Writing essays can be a challenging task for many students. There are several common problems or difficulties that students often face when writing essays. Some of the major problems with writing essays include:
Lack of Understanding of the Essay Question or Subject Matter
Perhaps the biggest challenge in writing an essay is not understanding exactly what is being asked of you in the essay question. Students sometimes struggle because they do not fully comprehend the subject matter or key concepts related to the question. This leads to writing an essay that does not directly address or answer the question being asked. Students need to take time to carefully analyze the essay question, identify the key words or topics, and ensure they have a solid grasp of the subject matter before beginning to write. Failing to understand the question or lacking background knowledge of the topic area are major barriers to writing a high-quality, coherent essay.
Issues with Time Management and Procrastination
Many students struggle with properly managing their time when writing essays. It is all too easy to procrastinate, leaving essay writing until the last minute. Poor time management can negatively impact the quality of the work as students rush to complete the essay under pressure of a fast-approaching due date. Last minute writing does not allow for important steps like research, proper planning and outline development, careful writing and composition, proofreading, and revision. Proper time allocation is crucial – students must realistically assess how long each section will take and build in sufficient time for planning, drafting, reviewing and polishing their work.
Difficulty Starting and Organizing Ideas
Once students understand the essay question and have a basic grasp of the subject matter and timeline, the next challenge is often how to start writing and organize their ideas in a logical manner. Some find it difficult to generate a thesis statement or main idea to focus their essay around. Others struggle with determining what information or content should go in each paragraph and section. Without a clear structure and outline, essays often lack flow and coherence. Developing and adhering to a detailed outline is key to staying organized and writing in a progression that leads the reader sequentially through the main argument or discussion.
Inability to Support Claims with Evidence
Essays are meant to develop and support an argument or position by providing credible facts, examples, data and analysis to substantiate claims and draw logical conclusions. Many students have difficulties effectively backing up what they write. Some provide statements without any form of evidence at all. Others struggle to find high-quality, academic sources to integrate seamlessly. Lack of appropriate, well-explained evidence to validate key points made throughout the essay can undermine its strength significantly. Students need to learn how to substantiate what they write by conducting proper research and citing sources correctly to strengthen their analysis and arguments.
Difficulty Maintaining Formal Academic Style
Switching between everyday writing and formal academic writing can pose challenges for many students. Essays demand a higher level of formality in style, structure, vocabulary and tone compared to casual writing. Some have trouble maintaining consistent use of proper grammar, punctuation, syntax and an objective, impersonal writing voice. Problems like overuse of contractions, “I” statements or phrases and informal language or terminology can undermine the professional quality of academic essays. Students need to learn what is considered appropriate style for various assignment types and levels of study to communicate effectively in a polished, academic register.
Issues with Length Requirements and Word Count
Meeting specific length or word count guidelines for essays is problematic for some. Writing concisely to hit short length targets or developing ideas in sufficient depth to satisfy higher count requirements takes practice. Students must know how to effectively utilize various composition techniques like containing sufficient arguments and evidence, adding proper analysis and commentary, incorporating additional sources, or using complete multi-clause sentences to fully cover all aspects of the question within the parameters. Formatting issues arising from not adhering to length specifications, going over or under the designated count can affect essay quality and grades.
Problems Integrating and Citing Sources Accurately
Limited skills in conducting library research and unfamiliarity with standards for academic integrity hinder some students’ ability to appropriately incorporate and attribute external sources within essays. Plagiarism risks arising from improperly cited or uncited copying of source content are genuine concerns. Students may also struggle to seamlessly blend research findings with their own writing to strengthen rather than disrupt essay flow. Acquiring the technical ability to use in-text citations and reference pages correctly takes dedicated practice, as does learning to paraphrase properly rather than replicate verbatim source phrasing. Mastering these skills allows for enhanced credibility and original analysis within essay responses.
Difficulty Reviewing, Editing and Proofreading
Even after completing the initial writing and meeting other specifications, essays often require meticulous polishing through reviewing, editing and proofreading stages. Some students submit first draft quality work without sufficient refinement, containing grammatical errors, typos, factual inaccuracies, logical inconsistencies or other issues a careful proofreading could have detected and fixed. Overlooking opportunities to enhance word choice, sentence structure, organization, argument coherence or other areas means essays miss out on achieving their fullest potential. Students must learn to distance themselves from their own writing to effectively proofread and refine work before submission.
Conquering challenges of time management, writing structure, incorporating evidence, meeting formatting standards, citing sources and proofreading takes ongoing practice across many essay assignments over time. Students who can recognize common essay writing pitfalls gain insight into areas needing focused skill-building. With dedicated effort, addressing problem areas incrementally delivers steady improvement in essay competence leading to stronger analysis, arguments and higher evaluation. While essays pose inherent difficulties, applying strategies to overcome problems equips students for lifelong academic and workplace writing success.
Andrew Stroud