Common Student Mistakes
Ten faults, each with a remedy you can apply to your next essay rather than to your next year.
The ten faults
1. Narrative instead of argument
The fault: paragraphs that report what happens.
The test: does each paragraph open with a claim or with an event?
The remedy: rewrite only the first sentence of each paragraph so that it makes a claim. Everything after it usually improves on its own.
2. Device-spotting
The fault: a technique named, quoted, and then abandoned.
The remedy: after every technique you name, write a sentence beginning "The effect of this is…". Do it every time until the habit forms.
3. No thesis
The fault: an introduction that announces a topic rather than taking a position.
The test: could an intelligent reader who knows the text disagree with your opening claim? If not, it is not a thesis.
The remedy: write the answer to the question as one sentence before you begin, and make it the last line of your introduction.
4. The prepared essay
The fault: a memorised answer delivered whatever is asked.
The remedy: after each paragraph, glance at the question. If the paragraph does not serve it, it is costing you marks even if it is good.
Note: examiners recognise prepared material immediately, and it is penalised more heavily at A/L than at O/L.
5. No engagement with objections
The fault: an argument that never meets resistance and therefore reads as unconsidered.
The remedy: one paragraph, or one sentence per paragraph, beginning "It would be possible to read this as… but…"
6. Invented material
The fault: a half-remembered quotation written as exact; a critic's name attached to a view; a date or biographical fact supplied from nowhere.
Why it matters more than you think: an examiner who catches one invented detail doubts everything else you have written.
The remedy: if you cannot recall a quotation exactly, refer to the moment instead. When she refuses the money at the station is honest and gains credit. And it has often been argued that… is always safer than a name you are not sure of.
7. Theory instead of reading
The fault: announcing a critical approach and fitting the text to it.
The remedy: start from something you noticed in the text, then ask which questions explain it. Theory earns its place by opening a reading, never by replacing one. See Literary Theory.
8. Quoting too much
The fault: long quotations filling the page with someone else's words.
The remedy: cut every quotation to ten words or fewer. If a point needs more, it usually needs two short quotations rather than one long one.
9. Ignoring structure
The fault: treating every part of a text as equally weighted, and never mentioning where something occurs.
The remedy: include at least one observation per essay about placing, order, proportion or form. That this occurs before we have met the daughter means that… Structural comments are rare and disproportionately rewarded.
10. Conclusions that summarise
The fault: In conclusion, I have discussed the points above.
The remedy: a conclusion must contain something the introduction did not — the judgement you reached by writing the essay. If your conclusion could have been written before the essay, rewrite it.
The diagnostic exercise
Take your last marked essay and do these three things.
This takes half an hour and will tell you more about your Literature mark than any amount of further reading.
- Cross out every sentence that only says what happens. What remains is your actual answer. Its length usually explains your mark.
- Count the sentences that mention a reader, an audience or an effect. If there are fewer than one per paragraph, that is your first priority.
- Look for the sentence where you meet an objection. If there is none, that is your second priority.