Easy Way to Remember English Rules, Avoid Errors

Common Grammar Mistakes & Simple Cheats to Help Writing Improve

Jun 15, 2009

Believe it or not, there are common grammatical mistakes made by lots of people. Here find some simple ways to overcome these problems.

If you have specific grammar woes that plague you, you are not alone. Many people have problems with the same rules. Sometimes, all you need is a hint, or “cheat” (to borrow a gaming phrase), to help you quickly and easily figure out what is needed in a sentence.

Affect Versus Effect

The first thing to remember is that one of these words is a verb and the other is a noun (this is not a “hard-and-fast” rule, but it’s correct 90% of the time, and you’ll rarely mess up if you think of them this way). So if one is a verb and the other is a noun, how do you remember which is which? Here’s an easy way. A verb indicates “action” of some kind. “Affect” is most often used as a verb. “Action” and “affect” both begin with “a.” So if you can remember that “affect” is the verb, then you’ll remember that “effect” is the noun. Here is an example:

If you have problems distinguishing a noun from a verb, you’ll want to feel confident about the Parts of Speech before you conquer this issue.

Your Versus You’re

One of the most important things to keep in mind is that an apostrophe (‘) stands in a word to indicate that something is missing. The word “you’re” is a contraction, meaning it is a combination of two different words; in this case, it is a combination of “you” and “are,” and the apostrophe stands in for the missing “a.” Sometimes writers will use “your” when they should be using “you’re.” They sound the same, but they do not mean the same thing. The easiest way to tell is to substitute the words that have made the contraction in the sentence in question. See this example:

We know the second version is incorrect; in this sentence, the word used should be “your,” which is a possessive pronoun (the dress is yours—it belongs to you). Here’s another example:

This time, we know the second version is correct, because substituting “you are” makes sense in the sentence.

Don’t Versus Doesn’t

This approach works for all contractions; many people use “don’t” incorrectly, but when the contraction is broken up into its separate words, it’s harder to make that mistake. See how simple it is:

Which one sounds correct? Obviously, the sentence with “does not” is the correct one. Again, if you find yourself getting confused or your papers are marked down and the culprit is your use of contractions, take the extra time to substitute the two words in place of the contraction. Most contraction errors can be discovered this way.

Self-Help

The best part of correcting these kinds of errors is that, once you become familiar with what your instructor is looking for and you can begin to identify problem areas on your own, the less apt you will be to make mistakes in the future. Sometimes all a person needs is a simple hint to help him correct his own errors. Being aware of common mistakes is a good place to start.

The copyright of the article Easy Way to Remember English Rules, Avoid Errors in Copyediting/Grammar & Style is owned by Cynthia Jones-Shoeman. Permission to republish Easy Way to Remember English Rules, Avoid Errors in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.