"No more English errors ... Ever!"
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Affect, All Right, Alright, Anyway, Appear, As, Compose, Comprise, Effect, Envious, Kind, I, Imply, Infer , In-laws, Inter , Intra, Jealous , Lay, Lead, Led, Lend , Lie , Like, Loan, Manifest , me, Method , Methodology, None, Plus, Presently, Reason, Self, Simple, Simplistic, Than Type
The standards of written English vary by context, of course, just as the standards of spoken English do. Matching the standard to the context is what is involved with style. In general, the best writers have good mastery of several standards. Adequate writers —those who can usually make English serve them well— control at least the relatively formal, normal, written English. To me, this means that they can write in a way that expresses what they intend to express without calling unfavorable attention to the writing itself and without introducing unintended implications.
This is the "correct" English of generations of school teachers, and it is what readers expect literate people to use. What departs from it is, in context, an "error," sometimes one with unfortunate consequences.
A single English error in a job application can keep you out of graduate school or lose you a job. I have seen it happen more than once. A single glaring abuse in a report, or even in a private letter or simple E-mail note, can subtly mark you as an incompetent for years thereafter. I have seen that happen too.
Finally, sub-standard or even merely unskillful English can be subtly turned against you to discredit your arguments by implying that if you can't write well you probably can't think too well either. For example, in the following passage, notice the way a news reporter uses exact quotations to mock the misused words (underlined here) of the original communiqué, making the conference organizers look silly:
The communique [of a 1994 international conference of Communist parties] said that the "regression" suffered by the former ruling communist parties of eastern Europe "is only temporal and reversible."
Naturally there is far more to college writing than mechanics and style. Indeed college writing courses typically regard the formulation of persuasive arguments as their most important objective. But writing "correct" English remains a critical ability.
This short (if growing) guide has been developed over many years in response to particularly common mechanical and usage errors that I keep finding in student termpapers, theses, and dissertations. My hope was and is that by bringing a few common errors up for direct, head-on discussion, I won't have to keep explaining things in the margins over and over.
Nearly all of the examples come from UCSD graduate and undergraduate student papers. (A few also come from early drafts of faculty papers, from inept administrative memos, or from poorly edited published sources.) I am grateful to these careless writers for the examples they have generously, if accidentally, provided.
The list is idiosyncratic and crotchety. So am I. (So are people who send E-mail informing me that I am idiosyncratic and crotchety.)
Suggestions for further inclusions are welcome.
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