Academic writing is different from creative writing mostly because it’s formal. And although creativity is welcome in essay assignments, there are words and phrases that can cost you important marks if you use them in college assignments.
We know how hard writing essays can be, especially because you don’t have the opportunity to implement the elements of creative writing. Plus, it’s time and energy consuming because you have to do a lot of research, write a working thesis, build an outline, defend arguments, and have an impressive paper at the end of it all.
As challenging as essay writing can be, it’s not impossible. You can take your research and put it on the paper before the deadline elapse. However, the words you use to write is what will count towards enticing (convincing) your readers or boring them altogether.
To be clear, not words are useful in essay writing. While you can use idioms and self-made sayings and quotes in creative writing, essay writing requires a 100% forma approach. That’s why it’s important to avoid these words if you want your essays to read well.
Word to Avoid in Essay Writing
1. Contractions
By definition, contractions are a combination of words linked together with apostrophes. Since they shorten words, contractions tend to lower the number of words in written and spoken communication. As interesting as contractions sound when read verbally, they hardly have a place in formal academic writing. You can use them in college application essays to personalize your application, but they won’t be appropriate for other types of formal essays or research assignments.
Words such as “can’t” and “mustn’t” should not appear in your academic paper, even in the case where you have to write a persuasive essay in your own voice. You should write the words in full instead.
2. Personal Pronouns
Personal pronouns are okay for college admissions essays, persuasive essay writing, and opinion essays but bad for everything else in academic writing.
Take argumentative essay writing, for example. A writer must academically reflect on arguments that correspond with their opinions and be 100% free from personal feelings. Given that they have to speak facts, which are practically difficult to explain in first person pronouns, you should avoid using words such as “I” and “We” in the essay.
To be clear, academic essays must never sound subjective. An essay that sounds subjective tends to be full of bias and sounds more like a narrative paper. As such you should avoid using personal pronouns in an essay unless otherwise instructed to do so.
3. Rhetorical Questions
People read academic essays because they’re looking for answers to the questions that they have. So asking questions is an essay makes your writing irrelevant to a great degree.
Here’s why:
Every time you ask a rhetorical question in an essay, you shift the burden to answer from the writer (you) to the reader (your audience). Unfortunately, the question itself doesn’t add value because they don’t provide any clue, information, or explanation. Not to mention that they’re so much irritating that they tend to easily draw attention away from the essay.
Keep in mind that what might seem obvious to you won’t be so for someone reading your essay. So instead of filling your writing with questions that will otherwise disinterest your audience, use rhetorical statements.
4. Quotes
There’s nothing wrong with starting an essay with a quote provided it’s relevant to the issue under investigation. To make sure your readers understand the quotation, you have to explain what the quote means and its significance in the essay.
You can also end an essay with a quote provided it’s relevant to the topic.
The problem comes in when you don’t know exactly how to use quotes in the essay.
From an academic writing standpoint, you should never include a quote that you’ve made up yourself. If you must include a quote in your work, make sure it’s from a well-known author whose work is academic worthy.
Second, don’t just copy the quotation to your writing. Explain what it is about and demonstrate how it’s significant to the topic you’re investigating. Also, you have to reference the quote so that your professor knows where you found it.
While the idea of using quotes in your work may seem Interesting, it’s best to avoid them entirely. Unless you strongly believe there’s a need to include a quote from Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Donald Trump, Hemingway, or Obama in your work, stick to a tone that presents your personality and thoughts.
5. Passive Voice
You should not use passive voice in an essay for the simple reason that it weakens your writing. Given its kind of grammar construction, passive voice lacks reference to who the subject (or actor) is and can make your content difficult to consume.
Use active voice in essay writing. It will make your statements clear to your reader and therefore make your paper easy and interesting to read.
6. Vague Words
How often do you mention words such as bad, good, thing, stuff, and big? We believe these are words you use in every day talk. However, they’re not appropriate for essay writing because they tend to make your work sound vague and elementary.
Once you finish writing your essay, re-read it, highlight the most all the inappropriate words or phrases, and then replace them with synonyms and phrases accepted in academic writing.
7. Slang
We can’t deny that jargon, teen speak, and slang have taken root in the society. However, Buzzfeed’s style of writing isn’t something your teachers will appreciate. You need to train yourself to write and speak in a formal language, for the sake of your essay assignment at least. Leave slang to where it belongs and stick to formal writing instead.
8. Idioms
Aren’t idioms good for enriching written works? Well, they’re but are too informal to be appropriate in academic writing. Remember, academic writing must be formal. Any idiom you include in the article breaks that rule and ruins your chances of scoring good grades.