Successful Study Guide

Academic writing

Write well

The Common Mistakes
Following a survey of Solent University lecturers, we came up with a list of the most common, and annoying, writing mistakes that students make. If you want to write well, know what the common mistakes are, and avoid them:

Overall

• No clear introduction. What is your point or position? Where is the essay going?
• Poor structure with little or no signposting (linking expressions)
• Generally too descriptive, often with little or no analysis or reference to theory
• Writing in the first person (using 'I', 'me', 'my' or 'mine') or slipping in and out of third and first person
• Poor referencing

Paragraph level

• Weak or non-existent topic sentences
• Paragraphs often very short with little development of the main idea
• No supporting evidence or relevant examples

Sentence level

• Incomplete sentences
• Overlong sentences
• Sticking two sentences together with no link
• Incorrect word order
  

Grammar

• Poor subject/verb agreement (eg 'they was' instead of 'they were'.)
• Poor verb agreement with collective nouns (eg 'the government were')

Misuse of the apostrophe

• Adding an apostrophe to plurals (It's not needed!)
• Omitting or misplacing the apostrophe for possession (eg the student’s work or the students’ work?)
• Using “it’s” instead of “its” for possessive

Misuse of the comma

• Missing comma after an introductory element
• Missing comma in a series
• Missing comma when combining two independent clauses

Stylistic errors

• Using quotation marks with block quotes (quotes of three or more lines should be indented with no quotation marks)
• Not understanding the difference between a reference list and a bibliography

---

Let's now pick up on a couple of those points and look at how to write sentences and paragraphs correctly.