The Top Twenty Most Common Mistakes Made by First-Year College Writers

1. Wrong word
2. Missing comma after an introductory element
3. Incomplete or missing documentation
4. Vague pronoun reference
5. Spelling (including homonyms)
6. Mechanical error with a quotation
7. Unnecessary comma
8. Unnecessary or missing capitalization
9. Missing word
10. Faulty sentence structure
11. Missing comma with a nonrestrictive element
12. Unnecessary shift in verb tense
13. Missing comma in a compound sentence
14. Unnecessary or missing apostrophe (including its/it's)
15. Fused (run-on) sentence
16. Comma splice
17. Lack of pronoun-antecedent agreement
18. Poorly integrated quotation
19. Unnecessary or missing hyphen
20. Sentence fragment

Wrong word
Students in American schools take copious tests.

Some people suffer from allegories.

Patience was called for of in this situation.

Wrong word errors usually involve shades of meaning, completely wrong words, or an improper use of
prepositions. Make sure you do not write outside of your vocabulary. First, get comfortable with a new
word, then use it in your writing. Using a new word the other way around can be very embarrassing.

Missing comma after an introductory element

Determined to pass the test, Marianne studied biology all weekend.
Despite Bobby's high aptitude scores, he could not explain why he smashed his neighbor's windows.

Readers need a small pause after the introductory phrase of a sentence. This pause allows readers to
gain the full meaning of the first portion so that the main sentence can hit them with more force.

Incomplete or missing documentation

Thomas Jefferson’s 1778 bill, the “Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge,” was one of the
earliest records of an American arguing for a publicly financed system of public schooling (Urban and
Wagoner, 82).
 The Top Twenty Most Common Mistakes Made by First-Year College Writers

Cite each source you refer to in the text. Follow the guidelines of the style used in that course (for high
school English, that style is Modern Language Association). Omitting documentation can lead to charges
of plagiarism.

Vague Pronoun Reference

Possible Reference to More than One Word:
Bringing in a copy of a paper or other assignment on a flash drive is a way of overcoming the problem of
a computer crash or a printer malfunction when they the assignments are due.

Reference Implied but not Stated:

The school counts tardies against students, which a policy which many students resent.

A pronoun should clearly refer to the word or words it replaces (or the antecedent). If more tha one
word can be the antecedent, the your reader will be confused and lose either your intended message or
interest in your writing.

Spelling (including homonyms)

The party was over their there last night.

Otis went every where everywhere with his family.

The most common misspellings today are those that spell checkers cannot catch. These include
homonyms, compound words incorrectly spelled as separate words, and proper nouns, particularly
names. Carefully proofread for these errors; do not rely solely on your spell checker.

Mechanical Error with a Quotation

"I grew up the victim of a disconcerting confusion,", Rodriguez says (249).

Follow conventions when using quotation marks with commas, colons, and other punctuation.

Always use quotation marks in pairs, and follow the guidelines of your documentation style for block
quotations (more than 4 typed lines).

Use quotation marks for the titles of short works, but use italics for titles of long works.

Unnecessary Comma
This conclusion applies to the United States, and to the rest of the world.

No comma is needed before and because it is joining two phrases that modify the same verb, applies.

Many parents, of gifted children, do not want them to skip a grade.

No comma is needed to set off the restrictive phrase of gifted children, which is necessary to indicate
which parents the sentence is talking about.

Do not use commas to set off restrictive elements that are necessary to the meaning of the words they
modify. Do not use a comma before a coordinating conjunction (and, but, for, nor, or, so, yet) when the
conjunction does not join parts of a compound sentence. Do not use a comma before the first or after
 The Top Twenty Most Common Mistakes Made by First-Year College Writers

the last item in a series, between a subject and verb, between a verb and its object or complement, or
between a preposition and its object.

Unnecessary or missing capitalization

Some Traditional traditional Chinese Medicines medicines containing Ephedra ephedra remain legal.

Capitalize proper nouns and proper adjectives, the first words of sentences, and important words in
titles, along with certain words indicating directions and family relationships. Do not capitalize most
other words. When in doubt, check a dictionary.

Missing Words
The site foreman discriminated (against) women and promoted men with less experience.

Proofread carefully for omitted words, including prepositions, parts of two-part verbs, and correlative
conjunctions. Be particularly careful not to omit words from quotations.

Faulty Sentence Structure

The information which high High school athletes are presented with mainly includes information on
what credits they needed to graduate, and thinking about the college which athletes are trying colleges
to try to play for, and how to apply.

A sentence that starts out with one kind of structure and then changes to another kind can confuse
readers. Make sure that each sentence contains a subject and a verb, that subjects and predicates make
sense together, and that comparisons have clear meanings. When you join elements (such as subjects
or verb phrases) with a coordinating conjunction, make sure that the elements have parallel structures.

Missing comma with a nonrestrictive element

, ,
Marina who was the president of the club was first to speak.

The clause who was the president of the club does not affect the basic meaning of the sentence: Marina
was first to speak.

A nonrestrictive element gives information not essential to the basic meaning of the sentence. Use
commas to set off a nonrestrictive element.

Unnecessary shift in verb tense

Priya was watching the great blue heron. Then she slips slipped and falls fell into the swamp.

Verbs that shift tense to another with no clear reason can confuse readers.

Missing comma in a compound sentence

,
Meredith waited for Samir and her sister grew impatient.

Without the comma, a reader may think at first that Meredith waited for both Samir and her sister.
 The Top Twenty Most Common Mistakes Made by First-Year College Writers

A compound sentence consists of two or more parts that could each stand alone as a sentence. When
the parts are joined by a coordinating conjunction, use a comma before the conjunction to indicate a
pause between the two thoughts.

Unnecessary or missing apostrophe (including its/it's)

Overambitious parents can be very harmful to a childs child's well-being.

The car is lying on it's its side in the ditch. Its It's a white 2004 Passat.

To make a noun possessive, add either an apostrophe and an -s (Ed's book) or an apostrophe alone (the
boys' gym). Do not use an apostrophe in the possessive pronouns ours, yours, and hers. Use its to mean
belonging to it; use it's only when you mean it is or it has.

Fused (run-on) sentence

Klee's paintings seem simple they are very sophisticated.

She doubted the value of meditation she decided to try it once.

A fused sentence (also called a run-on) joins clauses that could each stand alone as a sentence with no
punctuation or words to link them. Fused sentences must either be divided into separate sentences or
joined by adding words or punctuation.

Comma Splice
I was strongly attracted to her, for she was beautiful and funny.

We hated the meat loaf, that the cafeteria served it every Friday.

A comma splice occurs when only a comma separates clauses that could each stand alone as a sentence.
To correct a comma splice, you can insert a semicolon or period, connect the clauses with a word such
as and or because, or restructure the sentence.

Lack of pronoun-antecedent agreement

Every student All students must provide their own uniform uniforms.

Each of the puppies thrived in their its new home.

Pronouns must agree with their antecedents in gender (male or female) and in number (singular or
plural). Many indefinite pronouns, such as everyone and each, are always singular. When a singular
antecedent can refer to a man or a woman, either rewrite the sentence to make the antecedent plural
plural or to eliminate the pronoun, or use his or her, he or she, and so on. When antecedents are joined
by or or nor, the pronoun must agree with the closer antecedent. A collective noun such as team can
be either singular or plural, depending on whether the members are seen as a group or as individuals.

Poorly integrated quotation

A 1970s study of what makes food appetizing "Once it became apparent that the steak was actually blue
and the fries were green, some people became ill" (Schlosser 565).
 The Top Twenty Most Common Mistakes Made by First-Year College Writers

"Dumpster diving has serious drawbacks as a way of life" (Eighner 383). Finding edible food is especially
tricky.

Unnecessary or missing hyphen

This paper looks at fictional and real-life examples.

The buyers want to fix-up the house and resell it.

A compound adjective that appears before a noun needs a hyphen. However, be careful not to
hyphenate two-word verbs or word groups that serve as subject complements.

Sentence fragment
Marie Antoinette spent huge sums of money on herself and her favorites. And Her extravagance helped
bring on the French Revolution.

The old aluminum boat sitting was on its trailer.

We returned to the drugstore. Where we waited for our buddies.

We returned to the drugstore, where we waited for our buddies.

A sentence fragment is part of a sentence that is written as if it were a complete sentence. Reading
your draft out loud, backwards, sentence by sentence, will help you spot sentence fragments.