THE
MOST COMMON ERRORS THAT STUDENTS MAKE
The following is a list of several of the small errors that seem to
appear most often in papers submitted by students. This list is by no means exhaustive. Students sometimes
are not even aware that they are committing
these faux pas. If you
don’t see these kinds of mistakes in books and magazines
that you ordinarily read, that’s because professional writers
(historians, novelists, journalists) don’t last long in their professions if
they keep committing these errors.
1.
Very often the passive voice is used too often.
(An alert reader will have noticed that the previous sentence uses the
passive voice.) The passive voice
should be used sparingly. If employed more than once or twice per page, it will put
your reader to sleep. Use strong,
active verbs. This is another
example of the passive voice: The ball was hit by Barry Bonds and was sent
over the fence.
2.
If you are submitting a paper of more than one page, put numbers on the
pages.
3.
Try to not split your infinitives.
(Again, the alert reader will have spotted the error in the previous
sentence.) Don’t put any
word between “to” and the verb. Thus the sentence more correctly would be:
Try not to split your infinitives. An
even stronger and more interesting sentence would be: Avoid splitting your
infinitives.
4.
Don’t dangle your modifiers! What
does that mean? Consider
this sentence: Looking at the weather, tomorrow there will be rain and colder
temperatures. The verb in the
opening phrase should relate to the subject of the main part of the sentence.
Who is doing the looking? A
corrected form of the sentence would be: Looking at the weather, we see that
tomorrow there will be rain and colder temperatures.
Another
bad sentence: Upon entering the detective’s office, a gun caught my eye.
Corrected
versions: As I entered the detective’s office, a gun caught my eye. Or: Upon
entering the detective’s office, I noticed a gun.
5.
Never use the word “hopefully.”
It is virtually never used correctly, and thus it’s best just to
avoid it. It is an adverb.
Consider your use of this sentence: Hopefully, Rebecca will come here
tomorrow. Do you wish to say that
Rebecca will be in a hopeful state of mind when she comes?
No. What you really mean
is that you hope she will come. Thus
the sentence should be: I hope Rebecca will come here tomorrow.
6.
Vary your vocabulary and sentence structure. Don’t begin several sentences in a row with “The.”
When you quote several different people, don’t repeat “said.”
Instead, use words like :stated,” ”asserted,” “maintained,”
“reported,” “argued.”