10 ways to ace college essays

Here are 10 ways to ace college essays. Many of these things are simple. Some of these issues are easy to avoid getting points taken off.
 

1. Turn it in on time. Some professors accept late papers with points off and others do not accept them at all. Show up to class and turn it in when it’s due. A lot of people don’t follow through with punctuality and it’s one of the biggest things that will sink your grade.
2. Stick to the teacher’s preferred formatting. If they make it a certain font in size 12 and double spaced, you’ll lose points for not following that.
3. Use the citation method they want you to. They seem to care excessively about this. MLA, APA, and citing your sources is frustrating yet not doing so is guaranteed to lose your points.
4. Stay on topic. If your subtopic starts to take over your whole paper, your teacher may take points off.
5. Proofread for spelling.
6. Use advanced vocabulary. Reference a thesaurus if you need to.
7. Add quotes from professionals in that field.
8. Reference professional organizations in that field.
9. Reference journals in that field. 
10. Teacher permitting, give it a cover page and put it in a report cover. Show effort.

 
 
I had college classes where the whole assignment was to write an opinion piece. That’s fairly easy. I had other classes where I had to actually be familiar with a topic. Of course, knowing your topic well and articulating your point well will help your grade. I learned those two things are not enough. Seemingly minor things like perfect citation and not going over the page amount they wanted did affect my grades. These 10 tips helped me to go from ‘B’s to ‘A’s.