Common Writing Errors

DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO

Twenty-Five Common Writing Errors

A: The apostrophe here is incorrect or missing.
B: The mathematical notation here is bumbling (i.e. amateurish or awkward, e.g. a multiletter variable name).
C: Using the circled word here is a category error.
D: The antecedent of the circled pronoun or phrase (i.e. what it refers to) must be made clear.
E: The meaning of the circled word is not exactly the meaning required by its context.
F: The hyphen here is either incorrect or missing.
G: The meaning of the circled word is too vague.
H: Using the circled word is a confusing change of terminology compared to earlier.
I: The wrong preposition is used here.
J: The claim made here must be explained and/or justified better; it is not clear, and/or not obvious.
K: There is too much or too little blank space here.
L: The noun or verb that is circled here should be plural instead of singular, or vice versa.
M: The words circled here are non-standard and/or confusing terminology.
N: There is a punctuation error here (e.g. it is wrong to run sentences together with a comma).
O: There is some sort of orthographic (i.e. spelling) mistake here.
P: The writing here needs clear syntactic parallelism.
Q:
R: An article ("a" or "an" or "the") is missing or incorrect here.
S: The circled phrase should be rewritten in the active voice, with a substantive subject.
T: There is a typesetting error here (e.g. the use of italics is incorrect).
U: The meaning of this word or phrase is unclear.
V: Avoid starting a sentence with anything (e.g. a mathematical symbol) that is not a proper word.
W: The wrong verb tense is used here (e.g. the past tense should be changed to the present tense).
X: There is some sort of grammatical or syntax error here.
Y: The circled text is wordy: it repeats previous text unnecessarily.
Z: There is a capitalization error here.

List compiled by Charles Elkan, revised June 17, 2004.