3 of the common grammar mistakes I always made are subject verb agreement, preposition and article.
One of the most common grammar mistakes I commit is the use of prepositions. Prepositions are used in sentences to describe relationship between other words. The general categories of words commonly used together with prepositions are time, location, objects and events. It is difficult to use the correct preposition all the time as most of the prepositions can be used with specific words or sentences. For example, the word “proud” can only be used with the preposition “of”. However, words such as “hope” can be used with more than one preposition such as “for” and “in”. If the incorrect preposition is used, the meaning of the word or sentence might change and this might cause the readers to misinterpret what you are trying to portray.
The next mistake is with pronoun reference. Mistakes in pronoun references are due to the assumption made that the reader understood the implied references. Pronouns usually refer to the other words, called their antecedent. A pronoun’s antecedent may be a noun or another pronoun. Hence, in both cases, it must be clear what the antecedent is. For example, in a mistake made in my recent assignment, “These changes are met with resistance as it may vary with each individual”. The antecedent in the preceding sentence, in this case, is changes. However, the reference is not clear and requires elaboration. Thus, it should be written as the following; “These changes in technology are met with resistance as the degree of adjustment to these changes may vary with each individual”.
The last common mistake I always commit is the subject verb agreement (SVA). I am weak at spotting countable or uncountable noun and this always causes me to use the wrong SVA. Besides having to spot the noun, sometimes mistakes I commit may be due to modal, gerunds or auxiliary verbs. For example, “The objection is from a group of people who thinks that the creation of human embryos is a violation of a human life.” In this sentence, the head noun is the people instead of the objection.
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i find it is sometimes very difficult to know whether prepositions i am using is correct.I think that the way to solve this problem is to memorise the word and the following prepositions.
ReplyDeleteI think that the pronoun references is sometimes quite difficult to spot because we are writing our own essay.As such, we may be very clear regarding who we are referring to.So, i tend to be as specific as possible when i am writing my essay.