Avoid Over-Quoting In Your Graduation Paper

A lot of students are focused on completing their graduation paper. Since they're so focused on turning in their graduation papers, they often spend a lot of time refining that same paper. What they don't realize is that there's something wrong with their paper.

They may have followed all of the rules, but when they hand in that paper to their professor, they eventually see something that they didn't expect: a bad grade. Many students get 'unexpected' grades for their graduation papers for a reason, and that reason is usually because they did something that wasn't acceptable in accordance with their instructor's or teacher's guidelines. Sometimes, they just quote too much.

The problem with over-quoting in a graduation paper

Some students simply quote too much. They don't realize that they're relying so much on quotations that the bulk of their graduation papers becomes block quote after quotation mark after even more block quotes.

Now, there's nothing wrong with quoting another resource in a graduation paper. In fact, it's encouraged. Though, some students take it to another level and use quotes throughout the entire graduation paper. Not only does the overuse of quotes make a graduation look amateurish, but it also looks unoriginal and doesn't reflect you own opinion.

Many teachers and instructors are often looking for you to present your own opinions and analyses in your graduation paper. They're not looking for anyone else's opinion. If they do request quotations, there's nothing wrong with quoting your sources. They just don't want you to overuse quotations.

How to avoid using excessive quotes in a graduation paper

There's a way to avoid relying on quotes to get your point across, and that usually involves relying on your knowledge to successfully analyze and present the subject in your graduation paper. Your graduation paper needs to contain information that pertains to what you think, particularly what you think about the information presented to you.

Though, if you're back to step one, since you have to edit your paper, you simply need to remove those quotes and rework the paper. You can also avoid using quotes altogether if you did take the time to analyze and interpret the information you gathered during the research step.

Quotations are supposed to be a 'valuable component' for supporting the research presented in many academic papers. Though, when overused in a graduation paper, they can be so excessive that they're distracting. That's why it's important to watch your quote usage, so your paper isn't filled with quote after quote.