Perfect and impeccable writing is a milestone for many students. Everyone wants to write clean papers quickly and easily. Unfortunately, it is not possible. People tend to commit mistakes, and no matter whether you are a prolific writer, you will miss some commas or misuse particular words.
Of course, that doesn’t mean you are doomed to fail in your aspirations. You can still learn how to write excellent papers. Although you might commit some mistakes, the number will be so low that you will manage to correct them during the editing process quickly.
So, why is grammar essential, and how can students write grammatically correct papers on their PCs and laptops? Finally, what do they have to know to produce essays on time? Let’s find out together!
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Why Grammar Is Crucial
We learn a language along with its grammar from an early age. And while the language itself helps us communicate, grammar makes our words, phrases, and sentences understandable.
Teachers pay close attention to grammar and lexicon as they make essays coherent and comprehensive. Indeed, since no one writes perfectly, a few errors presented in the text is acceptable. But overall, the more mistakes students make, the lower the grade they will receive in the long run, regardless of the content.
Face Your Mistakes
First and foremost, you have to embrace your mistakes and learn them. An abundance of errors doesn’t necessarily mean your writing is terrible. You may not know (or remember) specific rules, or you may be an L2 speaker mixing grammar structures with your native language (this is a prevalent issue when it comes to punctuation).
In each case, don’t be demoralized. Numerous writers, including those from a professional and cheap essay service, faced their mistakes. By doing that, they managed to brush up on their skills, which allowed them to work with other students one-to-one, providing exemplary and faultless papers.
Avoid These Errors
Once you look at your errors, try to figure out what type of grammar mistakes you make most often. You can draw a table and fill it out with common errors. It will help you understand where you lack the knowledge of grammar and what you should learn to improve your paper. Here, we put together the list of prevalent errors and provide explanations to them:
Subject-Verb Agreement
When typing in a rush, we can make mistakes, and they are often related to subject-verb agreement. For instance, the sentence, “These books is excellent for students” is wrong, as the verb doesn’t agree with the subject. A simple rule: a singular subject always requires a singular verb.
Redundant Commas
English is very tricky when it comes to commas. It is challenging to learn all the rules to know where to put a comma. Commas give your sentences clarity. If you overuse them, your text will not only be less comprehensive, but it will also look clumsy. Wrong: “He missed a class, because he is sick.” Correct: “He missed a class because he is sick.”
Misused Apostrophes
Apostrophes show possessions. And although many students realize apostrophes’ function, they still make mistakes. It is no surprise, as apostrophes may be difficult to use, especially in particular instances. First, remember that you don’t use apostrophes with possessive pronouns, such as my, mine, our, ours, his, hers, their, theirs. Also, many confuse the use of it’s and its. The former is a contraction of it is, whereas the latter is possessive of it. Mixing them will confuse the reader. Finally, remember that a plural subject requires using possessive “their,” not “its.”
Lack of Comma in a Compound Sentence
In plain terms, a compound sentence is a sentence that comprises two related ideas, both containing subject and object. Such sentences are usually connected with conjunctions, like and, for, but. When every part has a subject and verb, they should be divided by a comma. For example, the following is wrong (although many find it a correct sentence): “I woke up and my mother prepared me breakfast.” This is a compound sentence because here we have I (subject), woke up (verb), mother (subject), prepared (verb). Therefore, it must have a comma between two clauses. “I woke up, and my mother prepared me breakfast.”
Dangling Modifier
One of the gravest mistakes when typing is dangling modifiers. This mistake pops up when a word or phrase that modifies a word is not clearly stated in the sentence. For instance, this is an incorrect sentence: “Having written an essay, the burden faded away.” It is not clear what the first part modifies. To make the sentence understandable, make sure to rewrite it in the following way: “Having written an essay, he felt the burden fading away.”
Unclear Antecedent
Antecedents are pronouns that refer to an object or subject. They help the reader understand whom you refer to when writing, for example, “he, she, they.” However, such antecedents are often unclear, especially when there are several objects. For example, “Students often attend office hours to seek help from instructors, and they are always satisfied afterward” is wrong, as they doesn’t correspond with students. In contrast, “Students are always satisfied when they attend office hours and get help from instructors” is much clearer.
How To Improve Your Writing
The best way to improve your writing and avoid mistakes is to learn the rules of grammar. Indeed, it might be trivial, but it is an effective way to perfect your skills. We also suggest looking at examples because they will help you get a clear picture of using a specific structure.
Once you have a basic understanding of rules and their usage, start writing essays. You may notice a decrease in your typing speed. This is a common issue, so don’t worry.
Finally, students are highly encouraged to use Grammarly to make sure their writing is flawless. Grammarly is a freemium spellchecker, which works with English texts and highlights grammar, lexical, and punctuation errors. Grammarly is a helpful tool because it explains mistakes and offers ways to correct them.
Error-free writing is the ultimate goal of lots of people, including students. Everyone wants to write impeccable papers promptly. However, it is not possible due to numerous rules and exceptions. That doesn’t mean, though, that students can’t write excellent essays. The mentioned guide will help you learn common errors and prevent them from occurring in your paper.