Revision as of 15:15, August 1, 2010

Some guidelines apply to virtually all English writing. The following guidelines should generally be followed for all pieces of writing.

Use proper English

Readers will judge your writing both on its meaning and on its mechanics. If you have great meaning but poor spelling or grammar, your work will be less well received.

Proper English means several things.

Have correct spelling

Spelling mistakes are some of the easiest mistakes to avoid in writing. Most programs support automatic spell-checking, and there are other tools for spell-checking text files.

Additionally, avoid misspellings that computers can't detect. For instance, the following sentence is correctly spelled.

Ho ware you doing?

Even though all the words in that sentence are spelled correctly, it is not correct. Look for errors such as these.

Have correct grammar

Having correct grammar is vital for communicating effectively. Incorrect grammar can sometimes make it very difficult to understand what you are trying to say. A full discussion of English grammar is beyond the scope of this wiki, but there are many books which address this topic.

Watch for homonym problems

Several invalid phrases come from spoken English, where homonyms all sound the same. There are many examples of this, but the most common ones are addressed here.

there/their/they're

All of these words have different meanings. Their correct uses are generally as follows:

• there refers to a location.
• their means "belonging to them"
• they're stands for "they are"

You can find a more thorough discussion at ^[1]

its/it's

These two forms of its have quite different meanings. The correct usage is

• its means "belonging to it"
• it's means "it is"

than/then

An object can be larger than another object, and if this is the case, then something else is true.

And more

Many other words are commonly misused. Looking at the list on wikipedia should help you avoid these mistakes.

References

1. ↑ How to Use There, Their and They're