By KEVIN KAUMANS
Assistant Editor
This week, I’ve interviewed multiple English professors here at Northwestern to answer these four questions: What are some of the most common writing problems they see? What do students need to work on most with their writing? What’s the most common grammar problem students have? What’s their best advice for improving writing skills?
Each Professor had a different but similar take on question one. Some people would probably guess that the most common writing problems with students is them misspelling words. However, stuff like that is actually considered “low-order” mistakes, while the bigger issue considered by English professors is having bad structure in your essay or not getting your point across clearly.
As for the second question, most of the professors I Interviewed said that what their students needed to work on the most was either finding their own writing style and making a good persuasive essay. Dr. Brendan Stephens, on the other hand, said that his students needed to work on their procrastination in order to improve their writing. That way, students can have plenty of time to fix their essay drafts instead of waiting until the last minute and not being able to edit their first drafts.
The third question was an easy one to answer. The most common grammar mistake the professors said was when their students used commas inappropriately.
What I mean about that is when they used commas when they should be using periods or semicolons.
The answer to the final question was simple: Their best advice for improving your writing was to read more. Not only will this help you to improve your grammar, but it can help you find your own writing style as well. Many famous authors have gotten their own writing styles after taking inspiration from their favorite writers. Even if you don’t like reading a lot, English professors encourage you to at least give this method a try.
