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Top 10 Reasons Why College Students Hate Writing Essays

If you hate writing essays, you're not alone. Essays are usually time-consuming, dull, and tiresome to write. That's why I used to ask my dorm neighbor to write them for me instead of spending nights trying to put some wise words on a page. Not all of us are born talented writers, and some of us won't even need strong writing skills in the future. In this article, I decided to dig deep to understand what makes us, students, hate writing essays.

Many students try to avoid writing tasks at all costs and don’t like to write essays and other assignments. Some even decide to buy essays online instead writing them by themselves.

Quite often, the reason is that writing can take a lot of time, and students are too overloaded to be able to allocate some time to create a comprehensive college essay.

Students are used to consuming content, switching between tasks, and communicating at an increasingly high pace. Writing and researching require them to be able to focus on the task in hand, which can be challenging by itself.

Given that academic writing is demanding and time-consuming, there’s no surprise that so few high school students are ready for college. In 2019, as much as 41% of students who took the ACT were unable to write at a college level.

Proper writing is almost impossible to imagine without proper reading, and this is another area of struggle for many students. According to statistics, only 29% of 8th graders demonstrate proficiency in reading. Obviously, most students come to college unprepared for the writing tasks they will need to deal with. This isn’t, however, the only reason why students hate writing papers. If you're a student who's wondering why you hate writing essays, you're not alone.

Why Students Hate to Write College Essays

Students Don’t Feel That Writing Is Necessary

Perhaps, one of the most common reasons why students don’t like and don’t want to write is that they don’t understand how they can benefit from writing. They don’t feel that they need to write essays, and they don’t think that this experience will be useful for their future careers.

Of course, writing essays is a great task for students who are majoring in English. Other students, however, might find essay writing irrelevant, and it’s hard to blame them for it. There are many professions that don’t require writing skills. For instance, those who study business, mathematics, computer science, or other technical disciplines, won’t need writing in their careers.

Writing Feels Uncomfortable

Many students also hate writing because it makes them feel uncomfortable. Usually, this happens because students are unprepared and unconfident. One of the main reasons why students are unprepared is that high schools simply fail at teaching students the necessary skills. However, students may also need to practice more.

Topics of Essays Don’t Feel Relevant

It’s hard to invest your effort if you’re not actually interested in what you do. Quite often, students are unmotivated because the topics of their essays are not interesting to them. This problem is caused by both students who don’t want to broaden their knowledge and by educators who fail to adjust assignments to the student’s real-life needs and interests.

Editing Takes a Lot of Time

Quite often, students forget that the writing process involves writing more than one draft. To get a good result, students need to edit their drafts, polishing their grammar, and improving the sentence structure. Proofreading and editing can be very time-consuming, so students also need to plan the writing process properly.

Not only do you need to polish your papers, but you may also need to make changes to your essays because of your instructor. Instructors often demand revisions so students should always take into account the editing process when planning their writing process.

There’s No Right Answer

Quite often, essay writing implies that an author should provide an answer to a certain question. Sometimes, it can be quite an easy task because some answers can be obvious. What’s even more important is that some questions can only have one possible answer.

When students cannot choose the right answer from among many options, writing an essay can be extremely challenging. In this case, one of the most effective approaches is to evaluate all answers from different perspectives and to clarify the task by talking to the instructor.

Writing Feels Boring

As I've already mentioned above, writing can be boring for students because of irrelevant topics. Therefore, one of the best ways to fix this problem is to assign essays on topics that are interesting and actually useful for students.

Besides, the writing process can be boring when students are not used to using the right style. In this case, if students want writing to be less boring, they can simply practice more. This way, writing will feel completely natural, and students will be able to dedicate more of their attention to creativity.

Writing is Subjective

When you need to provide an answer to a question or to come up with a persuasive argument, one of the main challenges is to make your writing resonate with the audience. Quite often, essay writing is very subjective. Besides, your only audience might be your teacher. To make sure that your essay will be appreciated, you should clarify all the details of the assignment before writing. You may also talk to your teacher to better understand their opinion on the subject.

Fear of Failure

Students also don’t like to write essays because they simply don’t want to fail. Making an essay perfect in terms of grammar isn’t the only challenge students face. College essays also require students to choose the right structure and the right style.

On the one hand, educators should teach students everything they need to know to create good essays. On the other hand, students shouldn’t hesitate to ask questions. When you know exactly what is expected from you, it becomes much easier to fulfill the requirements and to deliver a decent essay.

The Lack of Time

Last but not least, many students hate writing papers because they simply don’t have enough time. Writing and editing can take a lot of time, and college students are often overwhelmed with writing assignments. Of course, this problem should be solved by educators. They should be realistic about students’ capabilities and keep in mind that many students have part-time jobs or need to take care of their families.

Students, however, can also tackle this problem by properly managing their time and planning the writing process. I think that instructors should always keep in mind that writing may take more time than you expect and don’t start to work on your essays when you have little time left before the deadline.

Some Students Have Poor Grammar Skills

As we’ve already mentioned above, many students go to college unprepared. Their grammar skills are not developed enough to enable students to produce high-quality essays. Not only is it a problem by itself, but it also discourages students from writing their essays because nobody likes to look stupid.

Quite often, even students who have decent writing skills feel so insecure that they don’t even want to try. Obviously, colleges need to teach students high standards of writing. Educators, however, should explain that the learning process is impossible without mistakes so that students won’t be afraid to give their best shot.

Conclusion

Students hate writing essays for different reasons. There are many issues that should be solved by educators. For example, they should consider students’ interests and professional needs when creating assignments. Moreover, not all students will need writing in the future so there’s no surprise that they don’t want to waste their time on such tasks.

Writing can also be quite difficult. In this case, practicing can help. Besides, we recommend that students put more effort into effective time-management and communication so that they will know exactly what to do and won’t stress out because of the lack of time.

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1 comment
  • I’d like comment on the lack of time issue. Many adults are going back to school for various reasons, especially with covid costing jobs. So, instead of a young 20 year old trying to write essays when they have a part time job or are helping to care for family, we have married parents with full time jobs and 3 or 4 kids at home. I am glad there are a few schools who understand this, but many don’t try very hard to accommodate students in their 30s and 40s. I have a teenager, a 2nd grader, and a preschooler at home and I work 40 hours a week. I also home school my teen. Time is definitely an issue.