Common Grammar Mistakes of Mine

Common Grammar Mistakes of Mine


Misuse of “the”, “a”, “an” and zero article

This kind of mistakes regarding articles usage is common in my essays. The reason for it to be so common is obvious: bad influence from localized oral English. The articles should be correctly used in the way introduced in the grammar notes, which are summarized here:
common noun or noun phrase:
A: Countable
1:Singular: - specific: the
- non-specific a/an, based on pronunciation of the first alphabet.
2: Plural: - specific: the
- general: zero article.
B: Uncountable
1: specific: the
2: generic zero article
I personally think that it is a good practice for us, the EG1471 students to use Microsoft Word or any other software with grammar checking system.
Examples:
The group has discussed about the disadvantage of the hybrid cars.
In the other hand, X opposed that hybrid car is a expensive, inconvenient and unmodified car.
We always forget about non-teaching staffs’ contribution to the campus.
They should be corrected as:
The group has discussed about the disadvantage of hybrid cars.
In the other hand, X opposed that hybrid car is an expensive, inconvenient and unmodified car.
We always forget about the non-teaching staffs’ contribution to the campus.

Transition

Transitions are extremely useful in linking the ideas; it helps the flow of the whole essay, enhancing the entity of the essay. For example, good usage of transitions help the reader to understand the writer better and also, feel more involved. Correct use of transitions allows the reader to predict the content or points after certain transitions. For example, “and” indicates parallel points, “however” may indicate a transverse point. Common mistakes of mine are:
1: Though…but...
This mistake is mainly due to strong mother tongue influence.
2: some mistakes come along with broken sentences, or incomplete clauses.



Subject verb agreement

This type of errors is very common to see.
Singular subject should be followed by a verb that has “s” or “es” after it and plural subject should be followed by the standard form in present tense.
Some special cases, for example, when using “either” “neither”, use the verb form following the nearest subject.
This is not due to imperfection of knowledge of this grammatical error but casual writing style. Thus this kind of errors is common in casually done essays but few in formal essays. Errors are common to be seen in long structured sentences, whereby several subjects may appear in the text. And careless mistakes are easy to be made in subject verb agreement.
Basically this error is easy to avoid using Word to check.

Examples:
Only a group of students want to attend the talk, because the topic was so familiar to most of them.
Either the students or the tutor have to be present.

Corrections:
Only a group of students wants to attend the talk, because the topic was so familiar to most of them.
Either the students or the tutor has to be present.