8 COMMON MISTAKES STUDENTS MAKE WHEN EMBARKING ON THEIR RESEARCH STUDIES

Embarking on a research work is compulsory for every student who intends to graduate one day and as at when due. Research works are one of the final and most vital rituals in the curriculum for final year students. A lot of students who embark on their research studies may not actually know the little mistakes that may cost them their graduation or good grades. I have taken upon myself to educate students on the little mistakes students must pay attention to and avoid making during their research undertakings.

1. Plagiarism:plagiarism is considered as one of the most punishable offence in research works. Plagiarism can simply be defined as that act of copying word for word without any changes whatsoever. You can agree with me that trying as much as possible to avoid plagiarism is one sure way of making good grades in your research works. Lecturers and research supervisors look out for plagiarism and a slight copy and paste could be the end of achieving good grades in your research work.
2. Unnecessary background: most students make that mistake of writing up a background of the study that is not in any way relevant to your research proceedings. As the saying goes that the beginning of everything is important also implies to research works. In introducing your research topic, you must try as much as possible to put up a background of the study that is relevant to the research and avoid writing off point as this easily put project/research supervisors off and this could cost you valuable marks. Always try to make you background of the study as captivating as possible while at the same time try to cut off the unnecessary write ups that could be implicating as this would generate interest from project supervisors.
3. Lack of adequate referencing: a lot of students have this problem while embarking on their research work. A standard reference should have the authors surname, the year of the publication and the page you are citing or referencing. For instance (Essien 2016:38). It must always be put in brackets.

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