Can Assigned Papers Actually Hurt Your Writing Skills?

Have you ever heard your English teacher say this? “I want a three page paper double spaced. If it’s any less than three pages, I will take points off.” The conscientious student would have no problem completing this assignment, but the lazy or unmotivated student may worsen their writing in their efforts to procrastinate. This all has to do with our methods of increasing page length. The obvious techniques involve widening page margins, changing font size, or using charts to take up space. While these are often inadvisable, an even greater deficiency begins when students make attempts to lengthen their writing rather than focusing on quality which begs the question, can assigned papers actually hurt your writing skills?

One of the top grammar issues present in American student’s writing is a run-on sentence. Run-ons are two or more sentences that are improperly punctuated. They can be very long or very short, but they have a tendency toward being quite long. Students often create run-on problems while attempting to add more words to their sentences without knowing the proper rules of grammar. If they are not very careful, one extra verb can throw their writing off and create this error.

Similarly, the passive voice is an increasing issue in American schools. In an effort to extend verb phrases and sentence lengths, students will change the order of a sentence to conform to the passive voice. For example, if I were to write a sentence like: George Washington sailed across the Delaware. This is in the active voice because George Washington, the subject, occurs first while sailed, the verb, comes immediately after. A student who wants to add more words will likely change the sentence to say The Delaware was sailed across by George Washington. Although subtle, this slight variation opens the door to a vast number of grammatical and syntactical errors.

At Five Points Learning, our writing tutors focus on teaching students core writing skills rather than mere assignment based learning. While schools are not entirely to blame, the process of shortcutting through assignments can cause major learning gaps at an early age. If we can focus in on such areas, students will build the confidence necessary to tackle difficult tasks and think critically. The summer is a great time to work on these skills. Check out our Summer Writing Programs here for more information.