Dos and Don'ts of College Essay Writing: a Quick Guide

College essay and term paper writing can be challenging. You want to hand in a piece that is not only extremely informed and well written, but highly engaging to your reader as well. You also want the paper to be as error free as possible so that you can receive the highest of the high grades, an A, right? With these simple dos and don’ts you should make an A++ on your next submission.

Don’t Be Afraid to Be Original and Creative

Taking chances is key in creativity. Do not be afraid to employ some humor and to make your essay highly engaging to your reader. The last thing you want even a college term paper to be is EXTREMELY boring, right. Now, unless you are writing a very clinical research paper, which, by their nature are more serious, and if this is more of a memorable experience, a compare and contrast or an argumentative/persuasive paper, there is room for lots of creativity.

Do Get A Creative Title

I cannot write an essay until I have that perfect title. And coming up with a perfect title is a great way to get motivated about a paper—it makes you want to fill in that blank space underneath with really interesting content. For example, in a paper about dolphin communication, you might consider something like “Did you Hear What That Dolphin Just Said? The Other Dolphin Did! Or something playful like that.

See, a creative title lets your teacher know that you were excited enough about this project to actually put some thought into it. It also evidences an enthusiasm about the project that cannot be denied.

Don’t Over Depend On Spelling and Grammar Checkers

Spelling checkers and grammar checkers are undependable—highly undependable. I have a perfect knowledge of commas and grammar check tries to wrongly tell me to change things all the time that do not really need changed. Likewise, spell check is not completely dependable. You might have spelled a word right but you accidentally typed to wrong word. Only you can catch an error like that through really strong editing skills.

Do Revise Like Crazy

Revision on any paper is when the magic happens and it is when you will have some of your best, most inventive ideas, about how to improve the work. Never neglect this important step.