COMMON ERRORS

  Common Exam Errors  | Common Essay Errors

Common Exam Errors

Map Questions:

• misplacement of desired location
• misunderstanding of question  
• insufficient study of map locations

Short Identifications :

• lack of specific enough date or incorrect date
• absent  place/geographic location for the term
• inadequate explanation of term
• insufficient explanation of its historical significance:  why the term is important.  How does it affect us today;  how did it affect people in the past?  
• answering the incorrect number of I.D.'s

Exam Essays:  

• lack of introduction or conclusion
• incoherent paragraphs
• insufficient proper names, dates and details
• missing a topic/section of relevant information
• inadequate depth of information
• misunderstanding of question
• written like an outline

Common Essay/Written Assignment Errors

Try to avoid these mistakes which students make too often:  

Format (not following guidelines listed in the syllabus, handouts or the paper presentation guide) has:  

• too large margins.
• too large typeface/font or not properly double-spacing (except for citations and bibliography).
• too faint ink/non-black ink.
• no title page.
• insufficient info on title page (e.g. no class section/time).
• no staple.
• no page numbers (or in incorrect location).  Every page, except the title page, should have its appropriate number in the upper right corner. 
• smudges, stains, tears, folds on paper.
• headings or sub-headings.
• extra spaces between paragraphs (more than just standard double-spacing).
• no underlining/italicizing for titles of books, journals or movies.
• "titles of articles" without quotation marks.
• a citation format other than Chicago Manual of Style/Turabian footnote/bibliography guidelines (no superscripted numbers;  incorrect punctuation;  insufficient data). Be sure to end citations with a period.

Introduction:

• begins paper with "The topic I have chosen...," "In this paper I will ...," or something similar.  Such phrases are trite and repetitive.  Likewise poor is to begin a paragraph in a biography with "She was born...."  As a topic sentence such would imply the entire paragraph is about the person's birth, whereas usually it is about the person's early years.
• jumps abruptly into topic.
• does not present clear thesis statement in one sentence.
• does not outline plan or structure.
• has more than one introductory paragraph.
• lacks transition from introduction to first content paragraph.

General Style has:

• inadequate or absent topic sentences.
• overuse of rhetorical or actual questions.
• misuse of homonyms (e.g. to/too/two, their/there, weather/whether, throne/thrown, know/no, sight/cite/site, marry/merry/Mary).  Spell checkers will not catch these.  
• contractions (e.g. doesn't, isn't).
• the dreaded it's:  This is doubly dastardly:  "it's" is actually a contraction of "it is," and therefore it is forbidden in a formal style.  Yet people often mistakenly use it's as the possessive form of "it."  Such is incorrect:  the proper possessive form of "it" is "its" (with no apostrophe, similar to his or hers).

Content, where the writer:  

• claims that "History states...."  "History" is not a person.  Historians research and write up the information for history papers.  You should provide their names.  
• does not cite enough sources.  Especially, every time you write something like "Historians describe/say/believe/state/assert, etc." you need a source!  Cite the documents which or historian(s) who provided your information.  
• asserts fact for opinion, especially when unsupported by source citation. How does the instructor know that YOU really know specific historical material, unless you cite it?
• fails to properly cite quote, opinion, or information not of common knowledge.
• lacks clear thesis statement or argument.
• uses no description of main points used in argument.
• confuses minor issues with major ones.  Don't overemphasize insignificant points as if they were important ones. 
• uses unnecessary content notes:  in a short student papers notes should refer to sources, and not have close, detailed explanations.
• includes no summary or conclusion.
• does not consult enough sources (such as tertiary sources (encyclopedias and handbooks)  instead of secondary sources (specific books and articles by professional historians)).

Citations have:  

• no period at end of note.
• too much information or multiple references drawn from the same source.  On second citations from the same source, only the author's last name and page number is usually necessary.
• no citation of what is not general knowledge, especially quotes and statistics.
• ibid, op.cit. or other no-longer-used Latin abbreviations.
• unnecessary spaces between footnotes
• punctuation not appropriate to Chicago Manual of Style/Turabian format.

Bibliography:  

• is not on last page.
• is not arranged alphabetically by author's last name (do not number them).
• is not single spaced.
• lacks sufficient number of sources.
• contains the wrong kinds of sources (consider primary, secondary, tertiary or printed vs. internet, as instructed) or lack of variety in them.
• does not provide enough information (e.g. places, dates).
• has punctuation not appropriate to Chicago Manual of Style/Turabian format.

  Common Exam Errors | Common Essay Errors

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URL: http://departments.kings.edu/history/pavlac/errors.html Copyright © MMV by Brian A. Pavlac Last Revision: 24 October 2005