Oak Park High School

AVOIDING COMMON WRITING ERRORS

1.   Write in active, not passive, voice (e.g., The information confused the student instead of The student was confused by the information).

2.   Punctuate compound sentences correctly to avoid comma splices and run-ons.

3.   Avoid contractions. Then you will never confuse the contraction it’s (meaning it is or it has) with the possessive pronoun its (e.g., The dog wagged its tail).

4.   Avoid announcing your intentions (This report will examine; In this paper I will argue).

5.   Develop your paragraphs. One or two sentences cannot form a developed paragraph.

6.   Vary your sentence pattern by combining sentences to create a balance of complex, simple, and compound patterns.

7.   Avoid opening your paper with a “dictionary definition” and ending your paragraphs with a “concluding” sentence.

8.   Avoid the excessive use of the expletives there is; there are; there would have been.

9.   Avoid redundant rhetoric (separate out; focus in on; exact same).

10. Eliminate empty phrases: in today’s society (in today’s anything); hopefully; in my opinion; due to the fact

11. Replace the words he/she or him/her with a plural subject if appropriate: Students realize they must develop solid study habits replaces A student realizes he/she must develop solid study habits.

12. Avoid the use of this, that, which, and similar pronouns to cover more than one specific antecedent (the noun or pronoun that the pronoun refers to).

13. Avoid faulty predication or faulty pronoun reference: This is when; The reason is because; In the book it says..

14. Avoid shifting voice: The speech students learned that you had to prepare carefully to hold an audience’s attention.

15. Distinguish subjective from objective forms of pronoun case; he/him; she/her; they/them; we/us; etc.

16. Refer to a usage glossary to avoid using who’s for whose; affect for effect; loose for lose; to for too; presently for currently; etc.

17. Place quotation marks outside commas and periods; generally place them inside semicolons.

18. Adhere to the “10 percent rule” when writing introductions and conclusions. That is, your introduction as well as your conclusion should each measure around 10 percent of the length of the entire paper.

19. Underline or italicize only that portion of a title you borrow from another author.

20. Avoid the use of the verb feel when you think or believe (e.g., The character feels like he needs to get revenge). The character believes that is acceptable usage.

21. Refer to an author’s full name only when is it initially used; thereafter, use last name only and. With few exceptions, never with a title such as Dr. or Ms. (Doctor Johnson replaces Samuel Johnson, a notable exception.)

22. Indent four lines or more of quoted material without the use of quotation marks because indention in itself is the “signpost” ‘to your reader that you have borrowed the information. Use a single quotation mark, however, to indicate a speaker within the indented citation.

23. Introduce long quotations with a colon and always offer some analysis or commentary (not summary) before or after the introduction of a quotation.

24. Underline or italicize those works that are long enough to be published separately. They include television sitcoms, movies, epic poems, and music albums.

25. Space ellipses correctly, space/period/space/period/space/period ( . . . )

26. Use brackets to reflect a change in capitalization if different from the text you are quoting: John Kenney’s philosophy was to ‘[a]sk what you can do for your country.’

27. Stay in literary or historical present tense when “in the text”:  As Shakespeare characterizes him, Hamlet is (not was) a tragic figure.

28. Spell out all numbers (0-100) and below. Always spell any number if it is the first word of the sentence.

29. Distinguish the narrator’s or speaker’s voice from the author’s when you analyze literary works (for poetry, the speaker’s voice replaces the narrator’s).

30. Avoid using a quotation as a thesis statement or topic sentence.

31. Avoid using an ellipsis to indicate an omission from the beginning of a quotation.

32. Reserve the term quote as a verb, the term quotation as a noun (She wants to quote one portion of the quotation).