TWENTY COMMON ERRORS

ERROR EXAMPLE REF

1. Split Infinitive Detectives needed special equipment to thoroughly and accurately

investigate the crime. 14.13

2. Misplaced Modifier I asked her for the time while waiting for the bus to start a conversation. 14.16

3. Dangling Modifier After doing my homework, the dog was fed. 14.17

4. Double Negative The patient didn’t want no sleeping pills. 14.8

5. The Comma Splice One of the runners suffered from heat exhaustion, she collapsed
two miles from the finish. 15.6

6. Fused Sentence Emily listened to the lobster boats chugging out to sea from the cove
she watched the gulls sailing overhead. 15.7

7. Faulty Parallel Structure

I like swimming, skiing and to hike in the mountains. 16.4

8. Faulty Comparison Tokyo’s population is larger than New York. 17.12

9. Sentence Fragment The common cold. It strikes at least once a year. 19.2

10. Unclear Pronoun Reference

Whenever Mike met Dan, he felt nervous. 20.4

11. Pronoun Case Form Misused

Her and I went swimming every day. 20.12

12. Faulty Subject-Verb Agreement

My brother work for the post office. 21.4

13. Faulty Tense Shift The novel describes the adventures of two immigrant families who
enter the United States at New York, withstand the stresses of culture
shock, and traveled to the Dakota Territory to make their fortune. 23.5

14. Misuse of Comma with a Conjunction

The manager was genial, but shrewd. 29.2

15. Misuse of Comma with Restrictive Elements

No one, without a ticket, will be admitted. 29.6

16. Misuse of Comma between a Verb and Its Object

Altogether we ate, forty hamburgers and six big watermelons. 29.13

17. Misused Question Mark I wonder who wrote this song? 31.4

18. Using the Possessive Apostrophe

A teams’ mascot/Jame’s apartment 34.9

19. Its/It’s confusion It’s success/its successful 34.10

20. Misused Abbreviation The new guard is 6ft 7” tall. 35.5