Do's and Dont's of Essay Writing and the Students’ Writing Skills

Writing an essay is all about following certain steps on how to choose a topic and which structure to stick to. All the students that have written at least one essay are familiar with most of the do's and dont's of essay writing.

These do's and dont's of essay writing guide them in such details as preparing an outline for the essay or collecting research material. Moreover, do's and dont's of essay writing help students to avoid plagiarism and submit a solid piece of writing in time.

Do's and dont's of essay writing: pros and cons

The existing do's and dont's of essay writing serve as proper guidelines for writing an essay. However, they themselves have their own advantages and disadvantages. The former include:

1. Do's and dont's of essay writing allow the students shape their ideas into well-structured essays.
2. They help the students avoid the most common mistakes. Such mistakes may include inappropriate essay structure, insufficient or improper use of sources, or simply submitting an essay written by hand.

Despite these benefits, do's and dont's of essay writing may have a negative effect on students’ writing:

• Do's and dont's of essay writing restrict the students’ possibilities. The students are guided by a limited set of rules, which has a negative effect on their creativity. The students become more oriented towards keeping to a definite structure, rather than towards expressing their ideas.
• Do's and dont's of essay writing affect students’ individualism. Since the ideas to use are predetermined by the essay structure, they are similar for all the students’ essays, which deprives them of individualism.

This shows that do's and dont's of essay writing may be not only helpful for students, but harmful as well.