The most common stylistic and grammatical
errors are provided below for your dining and dancing pleasure. 1. Possessives. A possessive is
formed with the addition of 's for a singular possessive (e.g.,
The student's books gathered dust for the entire semester and depreciated
30 percent); OR s' for the plural possessive (e.g., The
two students' bar bill at Bullwinkles ran into the hundreds of dollars). 2. Plurals. Plurals are formed with the addition of s or es. Incorrect: The two church's are holding bingo game's on Thursday night's. Correct: The two churches are holding
bingo games on Thursday nights 3. Subject-verb agreement. Incorrect: Henry say that the women dances on the top of Jim-Bob's head. Correct: Henry says that the women
dance on the top of Jim-Bob's head. 4. Subject-pronoun agreement. Think
of a pronoun like Pac-Man. It will refer back to the last noun of like
number and gender. Don't use a pronoun that it more than three sentences
away from its subject. 5. Ambiguous Pronouns. Be careful
in using pronouns. Sometimes it is not possible to determine to whom
or to what the pronoun refers. 6. Split infinitives. Incorrect: Tiny Tim began to slowly tiptoe through the tulips. Correct: Tiny Tim began to tiptoe slowly through
the tulips. 7. Fragmented sentences. All sentences must have a subject and a verb in order to be a complete sentence. Incorrect: Although Hillary never doubted her husband's fidelity. She hired a detective to follow him into the Kit-Kat Club. Correct: Although Hillary never doubted
her husband's fidelity, she hired a detective to follow him into the
Kit-Kat Club. 8. Run-on sentences. These sentences
continue on to the point where they often contain more than one complete
sentence this is possible because the author has no idea how to use
a period nor does the rain in Spain ever fall directly on the plain
now I could go on and on and on but this sentence is actually three
or four. 9. Misspelled words. When in doubt,
even when you are not in doubt, double check your spelling with a dictionary.
Make sure that you are using the correct word and the correct form
of the word. The most commonly misspelled words are 3rd grade
spelling errors--to, too, and two; its and it's; then and than; there
and their.
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