Common Writing Errors

Writing a paper can suck. Not because it is challenging to come up with ideas, but because there is so many grammatical elements that go into formal academic papers. This is why I enjoy blogging; it is less formal and honestly more fun to read than papers for school. However, you still need to know how to correct common mistakes in writing, whether you are writing an informal blog post or a formal english essay on The Great Gatsby.

I am a victim of overusing the weak word, “very,” I use it in almost every paper I write. “Very” may be the most pointless word in the english language; it means practically nothing yet we use it in writing all the time to describe things. The following sentences mean the same thing but one has “very” and one does not, “the book was very good,” and “the book was good.” Very does not add anything to the sentence and can be omitted. The only time using weak words are beneficial is when you’re trying to reach a certain word count.

Incorrect punctuation can kill. I am not kidding it literally can kill.
I don’t believe Rachael Ray is a cannibal, but this magazine clearly thinks she is. If correct punctuation was used Racheal Ray’s family and her dog would be alive today. Punctuation can make you look like a fool if you don’t use correct punctuation. Some mistakes made are not connecting two independent clauses together, and not using commas correctly in lists such as the list in the magazine.

Writing can be aggravating. The worst part of writing is proofreading; therefor, this is the part of writing i typically do not do. And it is clear that I don’t proofread sometimes. For instance I once wrote, “This primary source is a letter to so the brutality of the events of the Tartars invading the Islamic state.” I still do not know exactly what I was attempting to say in the sentence. If a reader read that sentence in a paper they would think I was uneducated and that my whole paper is bullshit. If I spent longer than 10 seconds proofreading I most likely would I realized that the sentence makes literally no sense, and the reader would not think I was an idiot.

Everyone fucks up. It is inevitable that you’re going to make a mistake in a paper, but hopefully with this blog post you can limit some of those fuck ups, and not have your paper look like a seven year old wrote it.