Common errors in student writing
Why is usage important? In some situations--maybe when we’re at home or hanging out with friends--usage doesn't matter so much. The bottom line in most communication situations is that we make ourselves understood. But some of the time we need to be able to use language in a more standard manner. Why? Here are three of the main reasons:
1. Rightly or not, society in general judges us on the basis of how we use words. If you write or speak English in a nonstandard way, you risk creating an image of one who is not well informed or educated. Maybe it shouldn’t be this way, but people who use standard English are generally taken more seriously than those who do not.
2. Knowing
standard English usage enriches our understanding of the way words work, thus
enabling us to vary the ways we can employ language as readers, speakers, and
writers.
3. Writers who tend to use nonstandard English cause their readers to stop and
wonder what they mean much more often than those who know and use standard
English. A text with a lot errors is full of verbal "road bumps."
Everyone makes a usage mistake now and then, but a text with many usage errors
will be much less clear—more ambiguous—than one that has few or no
usage errors. In some sorts of writing (poetry, for example), ambiguity can be a
good thing. But most of the writing you will do in this course will require you
to be clear and precise.
What follows, then, are a handful of the more common errors students make in their writing. We do not have room to cover everything, of course, but students who understand and implement the following in their own work are well on their way to developing proficient writing skills. Much of this information is borrowed from The St. Martin’s Handbook, 2nd ed.
Missing
comma after introductory element
Lack of agreement between pronoun and antecedent
Missing comma in compound sentence
Wrong or missing preposition
Comma splice
Missing or misplaced apostrophe
Unnecessary tense shift
Sentence fragment
Subject-verb agreement
Missing comma(s) in a series
Fused sentence
Dangling or misplaced modifier
Other errors related to meaning