That ridiculous feeling when you have spent a decent amount of time writing an essay, polishing it to shine, and proofreading dozens of times, and got the lowest grade. Unfortunately, no matter whether you are a native speaker or not, people tend to commit mistakes. Writing is a real profession, so you don’t only need to have relevant skills. You also should know what to avoid when writing papers. Now, there are two possible options you can opt to. Firstly, you can know How To Write A Personal Statement but you may not know the mistakes you make. This choice is a no-brainer. However, if you have time and want to dig into writing, this article is for you. Read on to become familiar with the most troublesome aspects you have to eschew.
Incorrect verb forms
Even though many native speakers possess a perfect command of the English language, this mistake appears most often. This is because we usually do not pay attention to our spoken and written language. And we are prone to write the same way we talk. Indubitably, it eases our social life when we can say more with fewer words. However, consider writing correct verb forms in your papers. This especially relates to Perfect Present and Simple Past tenses. Instead of writing, I seen him last weekend change your verb into the Simple Past to look the following way: I saw him last weekend. Other most common errors are connected with We (were instead of was) and I (have been instead of been).
Unnecessarily long sentences
Under no circumstance should you make your sentences excessively long. If your sentence is more than two lines of Times New Roman 12-font, make sure to split it. Indeed, Tolkien used to write one sentence per page. However, even he was taught to write otherwise and had problems with his writing style in school. Acknowledge that extensive sentences are hard to follow and understand for the reader. Besides that, you can also make a mistake in such a sentence. For instance, you can forget about your subject’s number, which leads to a subject-verb disagreement mistake. You should know some writing services after there’re many reviews online, like essayshark review but you should decide yourself if they’re worthy.
A subject-verb disagreement mistake
You can’t just ignore to adapt your verb to the subject. In fact, English is simplified in this term because it is neutral when it comes to gender. When many languages require aligning subject to the number and gender, English demands only the former. That is why consider narrowing your sentence down and check the subject carefully. For example:
The feelings she felt that night toward me while standing on the edge of the roof was robust.
As you might see, this sentence is wrong because there is a subject-verb disagreement.
The feelings she felt that night toward me while standing on the edge of the roof were robust.
Suffice to say that the word feelings are plural. The same goes for compound subjects, which require using a plural form as well.
My fiancee and I are going to spend our honeymoon living off-grid.
Dangling Modifiers
Remember these words; they are your true enemies. Dangling modifiers are confusion masters because syntactic modifiers are unclear and may well be misinterpreted by the reader.
Writing papers, be sure to avoid including dangling modifiers.
This sentence has not shunned a dangling modifier. It is unclear who should be sure.
Writing papers, you have to be sure you eschew dangling modifiers.
In this sentence, dangling modifiers are absent because it is clear that you have to be sure.
No stream of consciousness
Unless you are Charlotte Bronte, you shouldn’t include standalone sentences in one run-on story. If a sentence has more than one independent clause, ensure adding proper punctuation or splitting a sentence. The most common error is a lack of comma before but in an independent clause. Consider adding the comma when a part after but has a subject and verb.
Compare this:
I have already completed my home assignment but my deadline is in five days I feel relieved.
with:
I have already completed my home assignment, but my deadline is in five days. I feel relieved.
It looks more appealing, doesn’t it?
Avoid putting punctuation outside of quotation marks
There are no exceptions in using punctuation in quotations. Each and every punctuation be it a comma, period, semi-colon, or alike, should be found inside quotation marks. Check:
She said, “Clean up your room immediately,” but he didn’t listen to her.
Conclusion
These are the most common and generally made mistakes. If you are not sure about your paper, whether it is written correctly or not, a fresh set of eyes would be of great help. You can ask family members, friends, or colleagues to analyze your work. Besides that, utilize tools you can benefit from. Among them are Grammarly, which aims to perfect your writing in terms of syntax, and Hemingway app, which focuses on the paper’s readability level.
That ridiculous feeling when you have spent a decent amount of time writing an essay, polishing it to shine, and proofreading dozens of times, and got the lowest grade. Unfortunately, no matter whether you are a native speaker or not, people tend to commit mistakes. Writing is a real profession, so you don’t only need to have relevant skills. You also should know what to avoid when writing papers. Now, there are two possible options you can opt to. Firstly, you can know How To Write A Personal Statement but you may not know the mistakes you make. This choice is a no-brainer. However, if you have time and want to dig into writing, this article is for you. Read on to become familiar with the most troublesome aspects you have to eschew.
Incorrect verb forms
Even though many native speakers possess a perfect command of the English language, this mistake appears most often. This is because we usually do not pay attention to our spoken and written language. And we are prone to write the same way we talk. Indubitably, it eases our social life when we can say more with fewer words. However, consider writing correct verb forms in your papers. This especially relates to Perfect Present and Simple Past tenses. Instead of writing, I seen him last weekend change your verb into the Simple Past to look the following way: I saw him last weekend. Other most common errors are connected with We (were instead of was) and I (have been instead of been).
Unnecessarily long sentences
Under no circumstance should you make your sentences excessively long. If your sentence is more than two lines of Times New Roman 12-font, make sure to split it. Indeed, Tolkien used to write one sentence per page. However, even he was taught to write otherwise and had problems with his writing style in school. Acknowledge that extensive sentences are hard to follow and understand for the reader. Besides that, you can also make a mistake in such a sentence. For instance, you can forget about your subject’s number, which leads to a subject-verb disagreement mistake. You should know some writing services after there’re many reviews online, like essayshark review but you should decide yourself if they’re worthy.
A subject-verb disagreement mistake
You can’t just ignore to adapt your verb to the subject. In fact, English is simplified in this term because it is neutral when it comes to gender. When many languages require aligning subject to the number and gender, English demands only the former. That is why consider narrowing your sentence down and check the subject carefully. For example:
The feelings she felt that night toward me while standing on the edge of the roof was robust.
As you might see, this sentence is wrong because there is a subject-verb disagreement.
The feelings she felt that night toward me while standing on the edge of the roof were robust.
Suffice to say that the word feelings are plural. The same goes for compound subjects, which require using a plural form as well.
My fiancee and I are going to spend our honeymoon living off-grid.
Dangling Modifiers
Remember these words; they are your true enemies. Dangling modifiers are confusion masters because syntactic modifiers are unclear and may well be misinterpreted by the reader.
Writing papers, be sure to avoid including dangling modifiers.
This sentence has not shunned a dangling modifier. It is unclear who should be sure.
Writing papers, you have to be sure you eschew dangling modifiers.
In this sentence, dangling modifiers are absent because it is clear that you have to be sure.
No stream of consciousness
Unless you are Charlotte Bronte, you shouldn’t include standalone sentences in one run-on story. If a sentence has more than one independent clause, ensure adding proper punctuation or splitting a sentence. The most common error is a lack of comma before but in an independent clause. Consider adding the comma when a part after but has a subject and verb.
Compare this:
I have already completed my home assignment but my deadline is in five days I feel relieved.
with:
I have already completed my home assignment, but my deadline is in five days. I feel relieved.
It looks more appealing, doesn’t it?
Avoid putting punctuation outside of quotation marks
There are no exceptions in using punctuation in quotations. Each and every punctuation be it a comma, period, semi-colon, or alike, should be found inside quotation marks. Check:
She said, “Clean up your room immediately,” but he didn’t listen to her.
Conclusion
These are the most common and generally made mistakes. If you are not sure about your paper, whether it is written correctly or not, a fresh set of eyes would be of great help. You can ask family members, friends, or colleagues to analyze your work. Besides that, utilize tools you can benefit from. Among them are Grammarly, which aims to perfect your writing in terms of syntax, and Hemingway app, which focuses on the paper’s readability level.
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