If you're in your first year of college, the thought of writing your first college term paper may fill you with dread, even if you aced the term papers you wrote in high school. College students are held to higher standards, after all. But sometimes, knowing what not to do can help. Here are some of the more common mistakes college students make with term papers. Avoid these and you'll probably do just fine.
Mistake 1: Never speaking to your professor. Professors are human, and they like it when students are interested, even if their interest is primarily in getting the grade and moving on. If you ask questions about stuff you don't understand, you'll save lots of time wondering about it and show your teacher that you're invested in their class.
Mistake 2: Not making an effort to learn the material. If you need to make a decent grade in a class you don't have a lot of interest in, it's OK. There's such a thing as learning it "well enough." But that's not the same thing as blowing off assignments, missing class, and totally not making an effort.
Mistake 3: Not giving yourself a chance. You have your term paper topic, and it's not totally alien, but not something you're familiar with. What horrible thing would happen if you wrote up an outline based on what you think you know about the topic? You might find that you actually do know something about the topic, or that you have an interesting take on it.
Mistake 4: Not using a spell / grammar checker. Just about very word processing program has them, and if yours doesn't, they exist online for free. There's just no excuse for poor spelling and blindingly bad grammar. Closely related is the boneheaded move of not backing up your paper on a flash drive, data card, or online storage (or a combination of these).
Mistake 5: Waiting until the last minute. OK, everyone will have the occasional day when they don't get anything done, or when all their plans for studying fall apart. But pacing yourself throughout the term is the key to getting things done with the least amount of overall stress. Plus, waiting till the last minute almost always results in stupid mistakes that you could easily have avoided had you started earlier (like putting references in the wrong format).
Mistake 6: Passing off someone else's work as your own. Cite your references, and never plagiarize. Professors know how to use the internet too, and if they find you've lifted your content, you'll probably automatically fail the course. If you had written the assignment yourself, you probably would have made a passing grade, even if it wasn't your best effort.
Mistake 7: Missing the deadline. Most professors will deduct at least a letter grade for every day an assignment is late. That's a very expensive day off.
Most of the things you should avoid when writing a college term paper are related to laziness, so by simply not slacking off, you can probably get a passing grade, maybe better. Your professor isn't asking the impossible. Just tackle it a little at a time and ask for help when you need it and you'll do fine.
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