Most Common Mistakes in Writing

Writing is a skill that does not have all of us. While we write something it should be corrected as well. In this article, we will talk about what types of common writing mistakes you have while you write something. Also, we will analyze this article’s English writing perspectives. If you read this article with your deep concentration you can be aware of common writing mistakes. 

Introduction

Readers evaluate your writing by controlling certain conventions, which may vary depending on your audience, purpose, and writing situation. For example, your educator may or may not see errors in your writing if he or she is more concerned with the argument or structure of the paper than with sentence-level accuracy; he/she may also decide that the error is not serious. Some teachers may even consider the errors to be stylistic defacements.

Mistakes in writing are errors that we make while we have less idea about common mistakes in writing. This mistake may happen in grammar, punctuation, citations, spelling, simple words or vocabulary, capitalization, and so on. 

Many people among us love to write but many of them do not know what kind of mistakes are going in their writing. For this reason, they are not able to represent the writing properly. If you have too many writing mistakes you will not be a good writer. Some major and common writing mistakes make our writing skills slower and we can’t improve our writing mistakes. 

18 Most Common Mistakes in Writing 

All of us know that English is an international language that is used by the whole world. Without knowing English properly we cannot write appropriately. 

1. Spelling

The first mistake in writing is spelling. Some kinds of students do very well in English writing but make spelling mistakes that change the translation of their writing and make it substandard. Sometimes spelling mistakes change the gender and we can’t understand the person’s gender, boy or girl. 

2. Simple grammar

The second mistake in writing is simple grammatical errors. Grammar is an important factor in writing English. If there are too many grammar mistakes, your English writing skills will be useless. As an example- 

I seen the series last year

I saw the series last year

Here we see that the first sentence is incorrect because the word (seen) is used after (I). The second sentence is correct because the word (saw) is used after I. So the second translation is correct. 

3. Unnecessary use of commas

The third mistake in writing is the unnecessary use of commas in every context. There are certain rules for using commas, where commas should not be used. If you do use a comma in that place it’s doubtful where you should pause in your context.

Example:

Correct: She was very hungry so she ate a whole burger. 

Incorrect: She was very hungry, so, she ate a whole burger. 

4. Wrong words

The other mistake in writing is using the wrong words in every single sentence. Many people have such low vocabulary skills that they use their own words in sentences, causing the wrong words to affect context and completely change the meaning.

Word errors come in many forms. They may convey a slightly different meaning than you intended (compose instead of understanding) or a completely wrong meaning (circumvent instead of deferring). They can also be as simple as a wrong preposition or another type of wrong word in a phrase.

5. Agreement between subject and verb

For a sentence to be grammatically correct, the subject and verb must “agree”. A common error occurs when the singular or plural subject and the verb do not agree. 

6. Their/There

Some of them have no idea where they should use (there) and where they should use (there). We use (there) when we indicate some persons. On the other hand, we use (there) when we are trying to mention a place. As an example- 

Go there 

There are some cats in their house. 

Become confused about similar words: This is a common mistake in writing that most students make. They become confused when they see similar words. They can’t understand that these words have similar spelling but the meaning is different from each other. As an example- to, two, too. 

We have two cats. 

This is too much. 

Here we go. 

I can’t hear you. 

7. Incomplete sentences

Incomplete sentences are the common mistakes in writing. If the writing is incomplete while writing any content then the full meaning of the writing may change and give wrong meaning. Incomplete sentences lack verbs, subject, objects, etc, and so on. Example- went shopping, ate tea, should not do. 

8. Pronoun discordance 

There are so many types of common mistakes in writing. Pronoun discordant is one of them. A common grammar mistake among English learners is that their pronouns and nouns do not agree with each other when it comes to singular and plural examples. The simple rule is that singular pronouns should go with singular nouns and plural pronouns should go with plural nouns.

9. Citation

Using inappropriate citations is a common mistake in writing. Proper citation is very important when you write something. If you copy it from another site, you should use proper citations. If you don’t use citations properly, your writing can be considered plagiarism. There are different types of citations such as APA citations, and MLA citations, and you can choose to use any specific citation or use the format suggested by your institution.

10. Quotation

Do not use quotations in that sentence where you should. It’s a common mistake in writing. When we write directly to someone’s speech, we use quotations. If you don’t use quotations, the reader will not understand what you have written or copied speech or sentences from another site. The use of quotations in the wrong place spoils the pattern of the entire text. 

11. Capitalization

Error in capital letters is a common mistake in writing. Many people can’t use capital words properly like the name of a country, people’s name, language name, or the first letter of a sentence that should be written in capital words. But so many people don’t maintain it due to writing. 

12. Vocabulary

Lack of vocabulary memorization is a common mistake in writing. If you do not practice and memorize vocabulary your writing skills will be down day by day. Because without vocabulary you cannot create a single sentence. So vocabulary is a significant part of writing as grammar rules. 

13. Missing word

Many times when people try to write, it is seen that the author has submitted with some words missing, due to which there is a possibility of translation error in the entire text and the readers may feel bored and not like to read it.

14. Dangling modifier

Dangling modifier error is a common mistake in writing. A modifier is a word, phrase, or clause that adds meaning, modifies, clarifies, or describes another word, phrase, or clause.

Sometimes writers use modifiers incorrectly, leading to strange and unintentionally humorous sentences. Two common types of modifier errors are called misplaced modifiers and hanging modifiers. Another type of correction error is called a squint error; This means the writer is “squinting” with his sentence, trying to force the modifier error to come into play. Don’t squint!

If any of these errors occur, the reader may no longer be able to read accurately. Instead, they remain confused trying to understand the writer’s meaning. Here the reader can also “squint” to understand what the writer is saying. The writer’s goal should always be to communicate clearly and avoid distracting the reader with unfamiliar phrases or confusing sentence structures.

15. Misplaced modifier

A misplaced modifier is placed too far away from the words it modifies. Modifiers in the wrong place make sentences awkward and sometimes unintentionally humorous.

Incorrect:

The students presented a burger to the teacher that was medium rare.

Correct:

The students presented a medium-rare burger to the teacher.

Note that in the wrong sentence, it sounds like his head is too big! Of course, the author is talking about the helmet, not the person’s head. The corrected form of the sentence clarifies the writer’s meaning.

16. Run on sentences

Run-on errors are common writing errors caused by using inappropriate punctuation at the end of a sentence. Most run-on errors involve the writer placing a comma at the end of a sentence and then writing another, more closely related sentence.

After writing the sentence, you must end it with an appropriate punctuation mark such as a period (period), exclamation mark, or question mark (if it is a question). You cannot put a comma and write another sentence. This is the most common error involving commas. This is called a run-on error.

17. Faulty parallelism 

This is another mistake in writing that people made. A sentence is considered “parallel” when the equivalent parts have the same grammatical form. Therefore, faulty parallelism occurs when a sentence uses a different structure in different parts. The most common error of this type is usually using two different verb tenses in one clause.

18. Incorrect verb form

Incorrect verb form occurs when there is an inconsistency in the way a verb tense is used, affecting meaning and clarity. Errors can be due to using the wrong tense, incorrect tense modification of the future tense form, or incorrect tense modification in a compound sentence. Incorrect verb form may also be inconsistent throughout the passage. A common writing mistake occurs when a paragraph begins in the present tense and gradually (or inconsistently) switches to the past tense for no reason.

As an example, the writer might describe how they “walked five miles” as if another past event had happened. In this case, the use of the simple past tense verb form “walked” is incorrect and therefore represents an Incorrect verb form. The correct tense here is the perfect plural tense: ”It worked.”

Conclusion

Knowing about the most common mistakes in writing is not enough for a student, a teacher, or a worker. If you want to be a good content writer you should be aware of the most common mistakes in writing. Especially in the English language, you must get knowledge about what types of common mistakes in your writing. 

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