Word-Level Errors

In 2008, Andrea Lunsford and Karen Lunsford conducted a study of a large representative sample of English Composition essays from all over the country and used it to assemble a list of the twenty most common errors made by Composition students. The errors described on the next two pages are all taken from this list.

Wrong Word

Wrong word errors are very common and are number one on Lunsford and Lunsford’s list. Sometimes, we make a wrong word error when we are using the thesaurus and trying to find the biggest word we can find in order to make ourselves sound smart. This isn’t the greatest strategy. Sometimes, it’s better just to be simple, and it’s always better just to be clear.

We also have to be careful of the spell checker. Sometimes, we misspell words, and then the spell checker makes a change to a word we don’t want. Of course, we may be in a hurry and never even notice. Take a look at this sentence to see the problems wrong word errors can create:

• Sometimes, I will just sit and watch strangers in the crowd, but it is defiantly awful when I accidentally make eye contact with one of them.

In this sentence, writing defiantly when we mean definitely, definitely changes the meaning in the sentence.

Here is the sentence again with the correct word:

• Sometimes, I will just sit and watch strangers in the crowd, but it is definitely awful when I accidentally make eye contact with one of them.

Defiantly/definitely is an example of a word pair that often gets mixed up, but won’t be flagged by a spellchecker because the word isn’t misspelled; it’s just misused. Here are a few more examples of words that are often mixed up:

• Affect/Effect
• Accept/Except
• Complement/Compliment
• Flaunt/Flout
• Historic/Historical
• It’s/its
• Lose/Loose
• Their/there/they’re
• Then/than
• Through/threw/thru
• Too/to/two
• Whose/Who’s

For example, effect is often confused with affect, The latter suggests influence over existing ideas, emotions and entities; the former indicates the manifestation of new or original ideas or entities:

• “New governing coalitions have effected major changes” indicates that major changes were made as a result of new governing coalitions.
• “New governing coalitions have affected major changes” indicates that before new governing coalitions, major changes were in place, and that the new governing coalitions had some influence over those existing changes.

There are exceptions, but if you think of affect as a verb and effect as a noun, you’ll be right a majority of the time.

Once you’ve had practice identifying these words, you’ll come to recognize which words to keep an eye out for. Keeping a list of commonly confused words nearby when editing can help with this, but having a friend read the essay and using other proofreading strategies will help you catch these mistakes.

Misspellings

Misspellings can happen anywhere, including on boxes of writing books!

In the age of spell checkers, it’s hard to imagine that spelling errors would top the most common error list, but they do. First, it’s important to remember to run the spell checker. Even though you have to remember to check your spell checker, spell checkers are a good place to start when it comes to spelling errors.

Still, there are plenty of spelling errors the spell checker won’t catch. In addition to possibly creating wrong-word errors, as discussed earlier, spell checkers also miss misspelled words like names and other proper nouns, as illustrated in the following example:

• On my vacation to France, I went to Pares and visited Jim Morison’s grave.

The spell checker missed these errors. Here is the corrected version of the sentence:

• On my vacation to France, I went to Paris and visited Jim Morrison’s grave.

So, be sure to run your spell checker, but, then, don’t forget to double and triple check your writing. Spell checkers do not catch everything.

Capitalization

Be careful to capitalize words that should be capitalized, such as proper nouns, and not capitalize words that should not be capitalized.

But, how can you know what should and shouldn’t be capitalized? If you are unsure, review the differences between proper nouns and common nouns in a style guide such as the Excelsior OWL.

Capitalization errors can have a negative impact on the impressions your readers have of your writing. Take a look at the following sentence:

• i took a walk in central park and saw a Mime, who was pretending to be a Policeman, get sprayed with mace by an elderly woman because she thought he was trying to steal her purse.

Now, take a look at the sentence with correct capitalization:

• I took a walk in Central Park and saw a mime, who was pretending to be a policeman, get sprayed with Mace by an elderly woman because she thought he was trying to steal her purse.

LICENSES AND ATTRIBUTIONS

20 Most Common Grammar Errors. Provided by: Excelsior College. Located at: https://owl.excelsior.edu/grammar-essentails/common-errors . Project: Excelsior Online Writing Lab (OWL). License: CC BY: Attribution

Misspelling. Authored by: jmawork. Located at: https://flic.kr/p/6DJwYU . License: CC BY: Attribution

Section of text on effect and affect. Provided by Wiktionary: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/effect#Usage_notes