Tips for improving grammar and punctuation style

What are the ways to improve grammar and punctuation style? 

Writing is a part of communication. Communicating something to the public at large must be done with more of responsibility. A small mistake can lead to bad quality content. These small mistakes can be due to bad grammar or wrong use of punctuation style.

To avoid such mistakes in your essay, here are common mistakes that we make while writing. These mistakes should be avoided which will pave way for improving grammar and punctuation style. 

10 common grammatical mistakes while writing and how to avoid them 

1.Homonyms: Homonyms are part of the grammar which sounds similar with same spelling or pronunciation but different meaning.

Some of the examples of commonly mistaken homonyms are:

1.which/witch

Which-referring to something

Witch-evil or unpleasant woman 

2.hare/hair:

Hare- an animal which resembles a rabbit

Hair-thread like strands which grow on mammals, humans

3.bare/bear:

Bare-uncovered

Bear-i.to carry

         ii.an animal

4.to/two/too:

To- in the direction of

Two-numeral

Too-i.something of higher degree

        ii.something which is in addition to

5.aloud/allowed:

Aloud: loud

Allowed: to permit

6.deer/dear:

Deer: An animal

Dear: deep affection

7.dye/die:

Dye- to add color

Die- stop living

8.principle/principal:

Principle-a fundamental truth

Principal-i. Most important

                ii.a senior authority person

               iii.sum of money invested

9.heel/heal:

Heel-part of a human foot

Heal-become healthy

10.not/knot:

Not- short substitute for negative clause

Knot-to tangle something 

2.Apostrophes:

Apostrophes are part of the grammar which is used to show possession, to contract words, to indicate plurals of lowercase letters.

Case I-To show possession: To show possession of an object, apostrophes are used.

Example: I have my friend’s phone number.

If it is in the plural form, an apostrophe must be flushed to the right of the word.

Example:  The countries’ laws

Case II- To contract words: Some of the words like cannot, should not can be contracted to shorter form such as can’t, shouldn’t

Case III-To indicate plurals of lowercase letters: Apostrophes must be used to indicate plurals of lowercase letters such as 1960s’ two cents’ worth etc.

3.Run-on sentences: A run-on sentence is a sentence where two or more independent clauses are joined without proper punctuation or conjunction. 

Example:

We had brought the roses. They dried out soon.

We had brought the roses but they dried out soon.

4.Active voice: There are two types voices; active voice and passive voice. Active voice is preferred for most of essays which are to be written. Active voice will always add a tone to an essay and brings more reality to it than by using passive voice. 

5.Semicolon: Semicolon is a type of punctuation mark which connects two independent clauses which makes a sentence more informative.

There must use of semicolons to separate each sentence so that they both together will give proper meaning.

6.Double negatives: Negations in the English language means something which is not positive. Using two negations in the same sentence can be a big mistake. Hence they must be avoided.

Example:    I will not go out nowhere. (Incorrect)

                    I will not go out anywhere (Correct)      

7.Hyphens: Hyphen is a punctuation mark which conjuncts tow words to make it a compound word. 

Such as close-up, far-off etc They must not be used in place of parentheses, commas.

8.Homographs: Some words which are pronounced same and written in the same manner but have a different meaning. Those are called homographs. Such words can easily confuse and create lots of problems in the write-up.

Example:  Fast- to be quick

                  Fast- To abstain from something

                  Address- a place where one lives

                  Address-To give a speech

9.Ellipses: Ellipses are [. . .] dots used as a punctuation mark to omit the whole quotation representing missed lines from a sentence.

10.Comma splices: Comma splice is the conjunction of two independent clauses but without a coordinator.

Example:

My mother loves cooking, she prepared food for me.  (Incorrect)

My mother loves cooking; she prepared food for me. (Correct)

These are few of the grammatical and punctuational mistakes that must be avoided