Common Writing Errors and How to Fix Them

You would never think of showing up to a public speaking engagement or business meeting drunk, badly needing a bath, and drooling on your shirt. But writers are in danger of making (almost) as bad an impression on their readers when they make glaring mistakes. Don’t be that writer! Here are some common mistakes and tips on avoiding them:
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Fouled-up Fragments: Make sure each sentence contains a grammatically complete and independent thought that can stand on its own. How do you know it’s a complete sentence? It has a subject (that is, one or more persons, places or things) doing or being something (a verb).

Example: Dante is a poet. Dante, a person, is the subject. The verb is "is."

Note: Sometimes the subject is implied or understood, and when that’s the case, it usually is “you.” Example: Scram! (Scram is the verb, the subject is you, you so and so.)

Often a writer creates a fragment by assuming the subject or verb in the previous sentence carries over to the next one, as in the following example (where the second sentence is a fragment): “I like fruit. Apples, oranges, that kind of thing.” This type of second sentence is probably OK in conversation, and occasionally in writing (for effect), but it can’t stand alone as a complete thought (since without the previous sentence it makes no sense). Any sentence without a subject and a verb is a fragment, and is not appropriate for academic or formal writing.
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Messed-up Modifiers: A modifier changes the meaning of (or modifies) another word in the sentence, usually by adding information about it. A lot of times a modifier is just a one-word adjective, but sometimes a modifier can be a rather long phrase or clause. When this is the case, a couple of errors may creep in:

a) One common error is that the grammar of the sentence may suffer; particularly, subject-verb agreement. To avoid this error, make sure the modifier can be removed without affecting the agreement between subject and verb. Eg: “The man, who owns many stocks and bonds, is very particular about whom he trusts.” The modifier is the phrase “who owns many stocks and bonds.” The subject is the man, not his stocks or bonds, which are mentioned to give you more info about the man. When in doubt, check the sentence by removing the modifier and seeing if the grammar is correct: “The man is very particular about whom he trusts.”

b) Another common error is made when you insert a misplaced modifier into your sentence (also sometimes called a “dangling modifier” or “dangling participle”). It happens when something comes between the modifier and the thing being modified. Example: “Stinking to high heaven, Andre threw the rotten fish in the garbage.” We hope the modifier, “stinking to high heaven,” describes the rotten fish and not Andre, but the misplaced modifier makes it sound like it’s the other way around.
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Hard-to-handle Homonyms: When you write the word “affect,” but you mean “effect,” you’ve confused two homonyms (words that look or sound very similar). Affect is usually a verb and effect is usually a noun, but, confusingly, both can be the other thing. When affect is a noun it takes a stress on the first syllable (like the duck who sells insurance), but effect as a verb both sounds like affect and has a close enough meaning ("effect" = "bring about"; "affect" = "change, alter, produce an effect") to be inadvertently correct every once in a while – but not usually. Other commonly misused homonyms include feel and fill, sense, cents, and since, accept and except, to, too, and two, than and then, led and lead, there, their, and they’re, and it’s and its. (If you say “Ute” when you mean “youth,” you’re not wrong, you’re from the South Side of Chicago.)
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Pronoun Pitfalls: When you use pronouns, including he, she, it, they, this, that, these, those, and which, always make sure your reader or listener knows what you’re referring to (what you’re referring to is called the pronoun’s antecedent or referent). If you’ve mentioned a couple of things in your sentence or just previous to it, merely pointing to “this” or “it” can leave your reader guessing which of the things you mean.

Also make sure the pronoun and its antecedent agree in number and case:

Number: singular nouns take singular pronouns – duh. In conversation, a lot of people use "they" or "their" to refer to a singular person, but this is usually because being grammatically correct and saying “he or she” or “him or her” is awkward and troublesome and time consuming. In formal and academic writing, however, you have to take the trouble and the time to show you know the correct grammar. The real problems arise when there are multiple things referred to, and indefinite pronouns like "either" or "neither" are used. The general rule is the closest pronoun to the verb determines the number: “Either my cat or my dogs are going to travel with me. “ “Neither my dogs nor my cat is going to come.”

Case: If the pronoun is referring to somebody or something that is doing something, the pronoun needs to be in subjective case. Example: “We three kings of Orient are bearing gifts …”. In conversation you might think it’s fine to say “us three are bearing …”. You’d be wrong. Another pronoun commonly used in the wrong case is whom. “Whom” is the objective form of “who” (he : him = who : whom), and so “whom” is never doing something, but like the high-falutin’ person it sounds like, it’s having things done for it, like having bells toll for it etc.)
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Atrocious Apostrophes: Apostrophes mean two words have been contracted into one (“they are” becomes “they’re”) or something belongs to somebody or something (“life’s mysteries”). Plural nouns only get them when they are also possessive. So don’t just go randomly throwing them in, especially if you’re the person writing the messages on signs or billboards.
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Parallelism Peccadilloes: When you use words (such as modifiers of a noun) in a pair or series or list, they should be phrased in the same way grammatically. This also applies to words that follow correlative conjunctions (“either … or,” “both … and,” etc). For example, it would be wrong to say “College students have three objectives: making good grades, meet new people, and learn new things.” Correct this by using “College students have three objectives: making good grades, meeting new people, and getting high learning new things.” Also, for example, instead of “The road was long, narrow, and turning this way and that,” (using two adjectives and a participle phrase) using three adjectives is grammatically parallel: “The road was long, narrow, and winding.” In academic writing, correct usage and grammar is always required.
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