help you become a good writer and write better sentences for your blog or business. Now we will talk about the common sentence errors that you should avoid in writing to ensure your sentences are better than ever.
7 Common sentence errors that you must avoid in writing
Paragraphs are made of sentences. Thus, sentences are the key component of your content, and good sentences help you create good content.
To help you become a better writer and write good sentences, follow these tips:
1. Passive voice
Both, active and passive voices, are grammatically correct sentences. However, most experts recommend writing the content in the active voice. This keeps your sentences simple and the meanings of your sentences clear.
Some new writers may find it confusing to differentiate between active and passive voices, but it is not complicated. In active voice, the subject performs the action, while in passive voice, the action is being performed by the subject.
Let’s take an example:
Active: Clare painted the wall.
Passive: The wall was painted by Clare.
Obviously, the active voice is easier and simpler than the passive voice.
However, the passive voice. may convey the meaning better than the active voice in some cases. Here, you can use the passive voice, but it must not take more than 10% of your writing.
2. Run-on sentences
Run-on sentences are more than one sentence written after each other without any punctuation. They make the reader read your sentences without taking any breaths.
Let’s take an example:
Run-on sentence: Sara has homework today she must wake up early.
Fixed: Sara has homework today. She must wake up early.
To fix Run on sentences, you just have to add a point period, comma, em-dash, or semicolon.
3. Sentence fragments
If a sentence is missing one of its key elements like a subject, verb, or object, we call a sentence fragment
In informal communications as well as in social media chats, we use these sentence fragments freely, but they are not. accepted for formal correspondence like articles and business content.
There are many ways to fix sentence fragments like:
- Combining the fragment sentence with another complete one.
Example:
❌ We sell two kinds of bottles. Plastic and metallic.
✔️ We sell two kinds of bottles. Plastic and metallic.
- Changing the sentence to a complete one.
Example:
❌ amazing book about self-confidence.
✔️ This is an amazing book about self-confidence.
4- Subject-verb
We all agree that the subject should be followed with the appropriate form of verb However, this basic principle can be hard to apply in some cases, especially with complex subjects. This may confuse even the most experienced writers.
Here, I will explain it in 2 examples:
- Example 1:
Dany and Sarah’s son is playing on the team.
- Example 2:
Dany and Sarah are watching the team.
In the first sentence, the subject is the singular “son” and the verb is “is”. While in the second sentence, the subject is the plural “Dany and Sarah” and the verb is “are”.
To avoid such mistakes, determine the subject and then set the suitable verb.
5. Unclear antecedents
Unclear antecedents take place when the reader doesn’t know the pronoun is replacing which noun. This can cause to a big. confusion.
Here, I will explain it in 2 examples:
Example 1:
❌ Both gold and silver are metals, but it is more expensive.
Here, we don’t know which one is the most expensive.
✔️ Both gold and silver are metals, but gold is more expensive.
Example 2:
❌ This medicine helps in reducing headaches.
Here, we don’t know which medicine is this. In this case, the previous sentence should mention the name of the medicine.
✔️ I got Panadol. This medicine helps in reducing headaches.
6. Incomplete comparisons
A comparison should compare two things with each other. If your sentence has one option and lacks the other, it is faulty. Here, you can see some examples of incomplete comparisons:
1❌ I gave you the most
2❌ She hates this shirt less
3❌ Mary’s cat is bigger
In the three examples above, the meaning is complete and it leaves you asking what will happen next.
7. Parallel verb form
The parallel verb form is another popular agreement error related to verbs. It happens when the subject has two verbs.
Here, you can see some examples of parallel verb form:
❌ Samer wants to play, eat then sleeped
✔️ Samer wants to play, eat then sleep.
In this case, all the verbs should be in the same tense as they are done at the same time.
Avoid these common sentence errors by using AI writing assistant
Rytr, Copy AI, Jasper are AI writing assistants that helps you write any kind of content in less than 2 minutes. If you want to write long blog posts, ad copies, summaries or else, you should try one of these great tools. Give it your keywords, tone and a description if you have one, then leave the rest.
Moreover, there are a lot of references that help you write blog posts better and faster than ever like:
- How to Write a Blog Post that Ranks in Google?
- Write website content in six steps?
- How to Structure a Blog Post in 12 Steps?
- The SEO basics Guide
Read them, take some notes and practice a lot!
