Grammar Mistakes to Avoid

According to Grammarly there are 10 common grammar mistakes that writers should avoid.

• Overuse of adverbs: those words that often end in -ly—modify verbs.
• Too many prepositional phrases: those words that often come before nouns and pronouns to show direction, location, or time. Excessive prepositional phrases render your writing wordy. Whenever possible, simplify.
• Ambiguous (“Squinting”) modifiers: a misplaced modifier that, because of its location in a sentence, could modify either the phrase that precedes it or the one that follows it.
• Misuse of lie/lay: to place or put an object somewhere it’s “lay”; to stretch out on a bed for a nap, you should use “lie.”
• Ambiguous pronoun references: When you use the pronouns “her” or “him,” readers need to know to whom those pronouns refer. A pronoun without a clear antecedent is ambiguous.
• Comma splices: To splice means to connect or join. When a writer joins two independent sentences with a comma instead of separating them with a period or a coordinating conjunction, that’s a comma splice.
• Run-on sentences: also known as fused sentences, occur when two complete sentences are squashed together without using a coordinating conjunction or proper punctuation, such as a period or a semicolon.
• Wordiness (inflated sentences): Inflating sentences with unnecessary words or pointless filler only muddles what you mean to say. Wordy sentences also frustrate readers, so get to the point.
• Using “could of” instead of “could have”: “Could have” is always correct; “could of” never is.
• Tautologies: express the same thing twice with different words. Example: Jack made a water pail with his own hands for Jill.

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