Common Writing Mistakes

How to avoid the mistakes that can undermine your reputation and your company's reputation.

The English language affords us infinite opportunities to make fools of ourselves. On a daily basis, most of us unknowingly violate multiple rules of the language. We fail to realize that poor grammar, spelling, and punctuation can undermine our professional reputations and even our company's reputation.

Knowing the common mistakes can help reduce your margin of error and ultimately help your company project an image of accuracy and professionalism. 

As you write, be sure to watch for these most common errors:

1. Insure vs. Ensure. The term "insure" is related to insurance, whereas "ensure" means "to make sure." So you would "ensure the meeting starts on time" rather than "insure" a prompt start.
2. It's vs. Its.  "It's" is short for "it is" or "it has" ("it's snowing"), whereas "its" is a possessive pronoun, as in "its policy."
3. You're vs. Your.  "You're" is short for "you are" ("you're late"), whereas "your" is a possessive pronoun, as in "your ink pen."

1. There vs. Their. "There" is a place ("there"), whereas "their" is a plural possessive pronoun, as in "their car."

1. Ellipses (...) vs. Em Dashes (--). Ellipses indicate something was removed from the text and should not be used to separate a thought. Instead, the em dash should be used. The em dash is used to set off text that defines the sentence's subject: "My co-worker -- the one who asked me to attend this seminar -- is here today." In this sentence, the words "the one" were replaced by an ellipsis: "My co-worker…who asked me to attend this seminar is here today."

1. Punctuation and Quote Marks. Commas separating a direct quote from the rest of a sentence should be placed inside the quotation marks. The same is true for periods. Question marks should be inside quotes only if they are part of the quote. So for instance: "The company’s hired 16 people in the fourth quarter," he said.

If the quote is a citation and immediately followed by a related parenthetical reference, the punctuation would follow the parentheses, but the end quote mark would stay with the actual quote. For example: "The company’s hired 16 people in the fourth quarter," (XYZ Report, pp. 43).

Spell-check might not always flag grammatical errors. This is why experts stress proofreading is still the best antidote. Here are a few tips to help you catch your own mistakes.

1. To break the brain's typical pattern recognition, change the font on the document you’re reviewing. Switching to a mono-spaced font like Courier makes it easier to catch mistakes because it forces you to pay closer attention to the text.

1. View your document at 125 or 150 percent in Word so you can better see what you're reading and more easily spot errors or, better yet, print your document since most people tend to miss errors while viewing a document on the computer monitor.

1. Don't just skim. Take the time to really read what you've written.

1. When possible, read your work out loud. Your sense of hearing will help you spot errors you might not see.

1. Have a co-worker double-check what you’ve written to make sure you haven't missed anything. Or if no one is available to help, try waiting at least an hour before checking your work.  You’ll come back to the document with fresh eyes and better perspective.

1. When in doubt, consult references. For starters, try the list of resources available at http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/errors.html and http://owl.english.purdue.edu/internet/resources/sourceofinfo.html#style.