Term Paper Writing Guide: do not do This
Students preparing to write their first or one of many term (research) papers should always take the time to prepare. Even though writing a term paper isn't as difficult as it seems, writing a convincing and concise paper should be approached carefully.
That said, students should take the time to do their best on their term paper. There are many resources that effectively convey what students should do when writing their paper. Properly cited research, effective writing and convincing arguments are hallmarks of a good term paper. What about what students shouldn't do when writing a term paper?
When writing a term paper... do not do this!
Many students learn the hard way about writing term papers on their own. In order to learn how to write a good term paper, students should pay attention to what they need to avoid. Here's a look at some things students should avoid when writing a term paper.
- Don't misrepresent yourself or your main point. An inaccurate stance presents a rather dishonest viewpoint to the readers. Don't make the readers feel like they can't trust your word.
- Don't include information that doesn't effectively answer the paper's question. Extraneous information that doesn't answer questions can make a term paper more confusing than it needs to be.
- Don't pad the length of your term paper. Term papers should answer its main questions without having to pad the body of the work. Only relevant information should be included in a term paper to prevent this.
- Don't reveal information that's irrelevant to your research. Information that doesn't fit the body of the work at all, such as if it's incomplete or not relevant, should be omitted from a term paper.
- Don't exceed the recommended word count for the term paper. Self explanatory. Oftentimes, the instructor has a reason to keep the word count for a term paper at a certain threshold.
- Don't generalize your work. It's easy to generalize the information presented in a term paper, though a term paper isn't the right place to do that. Having that many generalization can give the impression that you don't have much to argue.
- Don't bend information to fit your arguments. While some information will fit your arguments, you shouldn't twist existing information to do that for your work.
- Don't forget to provide proper references for your supporting research materials and other information. Again, this is self explanatory. All of your work should be properly cited and credited to their respective resources.
- Don't cite unreliable resources. Websites that don't support concrete resources shouldn't be cited in a term paper, as they usually allow visitors to edit the data there, causing inconsistencies. Always cite reliable and reputable resources in your term paper.