Common Writing Mistakes, Part 1

When editing and proofreading, there are a whole host of mistakes I come across that are commonly repeated. Some of these are major grammatical errors, whereas others are simply small mistakes which make a piece look untidy, and can result in dropped marks with a more selective tutor. Below is a summary of those which I find to occur most commonly, with a rough guide to how important it is to rectify such mistakes.

A few notes on plurals, commas and apostrophes.

When should you drop the ‘s’?
When a plural ending in ‘s’ (e.g. “elephants”, but not “formulae” or “sheep”) possesses something, the ‘s’ following the apostrophe is omitted (elephants’, formulae’s, sheep’s). However, there is no strict rule on this in the case of singular proper nouns ending in ‘s’. Therefore, ‘James’s’ and ‘James” are both correct, but many people opt for the latter spelling. In the case of nouns ending ‘ss’ (mass, princess etc.), an apostrophe followed by an ‘s’ is used to denote possession (princess’s, mass’s etc.).

10 tips to proofreading your paper

1. Take time away from your work, and unwind from ‘essay mode’ before proofreading. If possible, leave any proofreading until the next day. Most people find that reading a paper once the next morning is more effective than checking it over 3 or 4 times immediately after finishing.
2. There are 2 main parts to checking a typed document; firstly, reading a hard copy, and then secondly going back to the document on the computer for the final stages. Print off a double spaced (to allow more room for corrections), black and white copy, and use a coloured pen to make alterations. Both red and light blue inks stand out well.

Attain vs. Obtain

These two words are often used incorrectly by the writer. Both can be applied as transitive and intransitive verbs, and although having similar meanings to one another, each has, essentially, a mutually exclusive application. Although both possess the identical suffix ‘tain’, the etymology of the two words is somewhat different, with ‘attain’ being derived from the Latin ‘tangere’ (to touch), and ‘obtain’ from the Latin ‘tenēre’ (to hold).