In term papers, bachelor's and master's theses, and even doctoral theses, certain structural, form and performance errors crop up again and again. We'll tell you ten of them that regularly make teachers tear their hair out. Most of them can be easily avoided and you will get a better grade.
#1 No common thread
At the beginning of every written work there is a question that needs to be examined - ideally using a logical structure and not a disjointed series of aspects. Information, paragraphs and chapters must be related; digressions find space in the footnotes. This keeps everything nice and clear and the common thread, the actual topic, is not lost.
#2 Paragraphs too short
Six paragraphs on one page with only two or three sentences each? Not a good idea! Because that tells the reader, i.e. the examiner: someone has only given marginal thought to this. The paragraph length rule of thumb is therefore: at least half a page, a maximum of three pages.
#3 Quote Salad
If you use a lot of direct quotes in your seminar paper or thesis, this may indicate that there is a lack of independent thoughts and conclusions or that they are being used to fill pages. So use quotations sparingly and only integrate them verbatim if you cannot express it more accurately yourself. Remember: Never let a quote speak for itself - comment on it either before or after.
#4 Foreign word after foreign word
It is of course important to use the technical terms of the respective course of study. However, anyone who tries to somehow accommodate every foreign word they have ever heard or read will lose credibility. The text appears stilted and often has the air of boasting without a foundation of knowledge - especially when the context and meaning do not match.
#5 Don't be selfish
The word “I” has no place in an academic paper, except in the preface. It is therefore better to use “man” or use phrases such as “in this bachelor’s thesis/master’s thesis/dissertation” to refer to your own work.
#6 Source – unknown
Absolutely important, regardless of whether it is a seminar paper or a thesis: always cite all your sources! Otherwise you run the risk of being suspected of plagiarism.
#7 Bibliography confusion
While we're on the topic of sources: Creating the bibliography is usually the last act before submission. However, it is advisable to write down at the end of the document which specialist literature you have already quoted from; This way you won't forget anyone when making corrections. Also make sure to provide all sources (and their individual information such as publisher and year of publication) in a consistent manner.
#8 Incomplete justification
Justification is common practice in scientific papers - but it also means that the spaces between words are not constant and large gaps often arise between individual words. To avoid this and not disrupt the flow of reading, you should activate (automatic) hyphenation.
#9 Incorrect punctuation
“For”, “photo’s” or “the physicist’s theory” – apostrophes are often used where they don’t belong at all. If an apostrophe is correct, it must look like this: "'" (9-form), and not like this: "`".
Spaces are often used incorrectly, for example “and/or”, or dashes and hyphens are confused. Dashes are long “–”, hyphens and hyphens are short “-”. There is a space before and after the dash, but not for hyphens and hyphens.
#10 Brevity is not always the best thing
Apart from common abbreviations in the bibliography, these should generally be avoided in the text. Also “e.g. B.” and “ua” are simply better received than “for example” and “among other things”.
If you are still not sure whether your seminar or thesis is correctly structured, formatted and corrected, you can also request professional support. Services that, for example, take over the editing of a bachelor's thesis will help you with these annoying tasks and help you get a better grade.
Do you have a written university paper coming up? Then be careful of the following careless mistakes.
