those that follow, I provide an overview of some of the "big" and "little" errors that permeate students' academic papers.
It should be noted that errors are not randomly distributed. "Big" errors occur in particular locations within journal articles; little errors occur in clusters and repeat throughout a paper. The table below lists some of the notable "big" errors that students tend to make in their academic papers (The background on which HAMNIC Solutions was built). The table below lists some of the notable big errors that students tend to make in their academic papers.
You may or may not have made these errors yourself, but my guess is that you probably have. Though the names attached to the erroneous practices are unique, the various errors - big and little - are already well-known to writing skills teachers. For instance, according to Redman and Maples (2011), the "poor structure" and "poor use of social scientific skills like handling theory and evidence" are rather common, as is lack of clarity and faulty organization. While almost all writing books agree that poor grammar and language are their pet peeves, even the errors they describe, along with the big errors mentioned in the shared table, suggest that structural errors differ from grammar errors.
For instance, "beating one horse" (BHP) describes the practice of discussing one author throughout the course of one paragraph. This error affects the rest of the paragraphs in ecological ways. An example of a BHP looks like the excerpt shown below when represented as a block of text:
Excerpt #1: Smith (2009) states that killing is wrong. Smith (2009) asserts that using a firearm to kill another person is punishable by death. Some claim that the death penalty and killing are wrong (Smith, 2009), even if it is done by the state. One could claim that the death penalty is wrong (Smith, 2009).
If instructors ask forth year and graduate students if they have ever written paragraphs that look like excerpt 1, about nine out of ten students will raise their hands. Anyone who has not raised their hand is not telling the truth.
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