Mistakes in essay writing are as common as glories & praises. Everyone, even the best writers, is prone to making mistakes in their writing. However, it becomes undeniable when reading an essay with many grammatical errors, especially if it is an academic essay.

In the academic world, nothing is more important than writing a good essay. English professors know that Grammarly errors can significantly impact your grade. From overusing passive voice to comma splices, there are many common pitfalls you can avoid.

It is vital that you do not make these grammatical errors in your essay. Making even one of these can make your writing less effective. Here are some of the most common grammatical errors.

The following are the common grammatical errors to look out for in your essay.

Your vs. You’re

Your is a possessive adjective or pronoun, and it’s used to indicate possession or ownership. You’re a contraction of two words: you are, meaning “you are.” The two words have different meanings, so using them correctly in your writing is essential.

How do I use Your?

Your is a possessive adjective or pronoun, and it’s used to indicate possession or ownership. For example:

• I was looking at your car parked out front yesterday! (Here, “your” indicates something belongs to someone else.)
• I have an idea for my next project at work; I think we should start using “your” instead of “you’re.” (Here, “your” indicates something that belongs to someone else.)

Effect vs. Affect

The effect is a noun, meaning the result or consequence of an action. It can also be used as a verb to indicate bring about a result or produce an effect.

Effect is a verb that means influencing something, especially emotions or behavior. The verb affect can also be used as a noun meaning an emotional response to something.

Both effect and affect are often confused with each other. However, they are two different words with different meanings, so you need to know the difference between them to use them correctly in your writing.

Effect: An effect is the result of a cause, something that happens or exists.

• Examples: The effect of the medicine was immediate. The effects of global warming are already visible.

Affect: A verb that means to influence, change, or alter something.

• Examples: Global warming will affect our weather patterns and could lead to drought or floods, depending on where you live. The changes in your mood will affect your productivity at work today.

There vs. Their

There is a common misconception that two different words have two distinct meanings. However, they are the same word with two other uses. The “there” in “there” is simply a preposition that means “at or to that place” or “in or to that time.” It can also be used to indicate “in the future,” as in:

We will be there tomorrow

This is not a mistake but rather an acceptable use of the word. When you use there in this way, you do not need to capitalize it. While there are some exceptions to this rule (see below), most of the time, you should not capitalize when using there as a preposition. Use it’s or their instead if you want to emphasize possession (e.g., his car vs. his). For example:

• I went to the store over there. (Not at my feet.)
• I need to go home now; I’m tired. (Not in front of me.)
• If you’re talking about something physically present, then use “their,” as shown in these examples:
• Their house is big and beautiful, but mine is more minor than theirs so we can’t invite them over for dinner often enough! (Not at my feet.)

Hypothetical Situations

Hypothetical Situation 1: You have been asked by a customer to create a website for their business. Write an essay on the following: What would be your approach towards the design of their website?

Hypothetical Situation 2: Your boss has asked you to create a social media page for her business. Please write an essay on how you will make it more effective and popular among the target audience.

Tenses

Past Tense

The past tense is used to describe an action completed in the past. For example, I went to school yesterday. Past tense can also be used for an activity that was going on in the past but stopped now. For instance, I went to school yesterday, but currently, I am working.

Present Tense

The present tense describes an ongoing action or a state of being. For example, I am writing a letter right now (I am writing).

Future Tense

The future tense describes an action that will take place in the future. For example, I will go home next week (by next week).

Perfect Tense

It is used to express an action that has been completed before another action or event occurred in the past tense example- I went to school yesterday.

Progressive Tense

It is used to express an ongoing action that was started but not yet completed at the time. An example- I am going to school today.

Parallel Lists

Parallelism comes in several different forms:

• Symmetrical: both elements are identical or nearly identical (e.g., “I want to go to school, but I want to stay home”; “He was tall, dark and handsome”).
• Asymmetrical: one element is similar but not identical to the other (e.g., “He was tall, dark and handsome; she was short and blonde”).
• Aligned: both elements are grammatically balanced (e.g., “I want to go to school; so do my friends”).

Parallel lists are a powerful tool for writing an effective essay. They help you to create a logical structure, organize your thoughts and create a clear path for the reader to follow.

A Parallel list is a list in which items share the same grammatical structure. For example:

• List of Parallel Words
• List of Parallel Phrases
• List of Parallel Sentences

The Intro is Unnecessarily Long

There are many ways of writing introductions that are effective and engaging, as long as they meet these three goals:

A hook

A hook is an interesting fact or question that makes a reader want to keep reading. For example, “What do you think about when you hear the word ‘education’?” is an excellent hook because it makes us ask ourselves questions and consider our opinions about education.

A topic

A good topic is broad enough for us to write about everything we know about it (and maybe learn some new things along the way). For example, “global warming” is a great topic because there are so many different aspects to consider — from its causes and effects to how we can prevent or mitigate it — that there’s no way anyone could ever fully explore it in just one essay!

A thesis

A good thesis statement will tell readers exactly what position you’ll take on your topic and why.

Passive Voice

Passive voice is a sentence structure in which the subject is not the leading actor but the receiver of an action. The passive is usually formed with a form of the auxiliary verb “to be” and the past participle of the main verb (e.g., “He was kicked”). Passive voice can be used in certain situations:

When you want to emphasize the person or thing that receives the action rather than the one who performs it. For example: “She was hit by a car.” We are emphasizing her getting hit by a car here rather than who did it.

When you want to avoid naming someone responsible for an action. For example: “Our team wrote the report.” This means someone wrote this report, but we don’t know who exactly did it.

Informal Language

Informal language can be identified by its use of contractions, sentence fragment, slang, and colloquial expressions.

The following are some examples of informal language:

• I’m going to a party tonight.
• Don’t you think so? (do you think)
• Do you know what I mean? (do you understand)

Formal vs. Informal Writing

Formal writing uses complete sentences with proper punctuation, including capitalization and ending punctuation marks such as periods (.), question marks (?), exclamation points (!), semicolons (;) and colons (:). Formal writing also avoids contractions like “don’t” or “you’re” when they could be replaced with the complete sentence “do not” or “you are.” The goal of this type of writing is to communicate information clearly and concisely so that your reader can easily understand what you mean without having to read through

Redundancy

There are several types of redundancy:

Repetition the same word in close proximity, e.g., “The cat is black and white.” This is especially common with adjectives but can also be done with adverbs and nouns.

Repetition of information already given in the text (usually through phrases), e.g., “He was an outstanding student in high school.” It is often necessary to include this information, but try to make it as concise as possible while conveying the same meaning.

Using a phrase instead of an adjective or verb where one would do just fine, e.g., “He was very depressed at school.” You could say, “He was depressed at school.” This redundancy is often done because it sounds better or more formal than using an adjective.

Bottom Line

Every essay has to be written with care and precision. It would be a daunting experience for anyone to embark on writing an essay without any background information or without any thought. The writer has to read up entirely on the subject, do a meticulous detailing of all the complexities of the topic they are writing on, and then write it out in as much detail as possible. The above-mentioned points can serve as guidelines on handling your essay with utmost care and avoiding writing something haphazard and full of grammatical errors.