These are the first 3 common mistakes in writing. Why 3? at least the number was taken from the latest Referrat class in geology.
- Lack of motivation. From the situation that I can catch from the class, was that, some students did their homework just for passing the course. Also as seen in the Referat class, I sensed the same situation. The result, nonetheless, was a very poorly-checked article (see http://erwinirawansblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/ctrl-f-to-find-references.html), with many typo errors, and the most important think was the references and citations.
- Writing from the front. You should start to write from last page of your article, yes, references or bibliography. Exactly. Many students made a critical errors in citations and references, because they only saw them as a title of a book or article (see http://erwinirawansblog.blogspot.com/2013/01/memulai-skripsi-dari-daftar-pustaka.html and http://erwinirawansblog.blogspot.com/2013/01/blog-post.html). On the other hand, they should be the basis of our article. They should think of it as a someone else’ work, which he/she also met the same obstacle to finish the work as we did, that we must appreciate and pay some respects. If you take this “bibliography” part really serious, than you don’t make such mistakes.
- Title first ask question later. Some students think that they should first choose the title before designing article’s structure. If you did this, then unless you’re a Pulitzer level author, at many times you will feel that you choose the wrong title for you article. So please do check your article one last time and then evaluate your title, whether it reflects the article’s structure or not. For instance, if you do not choose the title “Statistical Evaluation of xxxxxx” if you’re article only contains one correlation chart. After you have a match title, then you go to the abstract (see http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2011/06/20/essential-guide-writing-good-abstracts/)
I am writing this does not mean I always write very good and perfect articles, but as a novice writer that have received many rejection letters and comments.
