The term paper began as early as the 20^th century as a method that could help students to have a better understanding of their coursework. The same has evolved significantly to become the current five-paragraph essay. However, instead of demonstrating how much a student has learned,the new essay-writingformat focuses on whether a student can write. Likewise, the purpose of the essay has shifted from one that improves student comprehension to one thatproduces students who can write articles. Accordingly, despite enhanced resources on composition courses, the quality of essays that students write has reduced significantly. Although the term paper is still used in schools, it has faced several significant shortcomings.

Firstly, the term paper has failed to instill critical thinking skills in students—which is the primary purpose of writing essays. Students struggle to write their articles because of the many formats it demands. As a result, they focus on writing a correctly formatted paper at the expense of a quality term paper. Academic institutions have also failed on their part because they only allow a writing course for one term, during which, students should learn everything concerning critical thinking and essay writing. As a skill, critical thinking requires time before it is perfected; therefore, schools cannot teach it in one term only. Emma Dering explains how schools are approaching critical thinking the wrong way:

The focus on critical thinking skills that it was meant to teach are now suspiciously absent, and even more disconcertingly, what has taken its place? In high school, students are taught how to write an essay, not to think through its parameters critically. We teach students to write the five-paragraph essay, not the essay in its original form, which was really a “thinking-through”, and an attempt at understanding. (Dering)

The approach has been very ineffective because students still make many mistakes in their essays. Schools should try to encourage a culture of reading a wide range of well-written material if they want their students to be critical thinkers. Additionally, the schools should ensure that students talk and write about what they have read as a way of reflecting on it.

The second weakness of using term papers is that they do not teach students to be skilled writers. The essays come in a variety of topics, which demand different formats of writing. As a result, students get confused when it comes to the correct grammar, sentence connections and reasoning to use in the essay. On the other hand, teachers who mark these essays also contribute to the increase in the number of incompetent writers (Dering). For example, an essay without proper sentence connectors requires the marker to highlight the mistakes and offer the ideal words the student should have used. Equally, the marker should point out where the student’s reasoning strays away from the main topic, and give the best advice in such a case. Consequently, markers tend to ignore their responsibility because it involves indicating a student’s mistakes and the necessary corrections, which is very tedious depending on the number of essays per class. Students can become skilled writers if they learn to read widely and frequently write about what they have read.

Thirdly, essay writing has no relationship with the career paths that most students pursue after their graduation. The chances of citing one’s work or writing an essay in the correct format are very slimin a job interview. The essay writing skills will mostly benefit scholars like humanities professors who will need to research and write papers. Most of the remaining careers have nothing to do with writing an essay in the correct format and style (Blank). Therefore, Essay writing has done very little significance when students graduate to become career professionals. As a result, critical thinking can be improved in students through other writing methods like reports because critical thinking is applicable in most jobs.

Schools should consider implementing report writing because it has more benefits than term papers. Primarily, report writing involves scrutinizing and summarizing a book or an article that one has read. The summary is very crucial in developing critical skills because it “demands that you read with attention; moreover, it is the precursor activity for what researchers claim is missing in today’s student skills: the ability to analyze “(Blank). Writing a summary means that you have read and mastered an article thoroughly, which is a significant step in becoming a prolific writer. Writing reports will help students analyze more literature, which will improve their critical skills as compared to writing essays. As a result, schools should start training their students on how to write proper reports because the skill will be useful in their future.

Term papers have existed in schools for decades, but their effect on student performance has reduced significantly. These essays do not improve critical thinking in students because they emphasize on proper formatting rather than quality writing. Likewise, essays do not help students to become skilled writers. Essay writing is not significant in the growth of a student because it does not relate to most careers. However, unlike term papers, report writing is an essential skill that can help students to become better critical thinkers. Schools should emphasize more report writing and fewer essays if they want a critical thinking society.

Works Cited

Blank, Kim G. “Let’s Kill the Term Paper – The Conversation – Blogs.” The Chronicle of Higher Education, 20 Nov. 2012, www.chronicle.com/blogs/conversation/2012/11/20/lets-kill-the-term-paper/. Accessed 11 Feb. 2019.

Dering, Emma. “From Reading to Writing: Why the Essay Isn’t Working.” Dpod Blog, 17 July 2013,dpod.kakelbont.ca/2013/06/01/from-reading-to-writing-why-the-essay-isnt-working/ Accessed 11 Feb. 2019.

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