However, as a copyeditor, what makes me gnash my teeth is when I someone says, “My team HAS scored THEIR first goal,” or “The committee HAS passed THEIR new agenda.” Really? “Has they?” You cannot mix singular and plural forms like this.
This article briefly describes some of the most common mistakes observed in English writing.
Punctuation: CORRECT placement of punctuations saves lives!
Homophones
Apostrophe
Redundancy
Usage: Be careful with the choice of words. A good writer doesn’t use words that may sound offensive and uses value-neutral words as far as possible.
Dangling Participle
Quotes
Parallelism
Modifiers
Number
I admit that I make grammatical errors like everyone else and sometimes typos slip through. Therefore, it is best to read your writing or, better still, get someone else to read and check it for you.
According to Butcher: “The good copyeditor is a rare creature: an intelligent reader and a tactful and sensitive critic; someone who cares enough about perfection of detail to spend time checking small points of consistency in someone else’s work but has the good judgement not to waste time or antagonize the author by making unnecessary changes.”
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