5 Common Writing Mistakes in English with Easy Solutions

Day in and day out, TextRanch editors encounter and correct the same kinds of writing errors.

While there is no shame in making grammar or spelling mistakes as an English learner, it is critical to learn from these slipups and improve over time.

Check out the solutions below to fix 5 of the most frequent errors that our English experts come across on a regular basis:  

1. Not starting a sentence with a capital letter

The golden rule! Every complete sentence begins by capitalizing the first letter of the first word. This is one of the few English rules with NO exceptions.

❌ Incorrect: the giraffe ate leaves from a tall tree.

✅ Correct: The giraffe ate leaves from a tall tree.

2. Forgetting ending punctuation

Just like #1, this one has no exceptions either. Make use of periods, question marks, and exclamation points to finish sentences.

❌ Incorrect: Isn’t the weather supposed to be gloomy

✅ Correct: Isn’t the weather supposed to be gloomy?

3. Placing a past tense verb after “did” or “didn’t”

The base form of a verb is always used after did or didn’t. This is because this auxiliary verb (aka helping verb) already marks the past tense.

❌ Incorrect: I didn’t went to the amusement park.

✅ Correct: I didn’t go to the amusement park.

❌ Incorrect: Did you took the garbage out?

✅ Correct: Did you take the garbage out?

4. Adding “about” to “discuss”

Since the verb discuss means to talk about something, it is redundant to write “discuss about”. In addition, discuss is a transitive verb, which means that it needs an object to pair with.

❌ Incorrect: Let’s discuss about the topic during our meeting.

✅ Correct: Let’s discuss the topic during our meeting. 

5. Using a plural noun directly after “each” or “every”

It may seem counterintuitive to place a singular noun right after these two determiners, but that’s exactly what you have to do!

❌ Incorrect: Every people should have time to relax.

✅ Correct: Every person should have time to relax.

❌ Incorrect: Please follow each steps closely!

✅ Correct: Please follow each step closely!

Is there any other common mistake that comes to your mind? Let us know!