We could spend all year on these top twenty writing mistakes and still have a hundred questions left over. Much of this stuff has been taught to you before, yet you still don't understand it. That's OK. It's not because you had bad teachers; it's because we learn grammar intuitively--meaning, we learn it by doing, and that "doing" is speaking. For the most part we speak in grammatically complete sentences. We seldom screw up our verb tenses. We always use the right pronoun to match the antecedent. In short, we are pretty darn good speakers of the English language. The greatest difficulties we face are in creating a written language from our inner voice. We need to create an almost pictographic roadmap of our thoughts, a roadmap that our readers can follow directly to the heart of what we--the writers--are trying to say.

And so we learn to punctuate. And so we learn to search for those places in our writing where our inner voice doesn't mesh with our written work. And we learn to edit so that our intentions and meanings come through as clearly as possible.

For those of you who had their second class of the week today, (notice the introductory phrase with a comma) Continue creating examples until you have at least five examples for each of the Top Twenty Writing Mistakes. Check out the websites and take the quizzes if you are having any difficulties. I will continue to update this entry with new and helpful links. If you find any good sites, please create a link on your blog as well. Keep a log of how you are doing. Muckle through; it's worth the slog.

Homework: Read the following list of the top twenty writing errors. Post your own example of each error in your blog, numbered 1-20, with the "name" of the error and how it should be corrected. For Example:

1. Missing comma after an introductory phrase: If Fitz didn't give us so much homework school would be a lot more fun. (There should be a comma after "homework.")

Most Commonly Occurring Errors

Would grammar seem more manageable to you if we told you that writers tend to make the same twenty mistakes over and over again? In fact, a study of error by Andrea Lunsford and Robert Connors shows that twenty different mistakes comprise 91.5 percent of all errors in student texts. If you can control these twenty errors, you will go a long way in creating prose that is correct and clear.

Below is an overview of these errors, listed according to the frequency with which they occur. Look for them in your own prose.

1. Missing comma after introductory phrases

For example: After the devastation of the siege of Leningrad the Soviets were left with the task of rebuilding their population as well as their city. (A comma should be placed after "Leningrad.") This is probably the most common mistake you guys make in your writing. You also need to put a comma after a dependent clause. These clauses start with words like if, after, when, because. (see subordinating conjunctions) A clause contains a noun and a verb. A phrase does not contain a verb.

2. Vague pronoun reference

For example: The boy and his father knew that he was in trouble. (Who is in trouble? The boy? His Father? Some other person?) This mistake is easily caught by proofreading our loud to someone else. We almost never make this mistake when we are speaking, but we do it all the time when “you” (oops) when “we” are writing.

3. Missing comma in compound sentence View the Power of Commas Powerpoint

For example: Wordsworth spent a good deal of time in the Lake District with his sister Dorothy and the two of them were rarely apart. (Comma should be placed before the "and.") Remember: Soyet Andornorforbut! Anytime you see a conjunction, stop and ask yourself if there is an “independent clause” after it; if so, use a comma.

4. Wrong word Here is a list of easily confusable words!

This speaks for itself.

5. No comma in nonrestrictive relative clauses View the powerpoint again if you are having trouble. CAM!! Take this quiz!

Here you need to distinguish between a restrictive relative clause and a nonrestrictive relative clause. Consider the sentence, "My brother in the red shirt likes ice cream." If you have TWO brothers, then the information about the shirt is restrictive, in that it is necessary to defining WHICH brother likes ice cream. Restrictive clauses, because they are essential to identifying the noun, use no commas. However, if you have ONE brother, then the information about the shirt is not necessary to identifying your brother. It is NON-RESTRICTIVE and, therefore, requires commas: "My brother, in the red shirt, likes ice cream." Restrictive and non restrictive are pretty much the same as “essential” versus “non-essential” phrases. If the sentence “makes sense” WITHOUT the phrase then the phrase is non-essential, and hence it “needs” a comma to separate it form the essential part of the sentence.

6. Wrong/missing inflected ends Skip this one if you want. The explanation is pretty poor, but see if you can figure it out.

"Inflected ends" refers to a category of grammatical errors that you might know individually by other names -- subject-verb agreement, who/whom confusion, and so on. The term "inflected endings" refers to something you already understand: adding a letter or syllable to the end of a word changes its grammatical function in the sentence. For example, adding "ed" to a verb shifts that verb from present to past tense. Adding an "s" to a noun makes that noun plural. A common mistake involving wrong or missing inflected ends is in the usage of who/whom. "Who" is a pronoun with a subjective case; "whom" is a pronoun with an objective case. We say "Who is the speaker of the day?" because "who" in this case refers to the subject of the sentence. But we say, "To whom am I speaking?" because, here, the pronoun is an object of the preposition "to."

7. Wrong/missing preposition

Occasionally prepositions will throw you. Consider, for example which is better: "different from," or "different than?" Though both are used widely, "different from" is considered grammatically correct. The same debate surrounds the words "toward" and "towards." Though both are used, "toward" is preferred in writing. When in doubt, check a handbook. (Fitz note: most grammarians are fine with using different from and different than interchagably. One is not much different from the other:)

8. Comma splice Some of you guys do this a lot!!!

A comma splice occurs when two independent clauses are joined only with a comma. For example: "Picasso was profoundly affected by the war in Spain, it led to the painting of great masterpieces like Guernica." A comma splice also occurs when a comma is used to divide a subject from its verb. For example: "The young Picasso felt stifled in art school in Spain, and wanted to leave." (The subject "Picasso" is separated from one of its verbs "wanted." There should be no comma in this sentence, unless you are playing with grammatical correctness for the sake of emphasis -- a dangerous sport for unconfident or inexperienced writers.) Try this quiz!

9. Possessive apostrophe error In possessives, the placement of the apostrophe depends on whether the noun that shows possession is singular or plural. Generally, if the noun is singular, the apostrophe goes before the s. The witch's broom. If the noun is plural, the apostrophe goes after the s: The witches' brooms. However, if the word is pluralized without an s, the apostrophe comes before the s: He entered the men's room with an armload of children's clothing. If you create a possessive with a phrase like of the witches, you will use no apostrophe: the brooms of the witches. There is a great quiz on the bottom of the link. Keep taking it until you feel confident you know how to use the apostrophe in all circumstances.

Sometimes apostrophes are incorrectly left out; other times, they are incorrectly put in (her's, their's, etc.)

10. Tense shift

Be careful to stay in a consistent tense. Too often students move from past to present tense without good reason. The reader will find this annoying. Though somewhat technical, this site has examples of all the different verb tenses.

11. Unnecessary shift in person

Don't shift from "I" to "we" or from "one" to "you" unless you have a rationale for doing so.

12. Sentence fragment If you do this, you're a big.

Silly things, to be avoided. Unless, like here, you are using them to achieve a certain effect. Remember: sentences traditionally have both subjects and verbs. Don't violate this convention carelessly. Try this quiz!

13. Wrong tense or verb form

Though students generally understand how to build tenses, sometimes they use the wrong tense, saying, for example, "In the evenings, I like to lay on the couch and watch TV" "Lay" in this instance is the past tense of the verb, "to lie." The sentence should read: "In the evenings, I like to lie on the couch and watch TV." (Please note that "to lay" is a separate verb meaning "to place in a certain position.")

14. Subject-verb agreement

This gets tricky when you are using collective nouns or pronouns and you think of them as plural nouns: "The committee wants [not want] a resolution to the problem." Mistakes like this also occur when your verb is far from your subject. For example, "The media, who has all the power in this nation and abuses it consistently, uses its influence for ill more often than good." (Note that media is an "it," not a "they." The verbs are chosen accordingly.)

15. Missing comma in a series

Whenever you list things, use a comma. You'll find a difference of opinion as to whether the next-to-last noun (the noun before the "and") requires a comma. ("Apples, oranges, pears, and bananas...") Our advice is to use the comma because sometimes your list will include pairs of things: "For Christmas she wanted books and tapes, peace and love, and for all the world to be happy." If you are in the habit of using a comma before the "and," you'll avoid confusion in sentences like this one.

16. Pronoun agreement error

Many students have a problem with pronoun agreement. They will write a sentence like "Everyone is entitled to their opinion." The problem is, "everyone" is a singular pronoun. You will have to use "his" or "her." Try the qizzes on the bottom of this page!

17. Unnecessary commas with restrictive clauses

See the explanation for number five, above.

18. Run-on, fused sentence

Run-on sentences are sentences that run on forever, they are sentences that ought to have been two or even three sentences but the writer didn't stop to sort them out, leaving the reader feeling exhausted by the sentence's end which is too long in coming. (Get the picture?) Fused sentences occur when two independent clauses are put together without a comma, semi-colon, or conjunction. For example: "Researchers investigated several possible vaccines for the virus then they settled on one"

19. Dangling, misplaced modifier

Modifiers are any adjectives, adverbs, phrases, or clauses that a writer uses to elaborate on something. Modifiers, when used wisely, enhance your writing. But if they are not well-considered -- or if they are put in the wrong places in your sentences -- the results can be less than eloquent. Consider, for example, this sentence: "The professor wrote a paper on sexual harassment in his office." Is the sexual harassment going on in the professor's office? Or is his office the place where the professor is writing? One hopes that the latter is true. If it is, then the original sentence contains a misplaced modifier and should be re-written accordingly: "In his office, the professor wrote a paper on sexual harassment." Always put your modifiers next to the nouns they modify.

Dangling modifiers are a different kind of problem. They intend to modify something that isn't in the sentence. Consider this: "As a young girl, my father baked bread and gardened." The writer means to say, "When I was a young girl, my father baked bread and gardened." The modifying phrase "as a young girl" refers to some noun not in the sentence. It is, therefore, a dangling modifier. Other dangling modifiers are more difficult to spot, however. Consider this sentence: "Walking through the woods, my heart ached." Is it your heart that is walking through the woods? It is more accurate (and more grammatical) to say, "Walking through the woods, I felt an ache in my heart." Here you avoid the dangling modifier. And here's a quiz!

20. Its/it's error

"Its" is a possessive pronoun. "It's" is a contraction for "it is."