Troubleshooting common sentence errors

“Develop a passion for learning. If you do, you will never cease to grow.”

– Robert J. D’Angelo

WELCOME, STUDENTS! How are you all doing? Are you any closer to completing your SBA? Have you been making the extra effort to improve your written expression and to enhance your knowledge? I hope your responses to these questions are in the affirmative.

This week, we are going to focus on common errors that are found in sentences. I find that this will be important, so you will be even more attentive to how you express your ideas.

COMMON SENTENCE ERRORS

1. Using ‘of’ instead of ‘have’ with ‘should’, ‘could’ and ‘would’ – Oftentimes ‘could of’ is used in place of ‘could have’, or ‘should of’ instead of ‘should have’. This is not correct. Therefore, it is wrong to say: ‘The lawyer could of won the case’ or ‘The man should of forgiven his son’. Avoid doing this.

2. Failure to use past participles with the verb ‘to be’.

For example: He was ask. ‘Ask’ is in the present tense and is incorrectly used in the sentence. It should be: He was asked. Furthermore, the past participle is used with the verb ‘to be’ to create the passive forms of verbs. For example: He was reminded to study for his test by his mother. The active form would be: His mother reminded him to study for his test. (Please research the passive and active voice.)

3. Pairing ‘did not’ with the past tense: He did not went to the concert is incorrect. It should be: He did not go to the concert. It is do/did/does plus the base form of the verb to make the negative form of present and past simple tenses.

For clarity, note the following examples: i. ‘I do not believe him’, not ‘I do not believed him’. ii. ‘I did not plan to dance’, not ‘I did not planned to dance’.

iii. ‘He did not see the man’, not ‘He did not saw the man’.

4. Sentence sprawl: This refers to wordiness in a sentence. A sentence is wordy if it uses words unnecessarily to convey meaning. Wordiness often makes writing unclear.

Incorrect: Jessica ended up having to walk all the way home due to the fact that she missed the last bus leaving Midway Station. (Eliminate irrelevant details and replace a phrase with one word.)

Correction: Jessica walked home because she missed the last bus.

5. Sentence fragment: This is only part of the idea being expressed in a sentence and it is not complete by itself. It is usually a dependent clause.

For example: After Troy got the keys. He left for the bank immediately.

6. Comma splice: This error occurs when one sentence contains two or more independent clauses, and they are incorrectly separated by a comma.

For example: My sister wanted to play hide and seek, I wanted to sleep. 7. Run-on sentences: This occurs when you connect two independent clauses with no punctuation. For example: She tried to sneak out of the house her mother saw her leaving.

8. Non-parallel structures: Parallelism concerns the balance of a sentence, or the similarity of words, phrases, or clauses in a list or series within a sentence.

Incorrect: The man ate his dinner, watched TV and then was sleeping.

The candidate’s goals include winning the election, a national health programme, and the educational system. Correct: The man ate his dinner, watched TV and then slept.

The candidate’s goals include winning the election, enacting a national health programme, and improving the educational system.

9. Misplaced modifiers: A misplaced modifier is a word, phrase, or clause that is improperly separated from the word it modifies or describes. Sentences with this error can sound awkward, ridiculous, or confusing.

Incorrect: The patient was referred to the doctor with stomach pains.

While walking home, Mary found a glittering girl’s necklace.

Correct: While walking home, Mary found a girl’s glittering necklace.

The patient with stomach pains was referred to the doctor.

10. Wrong word usage: There are commonly confused and misused words in sentences. The meaning of a sentence can change if this happens.

For example: The smell of coffee has a great affect on me. ‘Affect’ should be replaced by ‘effect’.

11. Vague pronoun reference: A pronoun can replace a noun, and its antecedent should be the person, place, or thing to which the pronoun refers. A vague pronoun reference (including words such as ‘it’, ‘that’, ‘this’, and ‘which’) can leave the reader confused about what or to whom the pronoun refers.

For example: When Mark finally found his cat, he was so relieved. (Who is relieved? The cat or Mark?)

Corrected sentence: Mark was so relieved when he finally found his cat.

12. Lack of pronoun/antecedent agreement:

Pronouns typically must agree with their antecedents in gender (male or female, if appropriate) and in number (singular or plural).

Incorrect: Every girl left their shoes at the door. The bright flamingoes dipped its head.

Correct: Every girl left her shoes at the door. The bright flamingoes dipped their heads.

13. Unnecessary commas: If you use commas when they are not needed then it will be difficult to read your written work. Overused commas do not make meaning clearer.

■ Do not use a comma between a subject and verb. Example: Happily, the waiters, sat down during a break.

■ Do not use a comma between a verb and its object or complement. For example: On her way home from school, she bought, a pack of pens at the bookstore.

■ Do not use a comma between a preposition and its object. For example: On her way home from school, she bought a pack of pens at, the bookstore.

14. Unnecessary shift in verb tense: Verbs that shift from one tense to another with no clear reason can confuse readers.

Incorrect: After he walked in the room, he sees his mother crying. (‘saw’ not ‘sees’)

Martin searched for a beautiful peacock. He takes photographs of all the birds he sees. (‘took’ not ‘takes’, ‘saw’ not ‘sees’)

Please look through these errors carefully and reflect on whether or not you have made any of them. Do all you can to avoid them.

I will see you next week!

Answers to last week’s activity: compound, complex, simple, compound-complex, simple, complex.