This blog has focused a lot on surface errors, such as those of punctuation, partly because it’s a way to give writers quick and focused tips on common mistakes that appear in writing by beginners and professionals. “Mistakes are a fact of life,” as the Lunsfords say in an essay with that as its title …
Parentheses and brackets are usually grouped under the term “other punctuation marks” in writing handbooks and resources. These two marks of graphics are used to set off material. Though sometimes confused or used in place of each other, their uses are specific, and using parentheses where brackets are required or vice versa would be seen …
When do you use parentheses vs brackets in a sentence? Read More »
“If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.” Doug Larson The apostrophe, a small punctuation mark that looks like a comma suspended near the top of letters, causes many writers problems—no matter their education level or writing experience. R.L. Trask in The Penguin Guide to Punctuation calls it …
The hyphen, this small punctuation mark, can cause writers a lot of trouble. As with the previous post on errors in capitalization, the error of missing or unnecessary hyphen did not appear on the original Twenty Most Common Errors list, though unlike capitalization errors at #8, errors with hyphens occurs at the bottom of the …
Mechanical errors with quotations fall into a number of areas. On the Top Twenty list, it is error number 4. This error does not appear on the earlier 20 Most Common Errors list. This fact is attributed to the change from 1986 to 2004 in the nature of papers students are writing: from personal essays …
What does mechanical error with a quotation mean? Read More »
Part 2: The sentence fragment The topic in this post is related to the previous post, When is a sentence a sentence? Part 1: Comma Splices and Run-on Sentences. While comma splices and run-on sentences are more than a sentence, a sentence fragment is less than a sentence; it is part of a sentence that …