Common Writing Errors and Misused Words

Common Writing Errors

Incomplete or Incorrect Comparisons
When making a comparison, it is important to make an explicit comparison. This is much more desired than a vague impression of comparison.
Incorrect-Tigers are different than butterflies.
Correct-Tigers are larger than butterflies.

Agreement of Subjects and Verbs
It is important to make sure subjects and verbs agree within a sentence. This may sound simple, but it is a common mistake that is often seen in longer articles.
Incorrect-In the United States of America, personal liberty and justice has always been staples of American philosophy.
Correct-In the United States of America, personal liberty and justice have always been staples of American philosophy.

Proper Division of Words
If a word must be divided due to a lack of space, the word should be divided by adding a dash in between two syllables.
Incorrect: repu-blican
Correct: repub-lican

Adverbs
If a word ends in -ly, it is not necessarily an adverb. Words such as leisurely and gingerly end in -ly, but both words are actually adjectives and should not be used in the place of an adverb.

Use of foreign words
When using a foreign word within an article, the word should be italicized. However, if an entire foreign sentence is included, it should not be italicized.

Possessives of Singular Nouns which end in S
The possessive form of a singular noun which ends in the letter s is formed by adding an apostrophe after the first s, and then adding an additional s.
Incorrect-Today we saw Lois’ new car.
Correct-Today we saw Lois’s new car.

Commonly Misused Words

Access-The word access should not be used as a verb.

Affect and Effect-The words affect and effect are commonly mistakenly used in the place of each other. The word affect means to influence, while the word effect means to achieve or accomplish some objective.

An-An is an article that should only be used before words that have a vowel sound.
Improper Uses-an utopian society, an historical society
Proper Uses-an underground railroad, a honor from the President

Its-The possessive form of it, its is often confused with it’s.
Improper Use of It’s-The dog spent over an hour searching for it’s favorite bone.
Proper Use of It’s-It’s going to be a very hot day today, with temperatures breaking the one hundred degree barrier.
Improper Use of Its-Its a good thing that the police arrived on the scene of the car wreck in such a timely manner.
Proper Use of Its-The dog was white, and its coat did not include any dark colors.

Say-Although there is nothing directly wrong with this word, many writers avoid it as often as possible. They view the word say as overused and lacking in any creative value. Synonyms for say include state, confide, declare and exclaim.

Very-Similar to say, it can be beneficial for a writer to avoid the word very in most instances. Very offers no real substance to a sentence, and normally contributes nothing more than clutter to an article.

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