Common Writing Errors

This single session can be run to occupy a one or two hour slot as required. It is suitable for a group of up to ten students of similar ability level. Suitable for year five students and above.

How many mistakes can you spot in the following paragraph?

We look at paragraphs like this, and others, containing common writing errors and discuss how to avoid them and how to make our writing better. In the longer session, we also consider some stylistic errors.

We talk about common misconstructions, misspellings (especially "homonyms" - words that sound the same but are spelt differently according to meaning) how to use apostrophes properly and the importance of punctuation.

Why is all this important? We discuss how getting it wrong can confuse the reader and sometimes even convey completely the wrong sense.

Specific topics covered include:

• Use of apostrophes including the difference between "its" and "it's".
• Common homonyms such as their, there, they're and to, too, two.
• "You and I" vs. "You and me"
• Commas, full stops, colons and semicolons.
• Punctuation and dialogue.
• The exclamation mark - avoid!

Stylistic topics (longer session only):

• Adjectives, friend or foe?
• Dialogue attribution. Punctuation and multi-paragraph dialogue.

In case you didn't spot all the errors, here is a list:

• "I was too tired". If you are talking about too much of something then you can't have too many Os.
• "I should not have stayed up". A big black mark every time you write "should of". Also, unless it's very informal writing, it's probably better to write "should not" rather than "shouldn't".
• "There are fewer". There are two mistakes here. Firstly, we are talking about more than one programme so so it should be "there are" not "there is". Secondly, if you meant that the number of good programmes tonight is smaller than the number of good ones last night then it should be "fewer", not "less". If you meant that the quality of tonight's programmes is generally lower than the quality of last night's then "less good" is correct, but it may be better to rephrase the sentence to avoid the ambiguity.
• "good programmes this evening" The original sentence includes the word "tonight" twice. With the obvious exception of trivial and link words ("the", "that" etc.) always try to avoid repeating words if at all possible. Changing the first occurrence of "tonight" to "this evening" avoids the problem in this case.
• "I'll try to get a better..." You never try and do something. That would mean you are going to try and then you are going to do it. Always try to, not try and.
• "a better night's sleep". We need an apostrophe here - even though the night does not, strictly speaking, own the sleep.
• And finally (and how many spotted this?), if this is the start of a story then it's probably the dullest start to a story that I've ever read. I don't need to know all this. Let's get to the exciting bit - preferably in paragraph one.

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