Students at seats of higher learning are regularly called upon to submit essays, dissertations and theses during the course of their academic careers. They are expected to conduct research, gather data, argue and prove their theories or explain their experiments and so on. It often happens that even bright students, who do not find this part of the assignment particularly difficult, face a stumbling block when they are confronted by the need to put all their findings into a coherent and well written academic paper for submission to their instructor.
The primary reason for this is that the median age of undergraduates is below 25 years. They are relatively young and still learning the art of writing, which requires a lengthy period of training for acquiring the requisite proficiency in those skills needed to turn out well written documents. While this is a process that could in theory be accelerated, in practice it is unusual to find too many such instances. By way of comparison, the median age of professional editors is likely to be around 45 years and these people will in all likelihood boast higher qualifications and possess much better writing skills. They will have an additional 15 - 25 years of writing experience compared to the students and be adept at editing documents due to constant practice. Therefore, it is almost inevitable that when a student's essay is reviewed, edited and corrected by a professional editor, it will be transformed into a significantly improved document. Naturally, this is bound to make a better impression on the person correcting it, resulting in higher marks. A 'C' grade could become a 'B' and a 'B' could change into a straight 'A'.
Whereas there is much scope for making some real improvements to an academic paper by an editing and proofreading service, the primary responsibility for creating the draft of this document rests with the student. It is up to him to discuss and present the subject matter of his paper complete with all details so that the editor can do his part of the work, usually by correcting the vast repertory of writing mistakes that the English language makes possible, and which are likely to have been made by the student, followed by refining the composition and delivery. In other words, the student has to transcribe the substance of the essay in a comprehensive manner while the editor will focus on correcting language errors and improving the comprehensibility. The editing will always be followed by proofreading to eliminate any typographical errors.
For his part, the student should have a clear idea of what is expected of him. Then he needs to work out the steps required to accomplish the task satisfactorily. To do this, it is important that he strives to think clearly. Clear thinking does not come automatically to all students and one of the primary goals of a university education is to train students to become clear thinkers. Setting written assignments is partly intended to achieve this. If the student has to answer a question then he needs to first understand the question perfectly. If he has to argue something, he has to get his facts and his line of reasoning correct. He must research the subject and while doing so keep a careful record of all the citations he would be using. The academic institutions use various citation guidelines, of which the most commonly used ones are those of the MLA, APA and the Chicago Manual of Style.
The paper should start off with an introduction that provides an overview of the main topic of the essay and a statement of what the student is trying to prove. The main body of the essay will follow next. The surest way to get this right and come up with a fundamentally sound, coherently written work would be to base it on a sensible and neatly arranged outline. The student may need to spend several hours working on this but it would be time well spent. Completing the assignment would then simply be a matter of expanding on the outline and filling in the details without having to worry further about the basic structure the document. Having to keep on restructuring repeatedly while composing an essay can be very frustrating and cause considerable delays. Therefore, drawing a clear outline before starting to write in earnest will save a lot of time and effort. Plenty of resources are available on the Internet on the topic of preparing outlines for academic essays and research papers. Reading through this material will give the student a shrewd idea as to how to set about and tackle this crucial task that would have a great bearing on the scholarly character of the work.
Every paragraph in the main body of the essay should be devoted to just one topic and the transition from one paragraph to the next one should be smooth to maintain the continuity. If it is necessary to move from one major topic to another major topic, the sections should be separated by headings to avoid any jarring effect on the reader. It is also important to make sure that all arguments are presented logically and clearly, supported by evidence as necessary, so as to lend them credence. Multiple reasons and examples must be adduced to reinforce every point that the student wishes to put across. The less persuasive argument must be mentioned first and the most compelling one presented last, in each case. The editing service may be able to refine the wording of the arguments, but the student must lay the proper groundwork for this, as the editor would need something to go on.
When entering footnotes and listing the works cited, it is important to enter the author names and other details correctly. For instance, some names are spelt in different ways. The editing service may not be able to correct mistakes like these as there are literally thousands of authors and hundreds of publishing houses. Many of them have unique names, so the editor might be able to correct only those errors relating to citation style. Any misspelt proper nouns here will not escape the eyes of the person marking the paper though, because he will be thoroughly familiar with the course material! Remember, while it is permissible to borrow some material from the works of others, it is absolutely essential to cite the sources and give credit wherever it is due. Some people consider plagiarism to be the eighth deadly sin!
The essay should end with a clear, well stated conclusion that summarizes the arguments and the evidence provided in support of same.
It can be confidently stated that if a student adopts an intelligent and honest approach, he will be able to tackle any assignment effectively and submit a really good academic paper to his instructor, well before the deadline. He can then be assured of receiving better grades, but it would certainly help his cause very much, if he obtains a little help from a professional editing and proofreading service.
Academic Papers
Essays Market
No comments:
Post a Comment