Common Mistakes

Common Mistakes in Written English

Picture of a german military sign — What mistakes do you notice?

People are the same everywhere. Whether you receive work from the west or the east, from America or China, from Dublin, Dundee or Humberside, the same mistakes are made. Of course, if no mistakes were made then there wouldn’t be the need for proofreaders. Here are some of the common errors made by authors. Let’s start at the beginning.

Contents page – think of the reader who has to wade through it. Is there really a need for chapter headings (1), subheadings (1.1) and sub-subheadings (1.1.1) all with lengthy descriptions? If your contents page is itself longer than a page it’s too long. Call me a minimalist, but a chapter-heading page is plenty. Also, I’m one of the proofreaders who will need to redo every page number when the piece is finished.

Introduction – or the enigmatically titled ‘abstract’ opening paragraph. More often than not the notion of abstract is horribly apt since it’s rare to be able to figure out what’s coming next. And isn’t that the point of the Introduction? To set out what’s coming up? Perhaps lecturers and question-setters should abandon the word abstract, since it seems to encourage people to be more, well, abstract when they should be descriptive.
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Common Mistakes Revisited

I’ve written about common writing mistakes before, in several posts. But the more I read different writings posted all over the internet, the more I feel the need to point out the errors. It’s like the internet has devoured our ability to write.

Now, communication is not a problem. Anyone who has been talking in forums, chat rooms, or sending instant messages for any significant amount of time will be able to decipher the following conversation:

Girl #1: Btw, r u n T gtg gf

Girl #2: DEGT

Girl #1: ?

Girl #2: ihnc

Girl #1: brb

Girl #2: hb

Girl #1: muah

OK, that might be a little exaggerated. But, that is how bad it gets. Anyone coming in on that conversation who is not familiar with the language is lost unless they have the pocket-size internet slang handbook.

But see, that’s the thing. Communication is not in jeopardy. As humans, we will always know how to communicate. But, writing is different. Writing has rules and internet slang is starting to impose itself onto the written word.
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The Five Most Common Errors

Grammatical errors can show you up to be disinterested in your writing. They can detract your credibility and make your work look immature. In cases of blog writing or creating web copy, the case is pretty much the same. People will not read your blog, or subscribe/link to your blog if you make silly mistakes when you write. I believe that copywriting and blogging should be conversational and engaging, and breaking some in the formal convention of spelling and grammar can often be a good thing. Though, I also believe that you have to know the rules in order to break them. Here are some errors that you’ll never convince anyone that you wrote intentionally in the name of style, and even then, there will be people who will doubt your credibility.
So, let us look at some common errors that could diminish the credibility of your writing.

Improper Use of the Apostrophe – It is used generally in two cases. One for contractions (don’t for ‘do not’), and secondly for showing that something belongs to someone (Bobby’s pen would mean this pen belongs to Bobby). If you are ever in doubt, leave the apostrophe out. It generally causes more confusion if you introduce an apostrophe where it does not belong than it does to omit one.