The No. 1 Research Paper Writing Mistake You’re Making (and How to fix it)

University professors often complain when their students turn up research papers riddled with mistakes. While some students fail to follow the paper guidelines, others do not pay attention to their language and mess up the entire meaning of their papers. This leads to poor feedback, which ultimately forces college students to depend on writing services like MyEssayWriting. There is absolutely no restriction in outsourcing research papers, but if you are a student who has ever thought of correcting your mistakes, then you should pay attention.

You may have already read about mistakes related to editing, diction, verb tenses, etc. But, today, we are going to discuss the number one mistake that students make (on a global level) that reduces the quality and appeal of their entire research paper. In addition to that, we will also learn few quick ways as to how you can avoid making this mistake.

What is the #1 Research Paper Writing Mistake?

In two words: factual inaccuracy. To be more elaborate, the lack of fact-checking is considered as the number one mistake that students make while writing a research paper. It may not sound like a big deal to you – as a high school or college student – but, outside these circles, it can put you in a pickle.

Instances of factual inaccuracy first came into light when more and more students began quoting Wikipedia, the infamous online encyclopedia, in their essays and research papers. All the content in the platform is generated by users, which makes unsuitable for use in research papers. The content on Wikipedia is not only unverified but sometimes can also be promotional in nature. Use of such unreliable online sources can affect the authenticity of your paper.

Although students have today found workarounds to this mistake, it is still one of the most challenging hurdles that they face. As a student, you can use the following tips to make sure that the content you use for your research paper is verified, reliable, and suitable.

Quick Tips to Fix Improve Factual Accuracy of Your Paper

Dig Deeper During the Research Phase

The best way to fact-check your sources is to dig deeper while you are researching your topic. For example, if your topic is about a certain period in history, you can consider articles published on reliable publications like The New York Times or The Washington Post to name a few. What you do after referring these articles is crucial: check the sources cited by these articles. As you connect the sources from one article to another, you will be able to collect more information and get in-depth insight into the topic. It’s like playing Chinese Whisper in a reverse fashion and getting maximum information from the original source.

If you have to refer Wikipedia – which is an easy source – instead of referring the content, you can check out the references used to create the content. Since Wikipedia allows the use of only reliable sources, you will be better off referring these sources than the Wikipedia article itself.

Go Offline

The advent of the internet has pushed this practice under the carpet. Today, only a tiny fraction of students use offline resources like magazines, books, and journals for research purposes. The ease and convenience provided by internet sources like Wikipedia have made the use of libraries a practice of the previous century.

Experts, however, still reiterate the benefits of using books and journals. There is so much recorded content available in libraries, but students choose to take the easy way out. Only when students understand the importance of research and take it seriously can they create top-quality papers.

A mix of offline and online resources is ideally recommended.

Check Each Event Separately

If you have created a paper that deals with different events, you must check the accuracy of them individually. The best way to go about this is to Google the specific event and then look for reliable sources. Do the content in these sources match the content you have created? If yes, then you have nothing to worry about.

However, if the answer to that question is negative, you may have to edit the entire content related to the event. It can also affect the remaining part of your paper. Hence, it is crucial that you cross-check events from multiple sources. You can make use of your college library for this purpose. It is likely that the librarian knows something about the topic if it’s popular enough.

Checking the facts stated in your research paper is absolutely necessary – both from writer’s and reader’s perspectives. A well-research paper improves the authority of the author of the paper (you) and gives the audience (your readers) a reason to take your paper seriously. As a student, you may not consider this a big deal, but can be an important lesson for your professional life.

The research world is extremely particular about factual accuracy and plagiarism, and you don’t want to start out with a paper that is infested with mistakes.