10 Common Writing Mistakes
Learning English is such a fun experience, especially when you learn how to write and express yourself through it.
Still, for some people, writing becomes more complicated when they fall into some simple writing mistakes.
These are the most common writing mistakes! Pay attention when you’re writing to these simple mistakes people make, so that you, too, can become prolific in your writing!
Incomplete Sentences
These are also known as fragment sentences. A complete sentence has a subject and a verb; the person that does the action, and the action itself.
“I will learn English. Because like it”.
The first sentence is a complete sentence. The second one is a fragment, which doesn’t have a subject and it starts with the word “because”.
You can fix it! “I like English, so I will learn”. Or even with a comma separating both, creating a compound sentence: “I will learn English, because I like it”
Run-On Sentences
A run-on sentence doesn’t mean that a sentence is too long. There can be long sentences, or compound sentences.
You can use more than one subject-verb combination, if you use the correct punctuation.
“I don’t know if she will like living with her mother her mother is sometimes difficult to live with”.
There is no punctuation in this sentence, and the subject is repeated twice. This is a run-on sentence.
How can you fix it?
Write two sentences: I don’t know if she will like living with her mother. Her mother is sometimes difficult to live with.
Use punctuation, and a pronoun: I don’t know if she will like living with her mother; she is sometimes difficult to live with.
Comma Usage
The use of commas is one of the simplest writing mistakes. It is very important to understand the rules of commas! We could write several articles about their correct usage.
Study up on how commas are correctly and incorrectly used. Then, you can master the art of writing!
Incorrect Tenses
Be careful when you switch tenses. It’s also very important to start and end a sentence or story with the same tense.
“I was studying when my book fall”
Here we are mixing the past and present tenses, making it an incorrect tense sentence.
Try: “I was studying when my book fell”.
Contractions
Contractions are one of the most common mistakes there are. Just make sure you understand that an apostrophe is standing there for a letter or letters that are not there anymore.
It’s like a letter eating Mr. PacMan! So if you have the words: You Are, and Mr. PacMan comes, he would eat the letter “A” to form the contraction You’re. Same thing with It Is and It’s, etc.
So if you are using the contraction and don’t know if you’re correct, replace it with the complete words and see!
“This book is your’s” would translate into “This book is you is”, which is incorrect. “This book is yours”.
Incoherent Flow
Organize your writing into paragraphs, where each paragraph has its own main idea and the rest of the sentences explain or describe it. You start with the beginning and work from there. Don’t start writing about one thing, then jump to a completely different one, and then come back. Organize it better so it makes sense to your reader, and then finish it with a concluding paragraph.
Singular Noun with Plural Pronoun (or the other way around)
This is a very common mistake.
For example, if you are speaking about ONE PERSON, “My sister is very nice. They always gives me a hug”.
This is very clearly wrong because we are not using the correct pronoun to substitute “My sister”. The correct pronoun would be “she”.
Pay attention to your subject and what the correct pronoun is!
“My sister is very nice. She always gives me a hug.”
Too Complicated
Sometimes we try to write in a more complicated fashion so as to look more professional. Sure, this might work in some environments, but trust us when we say, a clear and correct communication is better than none at all!
Write according to your skills, and do it as easy and uncomplicated as possible. This will help in the long run!
Grocer’s Apostrophes
You’ve probably seen signs outside stores: “Apple’s, banana’s and carrot’s special!” Restaurants are also often guilty of this super mistake: “The best pizza’s in town!”
Food doesn’t need an apostrophe! Apples, bananas, and carrots is just fine.
Trusting Spell Check
Spell check is an amazing tool. But sometimes, you wrote a word correctly, and it won’t tell you to double check….but it’s actually the wrong word!
Don’t trust us? Check out this list:
- “Oink dresses” (Pink dresses)
- “Weeding dress” (wedding dress)
- “Sinning with the choir” (singing with the choir)
- “Beast psychologists” (best psychologists)
All these words are written correctly, but they completely change the meaning of what you were trying to say! So yes, use spell check, but always trust your eyes more!
Now you know! Visit https://miamienglishspot.com/ to continue your learning process and start writing and speaking english in no time!