Being a good writer doesn’t necessarily mean being a good speller, having a strong knowledge of grammar, and being able to instantly come up with Chicago/Turabian style example. Writing is more about knowing how to combine words skillfully, how to create stunning stories, and how to capture peoples’ attention with the help of your articles, novels or papers.

However, this doesn’t mean that all people agree to it. Many of them believe that a good writer has to be good in every area of writing – including grammar and spelling part. Of course, grammar skills don’t always come as a pack with writing ones – but still, this doesn’t lower the expectations of the audience. That’s why you do need to pay attention to both grammar and spelling if you want your writing to look professional and polished.

Today we want to help you with that, offering a list of the most common grammar and spelling mistakes writers make. Hopefully, learning about them will help you avoid making them in the future.

1. The apostrophe that comes with the possessive nouns.

While most of the possessive nouns require you to use an apostrophe, the position of this apostrophe can cause troubles for many writers. There are a couple of things you need to remember to use an apostrophe right:

if the noun is plural, use an apostrophe at its very end: cats’ food;

if the noun is singular, use an apostrophe before the s: show’s tickets;

if the noun is singular and ends in s, however, use an apostrophe after the s: dress’ color.

2. The incorrect use of Latin «e.g.».

We’ve all seen «e.g.» replacing «for example» sometimes. Indeed, these two constructions can replace one another as «e.g.» means «for example» in Latin («exempli gratia»). However, sometimes writers confuse it with «i.e», which doesn’t have the same meaning. It stands for «it is» («id est»).

It’s important not to confuse these two constructions if you don’t want to look bad instead of looking sophisticated. If you doubt yourself, better use old-fashioned «for example».

3. Misspelling the words that sound alike.

Did you ever notice writers using«to», where «too» should stand (or «than» instead of «then» and «its» instead of «it`s»)? Most of this time this happens because of inattentiveness or writing in a hurry or not having enough time to proofread. However, even such small errors can ruin the impression of an article.

The only way to fix this is to pay more attention to words that sound alike if you know that you do have problems with them. Also, don’t forget to use proofreading tools – for example, Grammarly https://app.grammarly.com spots these types of errors well enough.

4. Using incomplete comparisons.

Comparing things to highlight the perks of a certain product or service can be a good idea – but only when a writer knows how to compare them right. Otherwise, the audience might find themselves reading sentences like that:

«Our cereal is tastier».

When a person does pay attention to the writing (and writers usually count on that), they might ask themselves a very obvious question – tastier than what? That’s why writers always need to remember to complete the comparisons they use.

5. Saying that an entity or a brand is «they».

We are used to writing «they» when it isn’t obvious if a person is male or female. Following this logic, it might also seem wise to call an entity or a brand «they» too.

It’s not, however. It might do more with the business ethics than with the grammar, but since a business (just as a brand or an entity) isn’t plural, it should be referred to «it», not «they».

6. The incorrect use of commas.

Commas can be a tough subject for many and there are so many rules and causes of comma using that it’s impossible to list them all in one article. However, we still want to focus on the most common cases.

You need to use a comma:

in order to separate elements coming in a series (a dog, a cat, and a rabbit);

in order to separate independent clauses joined together by «and», «for», «but», «so», «or», «nor», and «yet» (That girl is pretty, but I don’t have time to ask her out);

in order to separate a phrase or a word used for introduction (however, in the beginning, while, when, etc.).

7. Relying on spell checkers too much.

Though it isn’t a mistake itself, it could lead to some mistakes slipping into the writing. Using spell checkers and online proofreading tools is generally a good thing to do, especially when a writer doesn’t have much time to check the text for errors themselves.

However, relying on them only is a mistake. Such tools can spot some typos, errors, and common misspellings – but they still lack a human approach. If you’ve been writing about Canva app and named it «canvas» a couple of times accidentally, such tools won’t be able to spot this.

Moreover, while most of the suggestions made by such services are right, they can make mistakes too. As they aren’t able to analyze the context behind the words well enough, they can offer suggestions that are incorrect logically and can worsen the writing instead of improving it.

That’s why it’s always better to save some time to proofread a content manually after running it through one of those services – and to double-check every suggestion such services make. It’s even better to put your writing away for a while to ensure you won’t miss some mistakes because of tiredness.

Even the best of us make mistakes when getting caught in the work process too much or feeling too tired after writing for hours. Making mistakes itself isn’t bad as long as you’ll learn how to minimize them and then eliminate them quickly, making your article polished and good-looking.