thesis common error

Top 6 Most Common Thesis Statement Mistakes

Writing a well-done thesis statement can often feel easier said than done. After all, this one sentence sets the tone for your entire paper and can make or break your assignment. To help with your next essay , we've put together a list of the most common thesis statement mistakes and tips to help you avoid them.

What is a Thesis Statement?

Just in case you need a refresher, here's a quick review:

A thesis statement, as defined by Dictionary.com , is: “a short statement, usually one sentence, that summarizes the main point or claim of an essay, research paper, etc., and is developed, supported, and explained in the text by means of examples and evidence.”

A thesis statement introduces your essay's main idea in the first paragraph of your assignment. It is the guiding factor that controls and organizes all other thoughts in your research paper.

How Do I Write a Thesis Statement?

It can take a long time to master the art of crafting a thesis statement. Luckily, there are some tools to help.

A good place to start is by checking out a thesis statement template. This will help ensure that you're including everything you're supposed to.

Here's a quick example:

You can also use an online thesis generator to organize your main idea and evidence. You enter the basic information about your argument and topic, and it helps you create a solid thesis statement.

It also helps to take time to explore some thesis statement examples (both good and bad) to clarify how to fix some of these common mistakes.

What are the Most Common Thesis Statement Mistakes?

Once you know the basics of how to write a thesis statement, there are certain mistakes to watch out for. Learning how to identify these common errors and understanding how to avoid them will help make your thesis statement a strong one.

1. The Statement is Unclear

Your reader needs to immediately understand your purpose. If it is vague or unclear, you've lost your audience from the start. Narrow down your focus and use straightforward language to state your main idea .

• Example thesis: The food in America is gross, unhealthy, and expensive, so we probably shouldn't be eating any of it.
• Improved thesis: Due to the obesity crisis in America, lawmakers should consider creating a plan to lower the prices of healthier foods so that everyone can afford to eat high-quality foods.

2. The Statement is Too Complicated

Making a statement that is too long or wordy generally confuses your reader. It also weakens the argument you are trying to make.

• Example thesis: Many athletes, such as those who play in colleges or for organizations like the NCAA, do not make any money, which is devastating because they deserve to make a substantial amount of money due to their efforts on the court and on the field and due to the fact that colleges earn a profit off of the sports that these athletes play.
• Improved thesis: NCAA athletes should receive compensation for their sports in college because they are generating revenue for universities and risking injury for themselves.

3. The Statement is Too Basic or Obvious

As you move up through school, your writing should mature as well. A successful thesis statement from junior high is not necessarily a strong thesis statement in high school or college. While being very basic and obvious in your younger writing might be fine, writing as an older student should be more precise and refined.

• Example thesis: In this paper, I will be discussing the importance of eating a healthy breakfast every day.
• Improved thesis: Eating a healthy breakfast is important to help your body function at its optimal level throughout the day.

4. The Statement has No Real Purpose

Your readers need to care about your topic in some way. Is this information helpful? Beneficial? Worth investigating? If not, choose a heartier topic that's worth discussing.

• Example thesis: I think these blue socks are the prettiest ones in the drawer.
• Improved thesis: Students should be allowed to express themselves as individuals by choosing any type of socks and shoes they want to wear to school.

5. The Statement Uses Poor Language Choices

Slang, abbreviations, and poor spelling have no place in a clear thesis statement. Use professional language to make your point.

• Example thesis: The best comedians should make you LOL 24-7.
• Improved thesis: To be a quality comedian, you must develop your craft in a way that inspires laughter and smiles at every performance.

6. The Statement Lacks Connection to the Rest of the Essay.

Even if you have a decent thesis statement, it will mean nothing if the rest of the essay strays from your main idea. Always connect your thoughts back to the thesis statement . The paper needs to be coherent and stay on target with your original argument.

Crafting a thorough thesis statement can feel like a difficult task, but it doesn't have to. If you are mindful of common mistakes that students make, you can avoid these errors and create a thesis statement that is clear, engaging, and purposeful.

How to Write Essay Titles and Headers

Don’t overlook the title and section headers when putting together your next writing assignment. Follow these pointers for keeping your writing organized and effective.

101 Standout Argumentative Essay Topic Ideas

Need a topic for your upcoming argumentative essay? We've got 100 helpful prompts to help you get kickstarted on your next writing assignment.

Writing a Standout College Admissions Essay

Your personal statement is arguably the most important part of your college application. Follow these guidelines for an exceptional admissions essay.

Top 20 Errors in Undergraduate Writing

Main navigation.

The Top Twenty: A Quick Guide to Troubleshooting Your Writing

Readers judge your writing by your control of certain conventions, which may change depending on your audience, purpose, and writing situation.  For example, your instructor may or may not mark errors in your paper if he’s more concerned with its argument or structure than he is with sentence-level correctness; he could also decide an error is not serious.  Some instructors may even see the errors listed below as stylistic options. However, a large-scale study by Andrea Lunsford and Karen Lunsford (2008) found that these errors are the most likely to attract readers’ negative attention.  Before handing in your papers, proofread them carefully for these errors, which are illustrated below in the sentences in italics.  

THE TOP TWENTY

1. wrong word.

Wrong word errors take a number of forms. They may convey a slightly different meaning than you intend ( compose instead of comprise ) or a completely wrong meaning ( prevaricate  instead of procrastinate ). They may also be as simple as a wrong preposition or other type of wrong word in an idiom.

Use your thesaurus and spell checker with care. If you select a word from a thesaurus without knowing its precise meaning or allow a spell checker to correct spelling automatically, you may make wrong-word errors. If prepositions and idioms are tricky for you, look up the standard usage.

Here are a couple of wrong word examples:

Did you catch my illusion to the Bible?

Illusion means “an erroneous perception of reality.” In the context of this sentence,  allusion was needed because it means "reference.”

Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene is a magnificent sixteenth-century allergy.

A spell checker replaced allegory with allergy.

2. Missing Comma after an Introductory Element

Use a comma after every introductory element—whether word, phrase or clause—to clarify where it ends and the rest of the sentence begins. When the introductory element is very short, you can skip the comma, but including it is never wrong.

Without a comma after the introductory element, it’s hard to see the location of the subject (“they”) in this sentence:

Determined to make their flight on time they rose at dawn.

3. Incomplete or Missing Documentation

Documentation practices vary from discipline to discipline.  But in academic and research writing, it’s a good idea to always cite your sources: omitting documentation can result in charges of plagiarism.

The examples below follow MLA style.  In this example, the page number of the print source for this quotation must be included.

The Social Media Bible defines social media as the “activities, practices, and behaviors among communities of people who gather online to share information, knowledge, and opinions using conversational media.”

And here, the source mentioned should be identified because it makes a specific, arguable claim:

According to one source, it costs almost twice an employee’s salary to recruit and train a replacement. 

Cite each source you refer to in the text, following the guidelines of the documentation style you are using. 

4. Vague Pronoun Reference

A pronoun (e.g., he, this, it) should refer clearly to the noun it replaces (called the antecedent).  If more than one word could be the antecedent, or if no specific antecedent is present, edit to make the meaning clear.

In this sentence, it possibly refers to more than one word:

If you put this handout in your binder, it may remind you of important tutoring strategies .

In some pronoun usage, the reference is implied but not stated.  Here, for example, you might wonder what which refers to:

The authoritarian school changed its cell phone policy, which many students resisted.

To improve this sentence, the writer needs to make explicit what students resisted.

5. Spelling

Even though technology now reviews much of our spelling for us, one of the top 20 most common errors is a spelling error.  That’s because spell checkers cannot identify many misspellings, and are most likely to miss homonyms (e.g., presence/presents), compound words incorrectly spelled as separate words, and proper nouns, particularly names. After you run the spell checker, proofread carefully for errors such as these:

Vladmir Putin is the controversial leader of Russia.

Every where she walked, she was reminded of him.

6. Mechanical Error with a Quotation

When we quote other writers, we bring their voices into our arguments.  Quotation marks crucially show where their words end and our own begin. 

Quotation marks come in pairs; don’t forget to open and close your quotations.  In most documentation styles (e.g., MLA Style), block quotations do not need quotations marks.  Consult your professor’s preferred style manual to learn how to present block quotations. 

Follow conventions when using quotation marks with other punctuation. Here, the comma should be placed inside the quotation marks:

"A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction", Virginia Woolf argues.

7. Unnecessary Comma

We often have a choice about whether or not to use a comma.  But if we add them to our sentences when and where they are not needed, then we may obscure rather than clarify our meaning.

Do not use commas to set off restrictive elements that are necessary to the meaning of the words they modify.  Here, for example, no comma is needed to set off the restrictive phrase  of working parents , which is necessary to indicate which parents the sentence is talking about.

Many children, of working parents, walk home from school by themselves.

Do not use a comma before a coordinating conjunction (and, but, for, nor, or, so, yet) when the conjunction does not join parts of a compound sentence.  In this example, no comma is needed before the word  and  because it joins two phrases that modify the same verb, applies.

  This social scourge can be seen in urban centers, and in rural outposts.

Do not use a comma before the first or after the last item in a series.

The students asked their TAs to review, the assignment rubric, a sample paper and their comments, before the end of the quarter.

Do not use a comma between a subject and verb.

Happily, the waiters, sat down during a break.

Do not use a comma between a verb and its object or complement.

On her way home from work, she bought, a book at the bookstore.

Do not use a comma between a preposition and its object.

On her way home from work, she bought a book at, the bookstore.

8. Unnecessary or Missing Capitalization

Capitalize proper nouns and proper adjectives, the first words of sentences, and important words in titles, along with certain words indicating directions and family relationships. Do not capitalize most other words. When in doubt, check a dictionary.

Financial Aid is a pressing concern for many University Students.

9. Missing Word

If you read your work outloud before submittingit, you are more likely to notice omitted words.  Be particularly careful not to omit words from quotations.

Soccer fans the globe rejoiced when the striker scored the second goal.

10. Faulty Sentence Structure

If a sentence starts out with one kind of structure and then changes to another kind, it will confuse readers.

The information that families have access to is what financial aid is available and thinking about the classes available, and how to register.

Maintain the grammatical pattern within a sentence.  Each sentence must have a subject and a verb, and the subjects and predicates must make sense together.  In the example above, thinking about the classes available does not help the reader understand the information families have access to.  Parallel structures can help your reader see the relationships among your ideas.  Here’s the sentence revised:

Families have access to information about financial aid, class availability, and registration.

11. Missing Comma with a Nonrestrictive Element

A nonrestrictive phrase or clause provides additional information that is not essential to the basic meaning of the sentence.  Use commas to set off a nonrestrictive element.

David who loved to read history was the first to head to the British Library.

The clause  who loved to read history does not affect the basic meaning of the sentence.  The clause could be taken out and the reader would still understand that David was the first to head to the British Library.  

12. Unnecessary Shift in Verb Tense

Verbs that shift from one tense to another with no clear reason can confuse readers.

Martin searched for a great horned owl.  He takes photographs of all the birds he sights.

13. Missing Comma in a Compound Sentence

A compound sentence consists of two or more independent clauses.  When the clauses are joined by a coordinating conjunction (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so), use a comma before the conjunction to indicate a pause between the two thoughts.

Miranda drove her brother and her mother waited at home.

Without the comma, a reader may think at first that Miranda drove both her brother and her mother.

14. Unnecessary or Missing Apostrophe (including its/it's)

To make a noun possessive, add either an apostrophe and an s (Ed's phone) or an apostrophe alone (the girls’ bathroom). Do not use an apostrophe in the possessive pronouns ours, yours, and hers. Use its to mean belong to it; use it's only when you mean it is or it has.

Repeated viral infections compromise doctors immune systems.

The chef lifted the skillet off it’s hook.  Its a fourteen-inch, copper skillet.

15. Fused (run-on) Sentence

A fused sentence (also called a run-on) joins clauses that could each stand alone as a sentence with no punctuation or words to link them. Fused sentences must be either divided into separate sentences or joined by adding words or punctuation.

The house was flooded with light, the moon rose above the horizon.

He wondered what the decision meant he thought about it all night.

16. Comma Splice

A comma splice occurs when only a comma separates clauses that could each stand alone as a sentence. To correct a comma splice, you can insert a semicolon or period, connect the clauses with a word such as and/or/because, or restructure the sentence.

The students rushed the field, they tore down the goalposts. 

17. Lack of pronoun/antecedent agreement

Pronouns typically must agree with their antecedents in gender (male or female, if appropriate) and in number (singular or plural). Many indefinite pronouns, such as everyone and each, are always singular.  However,  they can be used to agree with a singular antecedent in order to use inclusive or gender-neutral language.  When antecedents are joined by or or nor, the pronoun must agree with the closer antecedent. A collection noun such as team can be either singular or plural, depending on whether the members are seen as a group or individuals.

Every guest left their shoes at the door.

18. Poorly Integrated Quotation

Quotations should be logically and smoothly integrated with the writing around them, the grammar of the quotation complementing the grammar of the neighboring prose.  They usually need to be introduced (with a signal phrase) rather than dropped abruptly into the writing.

An award-winning 2009 study of friendship "understanding social networks allows us to understand how indeed, in the case of humans, the whole comes to be greater than the sum of its parts" (Christakis and Fowler 26).

"Social networks are intricate things of beauty" (Christakis and Fowler xiii). Maintaining close friendships is good for your health.

19. Missing or Unnecessary Hyphen

A compound adjective requires a hyphen when it modifies a noun that follows it.

This article describes eighteenth century theater.

A two-word verb should not be hyphenated. 

The dealers want to buy-back the computers and refurbish them.

20. Sentence Fragment

A sentence fragment is part of a sentence that is presented as if it were a complete sentence.  The following illustrate the ways sentence fragments can be created:

Without a subject

The American colonists resisted British taxation.  And started the American Revolution.

No complete verb

The pink geranium blooming in its pot.

Beginning with a subordinating word

We visited the park. Where we threw the Frisbee.

These 20 most common errors can be avoided in your writing if you reserve time to proofread your final draft before submission.

Works Cited

Lunsford, Andrea A. and Karen J. Lunsford.  “Mistakes are a Fact of Life: A National Comparative Study.”   CCC 59 (2008) 781-806.

Twelve Common Errors

Download this Handout PDF

This list includes only brief examples and explanations intended for you to use as reminders while you are editing your papers. If you would like to learn more, consider the following options:

• Take one of the free grammar, style, and punctuation classes offered by the Writing Center.
• Set up an appointment for an individual conference in the Writing Center.
• Confer with your course instructor.
• Consult a handbook for additional examples and complete explanations

1. Sentence fragments

Make sure each word group you have punctuated as a sentence contains a grammatically complete and independent thought that can stand alone as an acceptable sentence.

Tests of the Shroud of Turin have produced some curious findings. For example, the pollen of forty-eight plants native to Europe and the Middle East.

[2nd sentence = fragment]

Tests of the Shroud of Turin have produced some curious findings. For example, the cloth contains the pollen of forty-eight plants native to Europe and the Middle East.

Scientists report no human deaths due to excessive caffeine consumption. Although caffeine does cause convulsions and death in certain animals.

Scientists report no human deaths due to excessive caffeine consumption, although caffeine does cause convulsions and death in certain animals.

2. Sentence sprawl

Too many equally weighted phrases and clauses produce tiresome sentences.

The hearing was planned for Monday, December 2, but not all of the witnesses could be available, so it was rescheduled for the following Friday, and then all the witnesses could attend.

[There are no grammatical errors here, but the sprawling sentence does not communicate clearly and concisely.]

The hearing, which had been planned for Monday, December 2, was rescheduled for the following Friday so that all witnesses would be able to attend.

3. Misplaced and dangling modifiers

Place modifiers near the words they describe; be sure the modified words actually appear in the sentence.

Not sure what a modifier is? Check our our FAQ.

When writing a proposal, an original task is set for research.

When writing a proposal, a scholar sets an original task for research.

Many tourists visit Arlington National Cemetery, where veterans and military personnel are buried every day from 9:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m.

Every day from 9:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m., many tourists visit Arlington National Cemetery, where veterans and military personnel are buried.

Still unsure? For more explanation and examples, see our grammar and style FAQ.

4. Faulty parallelism

Be sure you use grammatically equal sentence elements to express two or more matching ideas or items in a series.

The candidate’s goals include winning the election, a national health program, and the educational system.

The candidate’s goals include winning the election, enacting a national health program, and improving the educational system.

Some critics are not so much opposed to capital punishment as postponing it for so long.

Some critics are not so much opposed to capital punishment as they are to postponing it for so long.

5. Unclear pronoun reference

All pronouns must clearly refer to definite referents [nouns].

Use it, they, this, that, these, those, and which carefully to prevent confusion.

Einstein was a brilliant mathematician. This is how he was able to explain the universe.

Einstein, who was a brilliant mathematician, used his ability with numbers to explain the universe.

Because Senator Martin is less interested in the environment than in economic development, he sometimes neglects it.

Because of his interest in economic development, Senator Martin sometimes neglects the environment.

6. Incorrect pronoun case

Determine whether the pronoun is being used as a subject, or an object, or a possessive in the sentence, and select the pronoun form to match.

Castro’s communist principles inevitably led to an ideological conflict between he and President Kennedy.

Castro’s communist principles inevitably led to an ideological conflict between him and President Kennedy.

Because strict constructionists recommend fidelity to the Constitution as written, no one objects more than them to judicial reinterpretation.

Because strict constructionists recommend fidelity to the Constitution as written, no one objects more than they [do] to judicial reinterpretation.

7. Omitted commas

Use commas to signal nonrestrictive or nonessential material, to prevent confusion, and to indicate relationships among ideas and sentence parts.

When it comes to eating people differ in their tastes.

When it comes to eating, people differ in their tastes.

The Huns who were Mongolian invaded Gaul in 451.

The Huns, who were Mongolian, invaded Gaul in 451.

[“Who were Mongolian” adds information but does not change the core meaning of the sentence because Huns were a Mongolian people; this material is therefore nonrestrictive or nonessential.]

For more information on commas see Commas: Punctuating Restrictive and Non-restrictive Modifiers and Punctuating Coordinating Conjunctions and Sentence Adverbs , or take one of the free grammar, style, and punctuation workshops offered by the Writing Center.

8. Superfluous commas

Unnecessary commas make sentences difficult to read.

Field trips are required, in several courses, such as, botany and geology.

Field trips are required in several courses, such as botany and geology.

The term, “scientific illiteracy,” has become almost a cliche, in educational circles.

The term “scientific illiteracy” has become almost a cliche in educational circles.

9. Comma splices

Do not link two independent clauses with a comma (unless you also use a coordinating conjunction: and, or, but, for, nor, so, yet ).

Instead use a period or semicolon, or rewrite the sentence.

Comma splice:

In 1952 Japan’s gross national product was one third that of France, by the late 1970s it was larger than the GNPs of France and Britain combined.

In 1952 Japan’s gross national product was one third that of France. By the late 1970s it was larger than the GNPs of France and Britain combined.

Diseased coronary arteries are often surgically bypassed, however half of all bypass grafts fail within ten years.

Diseased coronary arteries are often surgically bypassed; however, half of all bypass grafts fail within ten years.

10. Apostrophe Errors

Apostrophes indicate possession for nouns ( “Jim’s hat,” “several years’ work” ) but not for personal pronouns (its, your, their, and whose).

Apostrophes also indicate omissions in contractions ( “it’s” = “it is” ).

In general, they are not used to indicate plurals.

In the current conflict its uncertain who’s borders their contesting.

In the current conflict it is [it’s] uncertain whose borders they are [they’re] contesting.

The Aztecs ritual’s of renewal increased in frequency over the course of time.

The Aztecs’ rituals of renewal increased in frequency over the course of time.

11. Words easily confused

“Effect” is most often a noun (the effect), and “affect” is almost always a verb.

Other pairs commonly confused: “lead”/”led” and “accept”/”except.”

Check a glossary of usage to find the right choice.

The recession had a negative affect on sales.

The recession had a negative effect on sales. (or) The recession affected sales negatively.

The laboratory instructor chose not to offer detailed advise.

The laboratory instructor chose not to offer detailed advice.

12. Misspellings

Spelling errors are usually perceived as a reflection of the writer’s careless attitude toward the whole project.

Don’t allow your hard work to be marred in this way!

In addition to comprehensive dictionaries, you may want to use electronic spell checks, spelling dictionaries, and lists of frequently misspelled words found in handbooks.

Grammar and Punctuation

This is an accordion element with a series of buttons that open and close related content panels.

Using Dashes

Using Commas

Using Semicolons

Using Coordinating Conjunctions

Using Conjunctive Adverbs

Subject-Verb Agreement

Using Gender–Neutral Pronouns in Academic Writing

How to Proofread

Twelve Common Errors: An Editing Checklist

Clear, Concise Sentences

Top 5 Common Mistakes To Avoid While Writing A Thesis

Link Copied

Share on Facebook

Share on Twitter

Share on LinkedIn

Avoid thesis writing pitfalls!

Writing a thesis paper can be a daunting task, especially for students who are new to academic writing. While it is a great opportunity to demonstrate knowledge and expertise in a particular subject, the process of thesis writing can be fraught with challenges.  Students often make common writing mistakes, such as not developing a clear and concise thesis statement or improperly structuring a paper. Explore the top five common thesis writing mistakes in this blog post, and use these thesis writing tips and strategies to avoid these pitfalls and achieve academic success.

What is a Thesis Paper?

A thesis paper is an extended piece of academic writing that presents an original research argument on a particular topic or issue. It is typically required for students pursuing master's or doctoral degrees but may also be assigned at the undergraduate level.  Writing a thesis paper can be challenging, requiring a high level of research and critical analysis. However, it is also an opportunity for students to demonstrate their expertise in a particular field and to contribute new knowledge to their disciplines. When writing a thesis paper, it is crucial to avoid common writing mistakes, such as failing to develop a clear thesis statement or to structure the paper effectively. With these tips to avoid common writing mistakes, thesis writing can be a rewarding and successful experience.

Stay connected globally with the Best International Phone Plans 2024! Unlock seamless communication while you focus on your studies and find your ideal student accommodation.

Book through amber today!

Top 5 Common Thesis Writing Mistakes

Here are common writing mistakes that students make when writing a thesis paper. Avoid these pitfalls and produce a high-quality thesis paper by understanding these mistakes and following the recommended thesis writing tips.

1. Unclear Thesis Statement

Writing a thesis that is clear is the foundation of a strong thesis paper. Without it, a paper lacks direction and purpose. Many students make the mistake of either writing a weak thesis statement or failing to include one at all. 

‍ Proposed solution: To avoid this mistake, take time to develop a strong thesis statement that clearly presents the argument and scope of the paper. Revise and refine it as you continue to research and write your paper. For assistance perfecting your thesis statement, consult a professional editing service .

2. Ineffective Organization and Structure

Writing a thesis that is well-organized and well-structured helps the reader follow the central argument and better understand the research. However, many students struggle due to ineffective organization and structure, leading to readers' confusion and disengagement. 

‍ Proposed solution: To avoid this mistake, start by outlining your paper and breaking it down into clear sections and subsections. Ensure that the sections flow logically from one to the next and that your argument is presented cohesively throughout the paper.

3. Lack of Clarity and Conciseness

Writing a thesis paper requires a high level of research and analysis , but it's important not to get bogged down in unnecessary details. Many students make the mistake of including too much information or using overly complex language. 

‍ Proposed solution: To avoid this mistake, focus on presenting your research and analysis clearly and concisely. Use simple language and avoid jargon or technical terms unless necessary.

4. Failure to Follow Citation Guidelines

Properly citing sources is critical when writing a thesis paper. Failure to do so can lead to plagiarism or a lack of credibility. Many students make the mistake of either not citing their sources correctly or failing to include citations altogether. 

‍ Proposed solution: To avoid this mistake, familiarize yourself with the citation guidelines of your institution or discipline. Use reputable sources, and ensure that all sources are properly cited.

5. Neglecting the Revision Process

While writing a thesis, the revision process is a crucial step but many students neglect it. They rush through the process or skip it altogether, leading to mistakes and inconsistencies in their papers. 

‍ Proposed solution: To avoid this mistake, set aside time to review and revise your paper. Seek feedback from peers or advisors, and make necessary revisions to improve the coherence of your argument.

If your peers or advisors are too busy to help with your thesis paper, consider consulting an expert thesis editor . 

Writing a thesis paper is a challenging task, but by avoiding common writing mistakes and following effective thesis writing tips, students can successfully complete their papers and achieve academic success.  Failing to develop a clear thesis statement, ineffective organization and structure, lack of clarity and conciseness, failure to follow citation guidelines, and neglecting the revision process are common writing mistakes that students should be aware of.  To avoid these mistakes while writing a thesis, take time to develop a strong thesis statement, outline the paper, use clear and concise language, properly cite sources, and set aside time for revision. To perfect your thesis, you can always get thesis paper editing and feedback from a vetted expert.

By following these tips and strategies while writing a thesis, students can produce a well-written and coherent thesis paper that demonstrates their expertise in their chosen field of study. Make sure you checkout our detailed blog on how to write thesis statement .

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it ok to leave mistakes while writing a thesis, what is the hardest aspect of writing a thesis, are there certain words i should avoid when writing a thesis, how do i write a thesis, how much time do i need to write my thesis.

Your ideal student home & a flight ticket awaits

Follow us on :

Related Posts

10 Tips To Help You Write A Great SOP

10 Best Online Degrees That Pay Well

The 15 Cheapest Countries To Study Medicine for International Students In 2024

amber © 2024. All rights reserved.

4.8/5 on Trustpilot

Rated as "Excellent" • 4800+ Reviews by students

Rated as "Excellent" • 4800+ Reviews by Students

Have a language expert improve your writing

Run a free plagiarism check in 10 minutes, generate accurate citations for free.

• Knowledge Base
• Language rules

Punctuation in Academic Writing: Common Errors | Examples

Published on April 9, 2015 by Shane Bryson . Revised on July 19, 2023.

Instantly correct all language mistakes in your text

Upload your document to correct all your mistakes in minutes

These pages outline some of the most important punctuation rules and common mistakes. Punctuation misuse often causes or is caused by other kinds of mistakes, usually on the level of sentence structure.

• Quotation marks (“”)
• Apostrophes (‘)
• Semicolons (;)
• Dashes (– and —)
• Parentheses ( )
• Question marks (?)

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

Bryson, S. (2023, July 19). Punctuation in Academic Writing: Common Errors | Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved July 17, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/language-rules/punctuation-mistakes/

Is this article helpful?

Shane Bryson

Shane finished his master's degree in English literature in 2013 and has been working as a writing tutor and editor since 2009. He began proofreading and editing essays with Scribbr in early summer, 2014.

"I thought AI Proofreading was useless but.."

I've been using Scribbr for years now and I know it's a service that won't disappoint. It does a good job spotting mistakes”

  [email protected]

• English English Spanish German French Turkish

5 Common Mistakes When Writing a Thesis or Dissertation

While composing a thesis or dissertation, a student must experience some predicted traps. Falling into these traps can affect one’s academic career. However, handling potential blunders and pitfalls wisely, while developing a thesis, can lead you to success. The process of writing may be frustrating but learning about the probable pitfalls may ease your stress. Here, we bring you the list of the most common mistakes we have noticed as a professional proofreading and editing service provider.

This guide discusses the common 5 mistakes when writing a thesis or dissertation. To give you an opportunity to practice proofreading, we have left a few spelling, punctuation, or grammatical errors in the text. See if you can spot them! If you spot the errors correctly, you will be entitled to a 10% discount.

Writing a thesis or dissertation is not just about collecting data and jotting it down. While writing, students need to organize the thesis statement and gather enough logical data to support the statement. Therefore, organizing all relevant information and maintaining the academic guidelines at the same time is no less than a struggle.

While composing a thesis or dissertation, a student must experience some predicted traps. Falling into these traps can affect one’s academic career. However, handling potential blunders and pitfalls wisely, while developing a thesis or dissertation, can lead you to success. The process of writing may be frustrating, but learning about the probable pitfalls may ease your stress. Here, we bring you the list of the most common mistakes when writing a thesis or dissertation.

Mistakes while writing a thesis/dissertation

Addressing all the mistakes is not an easy task. There are some common errors, but flaws vary from person to person. Lack of research while choosing the topic, lack of strength in the thesis statement, problems in formatting, writing bland information, mistakes in referencing and citation, failures in proofreading and editing, etc., are some common errors. However, Best Edit & Proof has drafted all these blunders into 5 sections for you.

1. Choosing the wrong thesis/dissertation topic

Choosing the wrong thesis/dissertation topic can weaken the entire plot of the thesis. Most of the time, it seems like students are in a hurry while choosing the topic. It leads them to choose the wrong thesis/dissertation topic. While picking up the topic, make sure to follow the following points:

Do proper background research .

Brainstorm different concepts. If the concept doesn’t interest you, the journey of writing will be boring.

You need to form your topic as a research question.

Research about the initial approaches to the chosen topic and think about the topic from different aspects of society and academics.

Dynamic research is always appreciated while choosing the thesis topic.

2. Failure to write an impactful thesis statement

Choosing the topic and developing a research question is not enough. A student needs to create a strong thesis statement. Students often make mistakes while forming this part. The process may be critical, but a student needs to avoid any mistakes while stating the viewpoint.

Take a note that the thesis statement must be precise, bold, and to the point. The statement must be reliable and attractive. A poorly written thesis statement disinterests readers to go through the thesis furthers.

Understand and analyze the thesis/dissertation topic.

The statement of the thesis/dissertation must give hints of further discussion.

Avoid grammatical and punctuation errors in this part.

Restrain yourself from writing anything that doesn’t have any concrete base or references.

3. Lack of rational association between thesis statement and written information

Making a logical connection between the chosen statement and supporting information is necessary to execute a successful thesis or dissertation. Due to a lack of research and brainstorming, many researchers often fail to build this connection. A well-versed research paper meets all the inquiries and fixes all the loopholes in it.

The initial explanation for this issue is the inability to discover supporting ideas or information that possess relevant resources. All the supporting statements must compliment your main topic. The entire paper should look like a photocopy where the thesis statement and supporting information are properly synchronized.

All the supporting information must be cited from trusted scholarly sources. Committing errors in citing references is not appreciated.

· 7 Tips to Write an Effective Research Paper

· How to Write the Best Theoretical Framework for Your Dissertation

· How to Structure a Dissertation: A Brief Guide

· How to Formulate Research Questions

4. Violating academic integrity

The study of academics holds strong integrity. Violating academic integrity is not entertained at all while preparing a thesis or dissertation. How can one break this integrity? Let’s have a look at them.

Violating university guidelines: Violating university guidelines while writing is nowhere allowed.

Plagiarizing content: Plagiarizing content from other sources is strictly prohibited.

False information: Making false claims is not a good practice for academics.

· What is Plagiarism | How to Avoid It

· How to Choose the Right Plagiarism Checker for Your Academic Works

· 5 Practical Ways to Avoid Plagiarism

5. Avoiding expert’s help for proofreading and editing

Proofreading and editing are an integral part of thesis writing. Committing mistakes refers to compromising the quality of a thesis/dissertation. Experienced proofreading and editing services check the entire thesis from beginning to end and make all the necessary changes in terms of grammar, punctuation, referencing, and even sentence construction. Especially, non-native English speakers make mistakes in terms of language and style.

However, irrespective of native or non-native speakers, they meet failures in formatting, referencing, and keeping the consistency of the thesis or dissertation from each aspect.

· 8 Reasons Why You Need Professional Proofreading and Editing Services

· How to Find a Reliable Proofreading Service: A Brief Guide

· Why Do You Need Academic Editing?

· How Much Do Proofreading and Editing Cost?

· 8 Things to Consider Before Hiring Online Editing or Proofreading Services

· Importance of Academic Referencing and Citing

6. Other common mistakes while writing a thesis or dissertation

The use of first or second person: Writing sentences in the first person and the second person is not an academic practice.

Fragment sentence: Using long and bland sentences can affect the tone of the article.

Grammatical errors: Mistakes in grammar and punctuation are considered substandard.

If you need us to make your manuscript shine, contact us unhesitatingly!

Best Edit & Proof expert editors and proofreaders focus on offering manuscripts with proper tone, content, and style of  academic writing,  and also provide an upscale  editing and proofreading service  for you. If you consider our pieces of advice, you will witness a notable increase in the chance for your research manuscript to be accepted by the publishers. We work together as an academic writing style guide by bestowing subject-area editing and proofreading around several categorized writing styles. With the group of our expert editors, you will always find us all set to help you identify the tone and style that your manuscript needs to get a nod from the publishers.

English manuscript formatting service

You can also avail of our assistance if you are looking for editors who can format your manuscript, or just check on the  particular styles  for the formatting task as per the guidelines provided to you, e.g.,  APA,  MLA, or Chicago/Turabian styles. Best Edit & Proof editors and proofreaders provide all sorts of academic writing help, including editing and proofreading services, using our user-friendly website, and a streamlined ordering process.

Get a free quote for editing and proofreading now!

Visit our  order page  if you want our subject-area editors or language experts to work on your manuscript to improve its tone and style and give it a perfect academic tone and style through proper editing and proofreading. The process of submitting a paper is very easy and quick. Click here to find out how it  works.

Our pricing is based on the type of service you avail of here, be it editing or proofreading. We charge on the basis of the word count of your manuscript that you submit for editing and proofreading and the turnaround time it takes to get it done. If you want to get an instant price quote for your project, copy and paste your document or enter your word count into our  pricing calculator.

24/7 customer support | Live support

Contact us to get support with academic editing and proofreading. We have a 24/7 active live chat mode to offer you direct support along with qualified editors to refine and furbish your manuscript.

Stay tuned for updated information about editing and proofreading services!

Follow us on  Twitter,  LinkedIn,    Facebook,  Instagram,  and  Medium .

For more posts, click  here.  

• Editing & Proofreading
• Citation Styles
• Grammar Rules
• Academic Writing
• Proofreading
• Microsoft Tools
• Academic Publishing
• Dissertation & Thesis
• Researching
• Job & Research Application

Similar Posts

How to Determine Variability in a Dataset

How to Determine Central Tendency

How to Specify Study Variables in Research Papers?

Population vs Sample | Sampling Methods for a Dissertation

7 Issues to Avoid That may Dent the Quality of Thesis Writing

How to Ensure the Quality of Academic Writing in a Thesis and Dissertation?

How to Define Population and Sample in a Dissertation?

Recent Posts

ANOVA vs MANOVA: Which Method to Use in Dissertations?

They Also Read

Submitting a journal article can be a nerve-wracking experience. After all, this piece of work requires hours of research, analysis, and work poured into it. Therefore, you would wish for it to be acknowledged, selected, and published. This guide will give you some crucial answers, so go ahead and take a read. This way, you can ensure that your journal submission is devoid of any hassle.

Whether you are new to academics or have been around for a while, you must understand that research is a critical segment of the academic field. Therefore, it is essential to know the WHATs, WHYs, and HOWs of it. Pertaining to that, this article discusses different types of research methods that you will come across. Namely, they are — quantitative research and qualitative research. Here, we will learn what these types of research are, how they are different, and when they are used. This will be especially helpful for researchers and students who are just starting with their research.

One of the main things that any editor or proofreader looks out for while editing a piece of text is punctuation marks. The reason is simple — they can alter the meaning of your text if you do not use them correctly. It becomes even more prominent when you are writing an academic paper. In academic writing, an author may be easily misunderstood when ambiguous sentences are used. Punctuation marks mainly serve the purpose to disambiguate sentences. While literary or other types of writing will have a certain degree of freedom for using punctuation marks, academic work needs to be precise and correct. This article will cover the importance of punctuation marks in academic writing.

A narrative essay is, to an extent, an anomaly in academic writing. Unlike an expository essay, it does not dissuade academic writers from exercising their creative faculties. Nor does it require them to conduct extensive research and be strictly objective in their writing. However, narrative pieces still require academic writers to abide by the fundamental linguistic requirements of academic writing, such as excluding any instances of slang and other “informal” linguistic elements. This article expounds upon the atypical nature of a narrative essay and divulges the steps to write one.

A thesis statement is the main academic argument of the thesis that distills the central idea of the study informing the readers about your stance on your thesis topic and is therefore an integral part of writing the thesis. When writing a thesis statement, there are several contentions regarding the right approach. And understandably so, for there are no definite writing rules. But there certainly are writing best practices. In this article, we will look at some of these best practices and how you can leverage them to write a formidable thesis statement. But prior to that, let’s understand what a thesis statement is.

The first step includes choosing a subject for your thesis, dissertation, or research project and ensuring the process becomes rewarding and smooth. One should consider many issues before deciding on a topic.

In statistics, a population refers to the pool of individuals from which one can draw the statistical sample for a study. A population includes a complete set of individuals. That group can comprise a nation or people sharing common characteristics.

Essay Writing: Common Grammatical and Mechanical Errors

• Essay Writing Basics
• Purdue OWL Page on Writing Your Thesis This link opens in a new window
• Paragraphs and Transitions
• How to Tell if a Website is Legitimate This link opens in a new window
• Formatting Your References Page
• Cite a Website
• Common Grammatical and Mechanical Errors
• Additional Resources
• Proofread Before You Submit Your Paper
• Structuring the 5-Paragraph Essay

Another Source

Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) has a list of common writing errors.

Purdue is also a great resource for citation & formatting rules.

Purdue OWL: Proofreading

Common Mistakes: Presented by the University of Minnesota

Content by the University of Minnesota's  Twelve Common Errors: An Editing Checklist

Twelve Common Errors: An Editing Checklist

This list includes brief examples and explanations for you to use as reminders while you are editing your papers. If you would like to learn more, take a short writing course, set up an individual appointment at Student Writing Support, or consult a handbook for complete explanations.

1. Sentence Fragments

Make sure each word group you have punctuated as a sentence contains a grammatically complete and independent thought that can stand alone as an acceptable sentence.

Incorrect (the second sentence is the fragment): Tests of the Shroud of Turin have produced some curious findings. For example. the pollen of forty-eight plants native to Europe and the Middle East.

Revised: Tests of the Shroud of Turin have produced some curious findings. For example, the cloth contains the pollen of forty-eight plants native to Europe and the Middle East.

Incorrect: Scientists report no human deaths due to excessive caffeine consumption. Although caffeine does cause death in certain animals.

Revised: Scientists report no human deaths due to excessive caffeine consumption, although caffeine does cause death in certain animals.

2. Sentence Sprawl

Too many equally weighted phrases and clauses produce tiresome sentences.

Incorrect (There are no grammatical errors here, but the sprawling sentence does not communicate clearly and concisely.): The hearing was planned for Mon., Dec. 2, but not all of the witnesses could be available, so it was rescheduled for the following Friday, and then all the witnesses could attend.

Revised: The hearing, which had been planned for Mon., Dec. 2, was rescheduled for the following Friday so that all witnesses would be able to attend.

3. Misplaced and Dangling Modifiers

Place modifiers near the words they describe; be sure the modified words actually appear in the sentence.

Incorrect: When writing a proposal, an original task is set for research.

Revised: When writing a proposal, a scholar sets an original task for research.

Incorrect: Many tourists visit Arlington National Cemetery, where veterans and military personnel are buried every day from 9:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m.

Revised: Every day from 9:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m., many tourists visit Arlington National Cemetery, where veterans and military personnel are buried.

4. Faulty Parallelism

Be sure you use grammatically equal sentence elements to express two or more matching ideas or items in a series.

Incorrect: The candidate's goals include winning the election, a national health program, and the educational system.

Revised: The candidate's goals include winning the election, enacting a national health program, and improving the educational system.

5. Unclear Pronoun Reference

All pronouns must clearly refer to definite referents (nouns). Use "it," "this," "that," "these," "those," and "which" carefully to prevent confusion.

Incorrect: Einstein was a brilliant mathematician. This is how he was able to explain the universe.

Revised: Einstein, who was a brilliant mathematician, used his ability with numbers to explain the universe.

Incorrect: Because Senator Martin is less interested in the environment than in economic development, he sometimes neglects it.

Revised: Because of his interest in economic development, Senator Martin sometimes neglects the environment.

6. Incorrect Pronoun Case

Determine whether the pronoun is being used as a subject, an object, or a possessive in the sentence, and select the pronoun form to match.

Incorrect: Castro's communist principles inevitably led to an ideological conflict between he and President Kennedy.

Revised: Castro's communist principles inevitably led to an ideological conflict between him and President Kennedy.

Incorrect: Since strict constructionists recommend fidelity to the Constitution as written, no one objects more than them to judicial reinterpretation.

Revised: Since strict constructionists recommend fidelity to the Constitution as written, no one objects more than they [object] to judicial reinterpretation.

7. Omitted Commas

Use commas to signal nonrestrictive or nonessential material, to prevent confusion, and to indicate relationships among ideas and sentence parts.

Incorrect: When it comes to eating people differ in their tastes.--  (eww!)

Revised: When it comes to eating , people differ in their tastes.

Incorrect: The Huns who were Mongolian invaded Gaul in 451.

Revised: The Huns, who were Mongolian, invaded Gaul in 451.

8. Superfluous Commas

Unnecessary commas make sentences difficult to read.

Incorrect: Field trips are required, in several courses, such as, botany and geology.

Revised: Field trips are required in several courses, such as botany and geology.

Incorrect: The term "scientific illiteracy," has become almost a cliché in educational circles.

Revised: The term "scientific illiteracy" has become almost a cliché in educational circles.

9. Comma Splices

Do not link two independent clauses with a comma (unless you also use a coordinating conjunction: "and," "or," "but,"' "nor," "so," "yet"). Instead, use a period or semicolon, or rewrite the sentence.

Incorrect: In 1952, Japan's GNP was one third that of France, by the late 1970s, it was larger than the GNPs of France and Britain combined.

Revised: In 1952, Japan's GNP was one third that of France. By the late 1970s, it was larger than the GNPs of France and Britain combined.

Incorrect: Diseased coronary arteries are often surgically bypassed, however half of all bypass grafts fail within ten years.

Revised: Diseased coronary arteries are often surgically bypassed; however, half of all bypass grafts fail within ten years.

10. Apostrophe Errors

Apostrophes indicate possession for nouns ("Jim's hat," "several years' work") but not for personal pronouns ( "its," "your," "their," and "whose"). Apostrophes also indicate omissions in contractions ("it's" = "it is"). In general they are not used to indicate plurals.

Incorrect: In the current conflict its uncertain who's borders their contesting.

Revised: In the current conflict, it is [it's] uncertain whose borders they are [they're] contesting.

Incorrect: The Aztecs' ritual's of renewal increased in frequency over the course of time.

Revised: The Aztecs' rituals of renewal increased in frequency over the course of time.

11. Words Easily Confused

"Effect" is most often a noun (the effect), and "affect" is almost always a verb. Other pairs commonly confused: "lead"/ "led" and "accept"/ "except." Check a glossary of usage to find the right choice.

Incorrect: The recession had a negative affect on sales.

Revised: The recession had a negative effect on sales. (or) The recession affected sales negatively.

Incorrect: The laboratory instructor choose not to offer detailed advise.

Revised: The laboratory instructor chose not to offer detailed advice.

12. Misspellings

Spelling errors are usually perceived as a reflection of the writer's careless attitude toward the whole project. Do not allow your hard work to be marred in this way! In addition to comprehensive dictionaries, you may want to use electronic spell-checkers, spelling dictionaries, and lists of frequently misspelled words found in handbooks.

All Content by the University of Minnesota's  Twelve Common Errors: An Editing Checklist

A Monroe College Research Guide

                 THIS RESEARCH OR "LIBGUIDE" WAS PRODUCED BY THE LIBRARIANS OF MONROE COLLEGE                    

• << Previous: Cite a Website
• Next: Plagiarism >>
• Last Updated: Jul 18, 2024 3:06 PM
• URL: https://monroecollege.libguides.com/essaywriting
• Research Guides |
• Databases |

Have a thesis expert improve your writing

Check your thesis for plagiarism in 10 minutes, generate your apa citations for free.

• Knowledge Base
• Common errors

English Mistakes Commonly Made in a Dissertation | Examples

Students tend to make the same language mistakes over and over again in academic writing . Taking a careful look at these lists of mistakes that we often encounter may help you to break these habits. Avoiding them will set your writing apart and give it a more polished feel.

If you want to make sure your dissertation doesn’t contain any language errors, you could consider using a dissertation editing service .

Instantly correct all language mistakes in your text

Be assured that you'll submit flawless writing. Upload your document to correct all your mistakes.

Table of contents

Spelling mistakes, word choice, capitalisation, conjunctions and linking terms, nouns/noun phrases, prepositions/prepositional phrases, punctuating numbers, quantifiers, terms used in citations, verbs/phrasal verbs, words that are commonly confused.

Although spellcheck features catch many spelling mistakes, they cannot be relied on entirely. These words are still frequently misspelled in many theses.

The only proofreading tool specialized in correcting academic writing

The academic proofreading tool has been trained on 1000s of academic texts and by native English editors. Making it the most accurate and reliable proofreading tool for students.

Correct my document today

Following these tips will help you to improve your written academic English in general. The next step is to fine-tune your writing depending on whether you are using American, British, or Australian English ! A grammar checker can also help you automatically fix mistakes you may have missed after proofreading.

Is this article helpful?

Other students also liked, theater or theatre | spelling, difference & examples, there, their, they’re | difference & example sentences, its or it’s | difference & example sentences, more interesting articles.

• *Alot or A Lot or Allot | Meaning & Correct Spelling
• *Comprised Of | Meaning & Correct Usage
• *Despite Of | Meaning, Spelling & Use
• *Everytime or Every Time | Meaning, Definition & Spelling
• *Lable or Label | Correct Spelling & Meaning
• *No-One or *Noone or No One | Meaning, Definition & Spelling
• *Sence or Sense? | Meaning, Definition & Spelling
• *Truely or Truly | Correct Spelling & Meaning
• Beck and Call or *Beckon Call | Meaning & Spelling
• Hers or *Her's | Meaning, Spelling & Use
• Is *Irregardless a Word? | Definition & Spelling
• Is it *Jist or Gist? | Meaning & Correct Spelling
• Is It *Now a Days or Nowadays? | Meaning & Spelling
• Is It Forty or *Fourty? | Meaning, Spelling & Examples
• Is It Whoa or *Woah? | Meaning, Spelling & Examples
• Ours or *Our's | Meaning, Spelling & Use
• Theirs or *Their's | Meaning, Spelling & Use

• Search Website
• Office Directory
• Employee Directory
• Learning Commons
• Topic Sentences

Common Errors

Below are the 15 most common writing errors we see in students’ writing when they come to the Writing Center. Make sure you aren’t committing the same errors!

• Walden University
• Faculty Portal

Webinar Transcripts: Grammar for Academic Writers: Identifying Common Errors

Grammar for academic writers: identifying common errors.

Presented August 14, 2018

View the recording

Last updated 9/5/2018

Visual: The webinar begins with a PowerPoint title slide in the large central panel. A captioning pod, Q&A pod, and files pod are stacked on the right side.

The title slide says “ Common Grammar Errors and How to Address Them ” and the speakers name and information: Amy Bakke, Senior Writing Instructor, Multilingual Writing Specialist, Walden University Writing Center

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Housekeeping

• Will be available online within 24 hours.
• Polls, files, and links are interactive.
• Now: Use the Q&A box.
• Later: Send to [email protected] or visit our   Live Chat Hours .
• Ask in the Q&A box.
• Choose “Help” in the upper right corner of the webinar room.

Audio:  Claire:  Hello everyone.  Welcome to today's webinar.  Before we get started and I have Amy present this wonderful, informative presentation I'm going to go over a few housekeeping notes to get started. So, first thing to note is, I am recording this meeting so that recording will be available online in our webinar archive within 24 hours.  So, if you need to leave or you missed part of the presentation, don’t worry, you’ll be able to go back and access it at a later time.  You can also interact during this webinar.  We have some polls, files, chats going on in today's presentation to engage more the material and work through some of these grammar issues. 

During the presentation you can use the Q&A box, I will be in there to answer questions that you have to the best of my ability.  If questions come up later, or you’re watching this as a recording you can send us questions at [email protected] or visit our live chat hours, that link it live right there. So, if you'd like to come in and ask us questions at another time, go ahead and use those services.  As I noted I will be there in the Q&A box so if you have some technical issues or need help during the presentation.  Let mean a and I will try to problem solve those with you.  However, you can also pick, help, in the upper right-hand corner of the room and that is Adobe support.  So, they will best be able to help you work through that.  Alright, I think I have covered everything for today so for now I will turn it over to our presenter, Amy.

Visual: Slide changes back to the following: The title slide says “ Common Grammar Errors and How to Address Them ” and the speakers name and information: Amy Bakke, Senior Writing Instructor, Multilingual Writing Specialist, Walden University Writing Center

Audio: Amy:  Thanks, Claire, hello, everyone, and welcome to grammar for academic writers identifying common errors.  I’m very happy to be here with you today, and as Claire mentioned I’m Amy Bakke, I’m one of the writing instructors in the writing center.  I'm also a multilingual writing specialist.  Today I’ll be focusing on a short list of some of the most common grammar errors we see when working with Walden students.  And this is across-the-board. 

Walden has students in many different programs, undergraduate, graduate, doctoral.  We do tend to see the errors that I'm going to talk about across-the-board with student writers.  Also identifying and explaining the errors we will have some opportunities to practice and revise a few errors in it will be an opportunity for you to reflect in your own writing, figure out, are these areas were making errors, or maybe not and then make some changes if needed.  So, with that, let's get started.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Learning Objectives

• Verb Tenses
• Punctuation Around Essential and Nonessential Clauses
• Commas After Introductory Words and Phrases
• Possessive Forms
• Subject-Verb Agreement With Complex Subjects
• Practice exercises to identify and fix errors

Audio: As I mentioned, I will focus on some of the most common error and sentence construction errors that we see in academic writing.  These include errors with verb tenses, punctuation around essential and nonessential clauses.  Commas after introductory words and phrases, possessive forms of nouns, and subject verb agreement with complex subjects.  Now, if this vocabulary seems a bit too technical to you, do not worry at all because I will be explaining them throughout the webinar and we will have a chance to practice as well.  So really the technical terms and understanding those are less important than being able to identify what is going on in a sentence and what needs to be fixed.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: What Grammar Is 

A set of rules that enables you tot communicate your ideas clearly

A way to help establish scholarly credibility

Important in all scholarly and professional writing

Audio: As we begin our webinars on grammar we want to outline what grammar is.  Essentially, it’s a set of rules that allows you to express your ideas clearly and following grammar rules can help you establish credibility as you write, maybe as you publish.  It’s important in all forms of writing but especially in academic and professional writing.  And finally, it’s learnable.  For anybody who is accustomed to language and communication that is not so academic, it may take some time to get used to the academic use of English, but it is certainly learnable.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Errors are Not the Enemy!

Errors are:

• evidence of learning
• often difficult to 100% eradicate
• something all writers experience

Audio: It’s important to keep in mind that we all make errors and mistakes.  Errors are rather a normal part of the writing process.  They are evidence of learning, they are often impossible to entirely eradicate, even seasoned professional writers are going to occasionally make mistakes or errors and they are often aware of that.  Ensuring they work with other people and use some strategies throughout the writing process helps them catch the errors.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Common Error #1

Audio: With that, Let's look at common error number one which is related to verb tenses. 

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Verb Tenses

• English has more than a dozen verb tenses
• Tenses show the time of the action or state, or general truths

She writes every day.

She is writing right now.

She wrote last night.

She was writing when he called.

She has written Chapter 1.

She has been writing for 2 hours.

Audio: Now if you have studied English as a second language, or if you have studied another or learned another language, you likely know what I mean by verb tense but just in case I will try and cover the basics.  English has more than a dozen verb tenses, or some experts might call them a mix of tenses and aspects.  The tenses show the time of the action.  Whether took place in the past or future.  The state or general truth. 

So, here are some examples.  She writes every day, she is writing right now, she wrote last night, she was writing when he called.  She has written chapter 1.  She has been writing for two hours. So, all of the verbs here talk about the same topic or the same action, writing, but they show us more information about when the action happened or when it happens when it will happen, that kind of thing.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Most Common Tenses in Academic Writing

• The hospital  admits  patients whether or not they have proof of insurance.
• Zimbardo (1998)  researched  many aspects of social psychology.
• Numerous researchers in the field  have used  this method.
• I will conduct semistructured interviews.

Audio: Keeping that in mind I do want to point out in academic writing, there are four tenses that make up the majority of sentences.  They are the simple present.  The simple past.  The present perfect.  And the future tenses.  The simple present is often used for general truths.  Things that are true in the past, now and likely future.  For example, the hospital admits patients whether they have proof of insurance.  This is something that is generally true.  In the past, now, and likely in the future.  The simple present is often used to explain the findings in a study.  What the authors have found to be generally true.  Maybe if they are saying, if they mention their findings or say more research is needed on a topic. 

And then the simple past is used to talk about something happening at a specific point in time in the past.  And/or that was completed entirely in the past.  For example, Zimbardo (1998) researched many aspects of psychology. One thing to note is that the simple past should be used when discussing what the authors and researchers said and did in their published works because this is something they said or did in the past when they published.  Often in writing we will see things like the researcher claimed or the authors explained -- all using the past tense.

The present perfect is used to explain action that happened over period of time in the past.  So, numerous researchers in the field have used this method.  And finally, the future tense.  In academic writing at Walden, we often see the future tense used when writing about a study you that will conduct such as a capstone study maybe for masters or doctoral students.  So, I will conduct semi structured interviews.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Common Error: Tense Consistency

Bakke (2015) conducted the interviews and then transcribed them. (Both past tense)

Herrington (2014) found that the survey participants drink an average of 2.2 cups of coffee per day. (Past and present tenses)

The researchers explained that identifying a cause will be difficult. (Past and future tenses)

Audio: Regarding verb tense one place we sometimes see errors is in consistency throughout a sentence.  There are sometimes when the verb tense needs to be the same throughout the sentence and there are other times when it should or can change throughout the sentence.

So, let’s take a look at a couple of examples. So, in the first sentence, Bakke conducted the interviews and then transcribed them. Both of these actions are in the past tense and both of these actions belong to Bakke. So, it makes sense for them to be consistent both in the simple past tense. 

In the next two examples we see a shift in the verb tense.  Harrington found, past tense, that the survey participants drink, present tense, and average of 2.2 cups of coffee per day. Past and present tenses.  The researchers explained, past tense that identifying a cause will be, future tense, difficult.

            Bakke (2014) conducted the interviews and then transcribed them.

Herrington (2014) found that the survey participants drink an average of 2.2 cups of coffee per day.

The researchers explained that identifying a cause will be difficult.

Audio: One other characteristic of these last two sentences is the word, that.  In the sentence structure the word, that, introduces a noun clause and that’s not a term that you need to remember but this’s what it’s called.  These noun clauses are used to report what other people think, or have said such as when introducing a paraphrase or summary or a quote.  When introducing what a researcher said or did, in this sentence structure, you may need to shift the verb tense to explain a general truth or a future action. 

Note sometimes in English the word, that, is left out.  Especially in spoken language.  A person might say, the researcher said identifying a cause will be difficult.  It’s sometimes okay to drop the, that.  So just looking for the word, that, might not be an effective strategy.  But in deciding about whether to change the verb tense you may think about whether the sentence includes a report about what a researcher or a person said or did.

Visual: Common Error: Progressive Tenses

Progressive tenses :

• I am writing my paper.
• She is earning her doctorate in business.
• The researcher is finding that the new staff need more professional development.
• The researcher found that the new staff need more professional development.

While grammatically correct, this tense is rarely used in academic writing:

• Focus on what has already been completed
• Focus on explaining general truths

Audio: One of the tenses I'm mentioned a couple slides ago was the progressive tense.  Which shows what is happening, it’s the-ING form.  I am writing my paper. She is earning her doctorate in business. The researcher is finding the new staff need more professional development.  However, this tense is not really used in academic writing so rather than saying is finding, in that sentence, it’d be much more common to talk about published research and what researchers found.  It’s a common tense in English it’s just not typically used in academic writing because of the focus on what has already been completed, as I mentioned published research, the focus on explaining general truths.  So, as your writing, you might be on the lookout for the progressive tense in your writing and just think about whether a different tense might be more appropriate.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Common Error: Appropriate Tense

            Verbs that do not make sense in the context of the sentence

• I would complete my master’s program in 2019.

Revision: I will complete my master’s program in 2019.

• Most children experienced some form of rebellion against their parents.

Revision: Most children experience some form of rebellion against their parents.

• I am working on homework every night.

Revision: I work on homework every night.

Audio: Some other issues we see with verb tense are included on this slide.  And it’s mostly about them not being appropriate in the context of the sentence.  The first example, I would complete my Master's program in 2019, is written in the hypothetical tense, it is something that might happen.  However, it is more likely the person writing the sentences talking about what they will do, and we use will to talk about future plans. 

In the second example, most children experienced some form of rebellion against their parents.  The verb, experienced, is in the past tense and I guess, maybe the assumption here is this is referring to a finding or a general truth.  Because it refers to most children and seems to explain a general truth it should be in the present tense.

And finally, I am working on homework every night, here’s another instance where the sentence discusses a general truth, something that happens on a regular basis and also because we mentioned the-ING form is not used in academic writing, we would probably say instead, I work on homework every day.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Practice

Choose one of the sentences below. Revise the sentence to fix the error in verb tense/use.

I was contacting all of the possible participants.

Prince (2017) stated that more research on the topic was needed.

Audio: There's a lot of information about verb tenses.  I thought we would try to do practice with a couple of example sentences I have here.  Based on what I've talked about so far, read through these two example sentences.  And then choose one of the sentences to correct and to type in the chat box.  I will take a minute to mute and take a short break while you are doing that.

[Participants working on exercise]

Great, so I’m seeing some great options in the chat area.  I just pulled out a couple of them on the left-hand side, you can see the answers I pulled from your contributions.  In the first example, we would want to avoid using the-ING form, but it looks like we're talking about the past, so something like I contacted all of the possible participants, would be just much more probably appropriate for an academic writing context. 

And then also, in the second example, I included that one but it also might depend a little bit on the context of how it’s used.  Say this was published in 2017.  Prince stated that more research on the topic, we’d probably say is needed, because that was the assertion that Prince made.  Of course, if this were something that happened, it might depend a little bit on the context, if this were something that was written a long time ago, in 1990, and depending on how we are using the idea we might say for example, Prince stated that more research on the topic was needed.  And these other authors followed up with more research. You know, so I have given some general practices of what we we’ll do in academic writing, but again, a little bit depends on context.  Great.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Common Error #2

Audio: Alright, we will move on to our second topic.  And this is, oops, my slide should say essential and nonessential clauses.  And I will say this is probably the most complex topic we will cover today.  So, do stick with me and I’ll start by explaining briefly what I mean by essential and nonessential clauses and I will provide some examples and explanations.  If you do not get it right away, do not worry, we’ll keep going and providing more info.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Essential Clauses Phrases

Main clause: Part 1     Dependent phrase/clause      Main clause: Part 2

The students who had completed their projects early did not have homework over the weekend.

Main clause: Part 1     Dependent phrase/clause

I read the article that was assigned for Week 3

Audio: So, I’ll start with essential clauses.  And show what they look like in sentences.  When I say, clause, first of all, in this case I mean a clause or phrase are basically a group of words.  These are clauses that are to  -- sorry, that are added to sentences to provide extra information for clarifying information.  So, I have two basic models here on this slide and we’ll take a look at what they look like in sentences.

The students who had completed their projects early did not have homework over the. So this extra information, who had completed their projects early, explains which students did not have homework over the weekend. It adds extra clarifying information.  Another model for the sentence could be that the essential comes at the end.  I read the article that was assigned for week three.  Again, this clause that was assigned for week three, ads extra information about which article I read.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Essential Clauses/Phrases

Essential (Restrictive) Clause:

• Restricts or defines meaning of the noun
• Essential to the intended meaning of the sentence
• Not separated by commas

Audio: Essential clauses may also be called restrictive clauses.  That’s because they restrict or define the meaning of a noun, they basically explain more about the noun.  They become essential information to the sentence.  It would not have the same meaning without this extra information.  And you might have noticed they are not separated from the sentence by comments. 

Visual: Slide changes to the following: repeat prior slide

Audio: So, I’m just going back to that same slide, one thing to notice is the examples here, in the examples, the clauses start with words like, that and, who.  Just something to note before we move on.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Nonessential Clauses/Phrases     

Interrupting/Nonessential

Main clause: Part 1,    Dependent phrase/clause,     Main clause: Part 2

The students, who are in their third week of the program , did not have homework over the weekend.

Main clause: Part 1,    Dependent phrase/clause

I read the article, which only took me 15 minutes.

Audio: So, the other focus in this section is nonessential clauses or phrases.  Sentences with nonessential clauses or phrases follow the same structure as we saw in the previous slide but with a slight difference.  You can see in the model that we added commas here. And in my example, the students who are in their third week of program did not have homework over the weekend.  This is what we call an interrupting or nonessential clause.  We are adding extra information, like oh, by the way they are in their third week of the program.  But the main focus of the sentence is that they did not have homework.

Another model is for the nonessential clause to come at the end of the sentence.  I read the article, which only took me 15 minutes.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Nonessential Clauses/Phrases

Nonessential (Nonrestrictive) Clauses:

• Add extra information
• Not essential to intended meaning of the sentence
• Separated by commas

Audio: So, the characteristics of these nonessential clauses, sometimes called nonrestrictive phrases, are that they add extra information to the sentence but this information, like I said is additional or interrupting and not essential to the core meaning of the sentence.  It is always separated from the rest of the sentence by commas.

Audio: And you might notice that these clauses, I just clicked back to the same slide, you might notice, that these clauses often start with words like, who or, which.  I know this can be a bit confusing so if it is not quite clear yet, no worries we’ll be continuing to look at examples in the next slides.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Examples: Essential

The extra information is essential because it describes a noun/pronoun.

• The employees who work remotely requested further training.
• She received the article that she requested from the library.
• The printers that malfunctioned are now working again.

*That is only used in essential clauses/phrases(without commas).

Audio: Alright, so, here are some additional examples of sentences with essential clauses.  The extra information is essential because it describes a noun as in a "person, place or thing" or a pronoun something that stands in for a noun.  The employees who work remotely requested further training.  In this case, who work remotely explains more about the employees, which employees are we talking about?  She received the article that she requested from the library.  Which article?  The one she requested from the library.  The printers that malfunctioned are now working again.  Again, the essential phrase, that malfunctioned, describes which printers I mean.

Something to note is that the word, that, is only used in essential clauses and phrases.  The ones that don’t need commas.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Examples: Interrupting/Nonessential

The extra information is not essential to the meaning of the sentence, so it is between commas.

• The students despite being warned about the test’s difficulty did not adequately prepare.

Revision: The students, despite being warned about the test’s difficulty , did not adequately prepare.

• Some students however still earned passing grades.

Revision: Some students, however , still earned passing grades.

Audio: Here are a couple more examples of interrupting or nonessential clauses.  The students despite being warned about the tests difficulty did not adequately prepare.  Some students however still earned a passing grade. So, notice that these phrases, despite being warned about the test difficulty and in the last sentence the word, however, add extra information and also kind of interrupt the sentence.  They are not essential to the sentence having a complete meaning, we could say the students did not adequately prepare, and that would communicate the main message without that interrupting phrase.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Essential vs. Nonessential Clauses

The book that she read was important for her literature review.

• Restricts or defines meaning of noun

The book, which she read while sitting by the pool, was important for her literature review.

Nonessential (Nonrestrictive) Clause:

• Adds extra information

Audio: And then, let's take a look at the couple of sentences side-by-side.  The book that she read was important for her literature review.  And the book which she read while sitting by the pool, was important for her literature review.

So, the first one is an essential or restrictive clause, one clue is that it begins with, that.  Remember that the word, that, can only begin essential clauses, the ones without, commas. Also, that she read, explains which book she read and is not separated by commas.

In the second example with the nonessential clause, the clause adds extra information.  Specifically, the clause does not explain which book she read, rather it adds extra information about the context.  And it is separated by commas.  If we took it out it wouldn’t really change the overall meaning of the sentence or the main meaning of the sentence that the book was important for her literature review.

So, while these sentence structures might still look really similar, one thing to notice that as a writer you can make some decisions about whether the information is essential or not based on the context of the sentence.  And provide better clarity for your reader by indicating that something is essential or not.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Consider the following:

• My sister Alice is a nurse.

I have more than one sister, but only Alice is a nurse.

• My sister, Alice, is a nurse.

I have one sister named Alice, and she is a nurse.

• The employees who work remotely requested further training. 

Some employees work remotely, and they requested training.

• The employees, who work remotely, requested further training.

All of the employees work remotely, and they requested training.

Audio : So, we’ll take another look at what that means here in the next slide where we have a couple of similar sentences.  Let's focus first on the first two sentences on the side.  These are almost identical.  One just has commas around Alice and then the other does not.  And you might notice to, how there is a slight difference, as I read them. My sister Alice is a nurse.  My sister, Alice, is a nurse.  In the first example, there are no commas.  The word Alice is essential because it is explaining which sister I am referring to as in, I have more than one sister but only my sister Alice is a nurse.

In the second example, the nonessential version, the name, Alice, is extra information.  My sister, her name is Alice, is a nurse.  So, I’m saying that I have only one sister, her name is Alice and she’s a nurse. 

Let's take a look at a couple more.  Again, these two sentences are quite similar, so we have the employees who work remotely requested further training.  And, the employees, who work remotely, requested further training.  In the first example who work remotely is not in commas, so it’s an essential clause, this means that only the employees who work remotely requested further training, but the local ones did not. As in, some employees work remotely, and those employees, requested further training.

In the second example, who work remotely, is set off in commas so that means it’s extra, nonessential information.  This sentence shows that all of the employees work remotely, and that they have requested further training.

Again, as a writer you get to make decisions about where you place commas and what you want to indicate to the reader.  So, indicating that something is essential or nonessential helps just, as you decide how to communicate the ideas, it will help you use strategies to do that.

Read the sentences below.  In the chat box, explain the difference in meaning.

The students, who turned in their assignments early, did not have homework over the weekend.

The students who turned in their assignments early did not have homework over the weekend.

Audio: So, we’ll have another practice to check and see maybe how well I’m explaining and check your understanding.  Let's take a minute to think about these two sentences.  I included the same sentence here twice.  One with comments and one without.  Based on what we talked about, consider what the difference in meaning between the two sentences.  And type your response in the chat box.  Again, I will mute myself for moment, so you will have a chance to read and think about it and type in.

Great, thank you for your contributions in the chat area.  And I typed out the basic difference that I pulled from some of your answers in the bottom left hand corner.  So, the first sentence with commas, that is what we call the nonessential clause.  The meaning there is that the students -- so we could say -- one thing to keep in mind is when you have a nonessential clause you could pull it out, and the sentence would have the same meaning.  So, if we pulled out what is between the commas, we could say, the students did not have homework over the weekend.  We are saying all the students turned in their assignments early and all of the students did not have homework over the weekend.

The second option, the second sentence is that essential clause, so who turned in their assignments early is describing which students we are talking about.  So only the students who turned in their assignments early did not have homework over the weekend.  Essentially, some students had homework, some did not, it depends on if they already turned in their homework.  Or their assignment.  It looks like there are a lot of people who are on board with that as well.  If it’s something that still seems a little bit confusing you can always check out our webpage on essential and nonessential clauses.  I think we actually call it relative, restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses.  So, we just use that other terminology for it on the webpage but that something you can check out at another time, as well.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Common Error #3

Audio: Alright, so now that we got past the trickiest one, we’ll keep going with a few other areas of common grammar errors.  The next area of focus is commas after introductory words or phrases.  So, let's take a look.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Introductory words/phrases

Introductory word/phrase ,  Sentence

Introductory word/phrase: Not necessary for grammatically correctness of sentence

Sentence: Subject + predicate (complete sentence)

Between September and December, the student completed 40 hours of observation .

Audio: The structure that we’ll be looking at in this section is when there is a word or phrase that comes basically before the sentence.  This introductory word or phrase is not necessary for the grammatical correctness of the sentence.  So, it’s really an add on to the beginning of the sentence.  Sometimes introductory information or a transition word, that kind of thing. 

You can see this example, between September and December, the student completed 40 hours of observation.  Notice the second part of the sentence, the student completed 40 hours of observation that could function as its own complete sentence.  In this case we are just adding extra information at the beginning about the timeframe.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Examples: Introductory Words/Phrases

            Words                                     Phrases

            However                                 According to Bakke (2015)

            Furthermore                          Typing quickly

            Therefore                               Between September and December

            Often adverbs

Audio: As I mentioned, introductory information could be a word or a phrase.  So here are some examples, some words that might come before a sentence, words like, however, furthermore, therefore, these words are often adverbs. You might also see a sentence that starts with similarly and then follow, with the idea that’s similar to maybe a previous sentence. 

There are also a number of phrases that are often used. Like according to Bakke (2015). Typing quickly. Between September and December. So, this is the kind of introductory information or kind of the word or phrase that I’m referring to.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Examples sentences

According to Bakke (2015), allergies in dogs are on the rise.

However, new medications can help reduce the scratching behavior caused by allergens.

Typing quickly, he accidently deleted a sentence he wanted to keep.

Audio: And here are some examples in sentences. We have, according to Bakke, allergies in in dogs are on the rise.  However, new medications can help reduce the scratching behavior caused by allergens.  Typing quickly, he accidentally deleted a sentence he wanted to keep.  One thing to notice, is that there are commas after each introductory phrase or word. Often any phrase or information that comes before the subject of the sentence will be separated by a comma. So the subject is often a person place or thing, and in this case allergies, new medications, he, so the information that comes before the subject is typically what needs to be separated by the comma.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Exception to the rule

Short introductory phrases with four words or fewer that begin with prepositions (e.g. for, by, from, in) may not need to be followed by a comma:

For many weeks I have been searching for relevant articles.

However, it is typically also correct to include a comma:

Audio: One relevant exception to this rule is that short introductory phrases with four words or fewer that begin with prepositions such as for, by, from, in, these may not need to be followed by a comma. So, for many weeks I've been searching for relevant articles.  This is correct.  However, it is typically also correct to include the comma, so we can say for many weeks comma I have been searching for relevant articles.  So, if you are ever unsure, it is usually just safe to add the comma, and then you do not have to count how many words, you don't have to figure out is this first word a preposition -- so when in doubt it is not a bad idea to add the comma after an introductory phrase.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Practice:

Choose one of the sentences below. Decide if there is an error.  If so, revise the sentence to fix the error in comma use.

When attending a conference it is a good idea to dress professionally.

In addition it is important to have a notebook and a pen to take notes or write down contact information of potential future employers.

Audio: Alright, so that was kind of a quick one.  Let's take another minute to practice what I just discussed about commas after introductory clauses.  Read through the sentences, choose one or both and write a revised version in the chat box.

Amy:  Great.  I see a number of correct revisions there.  In both sentences, we added commas, so when attending a conference comma in addition comma again to come back to that final rule that I mentioned if it is a short phrase and begins with a preposition like, in, for example, it would not so much be a requirement to have the comma, but it does help with the readability.  So, it is often a good idea to add that comma even if the prepositional phrase that begins the sentence is short.  Great.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Common Error #4

Audio: Alright, onto my favorite topic next.  The fourth common error that we’ll look at is possessive forms and I think I say this is my favorite topic because it’s maybe more of, not so much pet peeve but something that stands out to me.  I really noticed this one and as a writing instructor I think we have things that we really notice.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Possessive Form

The possessive form, typically created with an apostrophe (’) and an s shows that something belongs to a person, people, or thing(s).

Pavlov’s theory of classical conditioning

Audio: So, we will get started here, the possessive form is created with an apostrophe and an s. I know this is something you've seen before but I will go through it anyway.  It shows that something belongs to a person or people or a thing or things.  One example is Pavlov's theory of classical conditioning.  In this case we are explaining that the theory basically belongs to Pavlov.  That it was created by Pavlov.  And so, we show that by using the possessive form, that apostrophe and s.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Singular Possessive

Pavlov’s theory of classical conditioning is based on his experiments with dogs.

The company’s code of conduct is included in the employee manual.

Jones’s (2015) research revolved around online academic writing feedback.

Audio: The possessive form can be singular or plural, so it depends on whether we’re talking about something that belongs to just one person or thing or if we’re saying that it belongs to a group.  Again, we have, these are all the singular possessive forms here.  Again, we have Pavlov's theory of classical conditioning is based on his experiments with dogs.  We are using the singular possessive form here because Pavlov is just one person.  We might also say; the company's code of conduct is included in the employee manual.  So, the code of conduct that belongs to the company.  Jones’s research revolved around online writing feedback.  So, we're talking about things that belong to, or were created by a person or company in these examples.

The final example is unique because even though that name ends in an S, we add another S after the apostrophe.  And this just follows APA guidelines, some writing style say you do not need to include the additional S after Joneses.  But just note, according to APA you do need to do this.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Plural Possessive

The Nurses’ Association has a code of conduct.

The researchers’ methods were sound.

Irregular plurals:

The Children’s Museum has a dinosaur exhibit this month.

Audio: Next will take a look at the plural form.  So, this is when we’re making the possessive form of a group.  Because these words are already in the plural and they end in ‘s’, we just add the apostrophe.   So, in this first sentence, the nurses' association has a code of conduct we're talking about the association of the nurses, the association that belongs to the nurses. So, we add the apostrophe to nurses to make it possessive, the plural possessive form.

Also, the researchers’ methods were sound, we’re referring to the methods of the researchers, as in more than one researcher. So, we add the apostrophe at the end of the plural word. One kind of fun thing about English, is that some nouns are irregular in the plural form.  As you can see in the example at the bottom of the page, Child becomes children rather than child's so when a noun is irregular in the plural form or when it does not end in S.  You can just add the apostrophe and S, as in this example. The Children’s Museum has a dinosaur exhibit this month.

So, as I mentioned, this is a common error and I see it quite a bit and it can be a bit confusing if you have not reviewed the rules recently and just a little reminder in practice can set you off on the right track.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: When to Not Use the Possessive Form

• Incorrect : Cell phones became commonly used in the 1990’s.
• Correct : Cell phones became commonly used in the 1990s.
• Incorrect : The CEO’s met at the technology summit.
• Correct : The CEOs met at the technology summit.
• Incorrect : The teacher’s attended the conference.
• Correct : The teachers attended the conference.

Audio: Before we finished the section, I wanted to note some specific instances when not to use the possessive form when we don’t need to use the apostrophe.  I explained that we use possessive form when something belongs to a person or a group, so we don’t need it in these instances.  The first is when referring to periods of years, such as decades, when we say cell phones became commonly used in the 1990s, no apostrophe is needed.  Similarly, when making acronyms plural we do not need an apostrophe.  We can add the S.  The CEOs met at the technology Summit.  And finally, remember the difference between making something plural meaning more than one, versus showing possession, that something belongs to a person.  In the final example we don’t need an apostrophe because we are talking about teachers as in more than one teacher.  Not something that belongs to the teacher.  The teachers attended the conference.

Choose one of the sentences below. Revise it to fix any errors related to apostrophes or the possessive form.

The companies policy is to report violations within 48 hours.

The local Teacher’s Association has meeting’s on the first Wednesday of the month.

Audio: Once again, let us try it out.  I included two sentences here that have errors related to the possessive form. You can read them through, pick one or both and write a correction in the chat box.

Great, it looks like many people caught a couple of the errors going on in these sentences.  And I saw a couple of versions of the first one.  There are two different options of how to fix it, depending on the intended meaning of the sentence of course.  So, we could say, the company, as in the singular company, apostrophe s, policy, so the first example that I have in my revision box.  That is assuming that it’s the policy of one company.  That might be the most more common use.  If we are discussing a specific policy it’s probably one that belongs to an individual company.  Of course, it could be the companies' plural possessive policy, so that second option I have in the box. That would be assuming more than one company but that they have the same policy.  Because policy is singular. Of course, we might also say the company's policies.  So, there would be different ways to revise depending on the intended meaning of the sentence.

It looks like many of you caught the couple of errors in the second example.  We’d want to move that apostrophe over so we are using plural teachers' association.  Probably, because, well because an association would belong to more than one teacher.  The association of the teachers rather than the association of the teacher.  And then has meetings on the first Wednesday of the month meetings of course just needs to be plural and not in the possessive form, so we do not need the apostrophe for meetings.  Great work, everyone.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Common Error #5 

Audio: The final common error that I’ll discuss today is subject verb agreement.  Specifically, I will focus on subject/verb agreement with complex subjects.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Review: Simple Sentences

Subject + Predicate .

• Tom retired after 30 years of teaching .
• All of the employees will attend the retreat .

Audio: In some of our other grammar webinars, in the mastering mechanics series, hopefully you checked those out. If not, it’s a great series about the basics and fundamentals of sentence construction and combining sentences. So, in those webinars we have focused quite a bit on some of the more basic sentence construction including things like subjects and predicates.  I just want to give a brief overview before we talk about subject-verb agreement just to make sure everybody is on the same page.

The main sections of a simple sentence are the subject, which is usually a person, place or thing.  And the predicate, which shows the action or the state of being.  And any extra information about the sentence.  Here are a few examples.  I am a master's student. Tom retired after 30 years of teaching.  All of the employees will attend the retreat.   The firsts part of the predicate in blue, kind of the italics there, is the verb, and you can see the verbs underlined here on this slide. Throughout this last section we’ll focus there on just this subject and the verb which is underlined there.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Subject -Verb Agreement

Subject + Verb .

Need to agree in number:

• Deborah writes.
• They write.

A regular present tense verb for the singular third person (she, he, it)

includes an “s”.

However, irregular verbs will function differently.

Audio: So, the subject and verb need to agree in number.  In English, this follows a rather regular pattern, I write, you write, Deborah or he or she writes.  Notice that this one ends in an S. We write. They write. In the present tense, the only form that is different, is when we’re talking about what we linguist and grammar nerds, call the single or third person. Meaning, when we are talking about one person or thing that is not me and it is not you.  Normally it might make sense to add and S to something when we make it plural, but this rule is different for verbs. We add an S when the verb is singular.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Subject-Verb Agreement

2+ Subjects + 1 Verb .

• The committee members and the student  write  every day .

When the subject of the sentence is composed of two or more nouns or pronouns connected by  and , use a plural verb.

Audio: So now that we have that pattern in mind. Let’s look at some common errors and subject verb agreement, and when it gets a little tricky in when we have those rather complex subjects. 

The first type is when we have two or more subjects in one sentence.  The committee members and the student write every day.  So, we have those two or more subjects, we have the committee members and the student.  So even though the subject closest to the verb is singular, because as a whole we are talking about more than one, we use the plural form of the verb, write. So, for example if the sentence were just about the one student, we would use writes with an ‘s’, the student writes every day but because we’re talking about a group the committee members and the student, we use a plural form of the word, write.

Complex Subject + Verb .

• The nurse who normally works with pediatric patients volunteers at the blood drive every year .

When a phrase comes between the subject and the verb, the verb still agrees with the subject, not the noun or pronoun in the phrase following the subject of the sentence.

Audio: When a sentence is a complex subject it can be a bit tricky to decide which form of the verb to use and what to match it with.  Let us take a look at the sentence, the nurse who normally works with the pediatric patients -- so what we need to do is, we need to look for the main subject because there are two different people or groups here.  There’s the nurse at the beginning of the sentence, and there’s also the pediatric patients.  In this case, the main subject, the main person or thing we are talking about is the nurse.  The rest of the subject is a phrase describes which nurse it is.  The one who works with pediatric patients.  So, we need to match our verb to nurse and not to the noun right next to the verb, in this case is, patients.

So, it’s, the nurse volunteers at the blood drive each year.  So, when a phrase comes between the main subject to end the verb, the verb still needs to agree with or match with the number of the main subject.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Subject – Verb Agreement

Noncount Subject + Verb .

• Information about Walden’s Master’s degree programs in education is available on the website .

Noncount nouns take a singular verb.

Audio: The final point, that I have, about subject-verb agreement is related non-count noun. In English, some nouns or things are categorized as non-count nouns meaning they are a type that cannot be counted.  So, some examples are information or furniture, for example we do not say one information are three furniture.  It sounds a bit odd in English and is not grammatically correct.  Rather, we might say something like three pieces of furniture or one bit of information.  These special kinds of nouns, non-count nouns, always take the singular form of the verb.  For example, in this sentence, we use is with information rather than are.  So, information about Walden's master's degree programs in education IS available on the website. Because our main noun is information, information is available. We need to match the subject and the verb.

Choose one of the sentences below. Revise the sentence to fix the error in subject-verb agreement.

The interns and the coordinator attends lunch meetings every Wednesday.

The lesson plans for Chapter 3 is available in the shared folder.

Audio: Alright, final practice.  Let’s take a minute to just take a look at those examples.  You can choose a sentence or both, revise for subject-verb agreement and put your answer in the chat box.  I will take a short break.

Great.  I see some corrections continuing to come in.  Lots of correct corrections here in the chat area.  Yes, so I think everyone identified that we just need to adjust the verbs in these two sentences.  The entrance on the coordinator attend lunch meetings.  We have multiple people and so we need to use a plural form of the verb.  And in the second example, again, the lesson plans for chapter 3 are available in the shared folder.  Again, we need to match the verb with, plans, which is plural.  And change it from is to are. Awesome!

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Proofreading Tools & Tips

Audio: Great. So, just to wrap this up here, and thinking about everything we have discussed so far, I just wanted to finish off with some tips, to try out as you continue to try writing and revising your work.

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Tips

            Identify the most common patterns in your writing.

• Analyze a paragraph or two of your work.
• Pay attention to feedback you receive from faculty or writing Center staff.
• Keep a grammar journal to keep track of common issues.
• Use Grammarly.
• Ask for help!

Audio: And really the main tip is to identify patterns in your writing.  Now that we have gone through five main areas of focus that may or may not be common errors for you, it might be a great idea to go back to some of your recent work, maybe your last couple of course papers or other things that you’re working on and be on the lookout for those specific errors that we talked about.  Kind of figure out, do I have any of them in my writing?  And which ones.  And keep those in mind as things to look out for in the future.

Some strategies to do that are -- like I just mentioned, to go back to your finished work, see if you identify anything after viewing this webinar.  Of course, if you have received feedback from faculty or from the writing center staff through our paper review service, taking note of what types of errors are often being pointed out, how can I focus my attention when I’m proofreading or revising to look out for those, for any additional errors that may happen.

We, as humans, as writers, we tend to make similar mistakes over and over again especially if we don’t realize that they are mistakes.  So, if you can identify patterns, that is a great strategy.  You might even keep a grammar Journal to keep track of the common issues, if you are noticing some of them and you can find that grammar Journal in the files pod on the bottom right-hand part of the slide now.  Something you can download, and keep and fill out. 

You can also try to use Grammarly, Grammarly is a software system that can help identify grammar errors. It can be really helpful but one thing to note is it’s not human, so it does not have the intuition of how language works.  So, while it may give some helpful tips, it is not perfect so use any advice from Grammarly along with your own judgment of the English language and how you think it works.  And of course, also ask for help.  We have a number of ways to reach out to us directly and of course we have many resources you can view on your own and I will probably let Claire give an overview of those here just as she wraps us up.  Because that is everything I have for you today.  Claire, did you want to take it away?

Visual: Slide changes to the following: Questions: Ask Now or Later

[email protected] •  Live Chat Hours

Learn More:

Check out the other webinars related to grammar and sentence construction in our Mastering the Mechanics Series .

Audio: Claire:  Sure thing.  Thank you so much, Amy, for that wonderful presentation.  I am not seeing any lingering questions.  But if you do have questions that come up as your thinking about this webinar or if you have watched this webinar as a recording, you can go ahead and let us know by writing into writing support at [email protected] . And that is a 24-hour turnaround inbox.  So, if you have a pressing question, somebody will get back to you. 

We also have live chat hours also, I know I work on the live chat, so if you ever have a question about grammar or anything else writing related, you can come in and talk to a live writing instructor such as myself and we will help you find the right resources and answer to your question.

You can also learn more about grammar as well as other topics through our webinar archive, and you could watch the mastering the mechanics series, which is also led by Amy and all about really breaking down sentence structures and those sort of grammar basics.

So, if you think that is something that sounds helpful after reviewing this webinar, that would be another great place to start, especially if you are a non-native speaker.  Again, that’s available in our webinar archive.  We will have a recording of this webinar posted within 24 hours of this presentation.  So, if you missed any or want to come back to it later you can find it there as well.

Thank you all for coming in today and I will go ahead and end our presentation.

• Previous Page: Developing Your Writing: Creating a Paper From a Discussion Post
• Next Page: How and When to Include APA Citations
• Office of Student Disability Services

Walden Resources

Departments.

• Academic Residencies
• Academic Skills
• Career Planning and Development
• Customer Care Team
• Field Experience
• Military Services
• Student Success Advising
• Writing Skills

Centers and Offices

• Center for Social Change
• Office of Academic Support and Instructional Services
• Office of Degree Acceleration
• Office of Research and Doctoral Services
• Office of Student Affairs

Student Resources

• Doctoral Writing Assessment
• Form & Style Review
• Quick Answers
• ScholarWorks
• SKIL Courses and Workshops
• Walden Bookstore
• Walden Catalog & Student Handbook
• Student Safety/Title IX
• Legal & Consumer Information
• Website Terms and Conditions
• Cookie Policy
• Accessibility
• Accreditation
• State Authorization
• Net Price Calculator
• Contact Walden

Walden University is a member of Adtalem Global Education, Inc. www.adtalem.com Walden University is certified to operate by SCHEV © 2024 Walden University LLC. All rights reserved.

10 Common Dissertation Mistakes to Avoid

Your dissertation is a very important document that will make or break your university experience. However, writing a text this long can be an intimidating task, which may lead to common dissertation mistakes that may beget further spelling or grammar issues. Eventually, a culmination of these mistakes may lead to the essay becoming nearly unmanageable.

Common dissertation mistakes must be avoided to ensure that your draft gets accepted by your committee, allowing for further clarity and better dissertation structure.

In this article, we have listed some of the most common dissertation mistakes made by academic writers as well as what can be done to avoid them.

1. Formatting Issues in the very First Pages:

The formatting of your dissertation is as critical as the content. You should be familiar with your Ph.D. program’s formatting rules by the time you write your dissertation. Despite carrying a doctoral degree, you may still make errors, especially in a lengthy paper.

Generally, several dissertation authors make tons of mistakes in the preliminary pages of their work, that is, the pages that appear prior to the main text of their work. While it’s easy to overlook these pages, they are what pave the way toward the rest of the main body.

Hence, the preliminary pages must be formatted properly and in the proper order. Rather than presuming the format of these pages, seek guidance from the dissertation template provided by the program.

2. A Lengthy Abstract:

You have conducted extensive studies for your manuscript and may have reached interesting conclusions that you’re eager to share with the world. Although this enthusiasm is certainly commendable, it may challenge your ability to condense your thesis into a single-page abstract.

An abstract must always fit within a single page and is generally within the word count range of 150-300 words. You may approach a detailed guide to structure your dissertation better.

3. Unevenness in the Content:

A robust dissertation maintains a precise balance between various chapters to successfully fulfill all of its purposes. It is important to attribute a deserving amount of text to each section, ensuring that your study, literature review, conclusion, and other sections receive appropriate weightage.

4. Language-Related Errors:

Language-related errors make up one of the most common dissertation mistakes authors make. While writing such a long piece, you are bound to make syntactical, grammatical, or typographical errors. Hence, it is always good practice to send your draft to an editing and proofreading service after completion.

These services have writing professionals on board who will gladly peruse your work. These expert proofreaders and editors ensure that all issues are correct and help you ensure that you would not make such mistakes again – a service that will benefit you, throughout your dissertation and in your career as well.

5. Poor Structure:

Despite the emphasis and relevance of the dissertation focus that you succeed in highlighting in the draft, a loosely structured paper will easily render it in vain. The style of the paper is also an important aspect that must be maintained.

To maintain a comprehensive and consistent flow of ideas and ensure meaningful connections between passages of the content, you must use subheadings that will outline the intent and scope of each section. A  detailed guide to structuring your dissertation may help you with the same.

6. Plagiarism:

Plagiarism is a major offense, one that you do not want on your academic record. It is very bad practice to copy-paste text from various sources onto your dissertation draft.

To avoid plagiarism, make use of in-text citations and ensure that you list the references at the end of your article in an authentic and appropriate manner, as suggested by the relevant style guide.

7. Lack of Relevance:

The focus and relevance of the subject are important considerations in concluding your dissertation . A subject that is irrelevant to the field of literature will fail to make waves in scholarly research.

The length of a dissertation may prompt authors to peregrinate into irrelevant topics and subjects, which may divert attention away from the goals of the paper. This is another very common dissertation mistake that has been observed by our structural editing professionals.

8. Inappropriate Topic Selection:

The choice of the research topic is crucial to the success of a dissertation. In comparison to undergraduate assignments, every extensive piece of writing requires much more in-depth knowledge study of the subject.

Insignificant, superficial, or limited research questions will not generate enough credibility in the discussion and, consequently, will create barriers to achieving the goal.

9. Lack of a Fine-Tuned Literature Review:

A literature review is an essential aspect of writing a dissertation . Summaries tend to be a common difficulty for students, which can prevent them from demonstrating their ability to think critically and analytically.

This may cause the reader’s interest in your subject can subside. The literature review is used to demonstrate your understanding of a topic. It needs to put the presentation and study subject into context. Keep in mind that any dissertation requires extensive study.

10. Poor Conclusion:

Students also feel depleted of willpower and resources after completing a dissertation . Yet, it is integral for them to conclude their paper appropriately. In a published dissertation, the conclusion connects the concepts and theories.

The dissertation should strive to teach the audience about an original finding through the explanation of significant observations. You cannot conclude by simply summarizing the intent of the thesis and attempting to clarify inferred ideas.

A gripping conclusion should assist readers in grasping the dissertation’s main points. Conclusions and literature reviews that are poorly written will detract from the dissertation’s quality.

To Conclude

Rather than wasting your time struggling to fine-tune your lengthy dissertation , reach out for the help of an editor who will help you polish your thesis so that it’s the best it can be. This will ensure that you do not make any of the common dissertation mistakes listed above. Availing of an editing and proofreading service will enable your editor to guide you through the process of writing the dissertation, guaranteeing that your work is flawless and submission-ready. These services make your dissertation writing an easier job.

We hope that the most common dissertation mistakes listed in this article have cautioned you against what to look out for in your dissertation drafting process. You can check out our dissertation proofreading and editing services by visiting our website –  CLICK HERE!

-Arthur Solomon

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Writing A Dissertation Introduction

7 Common (But Costly) Mistakes To Avoid

By: David Phair (PhD) and Alexandra Shaeffer (PhD) | March 2022

Your dissertation or thesis introduction chapter is critically important as it tells the reader what your study is about, why it’s important and how you’ll approach it. Simply put, it serves as a starting point for your reader to orient themselves with your study. Get the introduction chapter wrong and you’ll quickly lose your reader (and your marker!).

Over the years, we’ve reviewed thousands of introduction chapters. In this post, we’ll discuss 7 common but deadly mistakes that students make, so that you can avoid the pitfalls and craft a high-quality introduction chapter.

Overview: 7 Common Introduction Mistakes

• Not providing sufficient context for the study
• Not presenting a strong justification for the research topic
• Having a research topic that’s too broad
• Having poorly defined research aims, objectives and research questions
• Having misaligned research aims, objectives and research questions
• Not having well-defined and/or justified scope
• Not providing a clear structural outline of the document

1. Not providing enough context for the study

A recurring issue we see is that students don’t lay enough of a contextual foundation for their research topic. In other words, they don’t clearly explain where their research is situated within the existing literature (and the real world).

A good introduction should outline the contextual factors from the outset. Ideally, you should describe the what , where,   who and when type factors to help orient your reader. This contextual base will help your reader understand what’s going on in the field, which will lay the foundation for your research justification (more on that coming soon).

While it can be easy to brush over this information, it’s important to remember that your reader likely doesn’t know your perspective, and thus you need to set the scene. Always write for the intelligent layman – someone that’s intellectually curious but not an expert in your field. Don’t make assumptions about what your reader already knows; start from the bottom and build a firm contextual foundation.

2. Insufficient justification for the research topic

Another common mistake we see students make within the introduction chapter is not providing sufficient justification for their research topic and research aims . All too often, students rely on the overly simplistic justification of “it hasn’t been done before”. While this may seem like a good justification (and indeed, originality is an important part of your justification), it isn’t enough on its own to justify your research. A good introduction should not only discuss the novelty of a project , but also the practical and theoretical importance of finding the answers to your research questions.

When writing up your introduction, be sure to address the “ what ”, the “ why ” and the “ who ”. In other words:

• What are you researching (and how is this novel/original)?
• Why is it important (will add value to the field)?
• Who is going to benefit from the research or who will struggle without it?

These are essential questions that you need to answer thoroughly and with reference to previous research. Don’t skim over this section of the introduction. No matter how good the rest of your dissertation or thesis is, if your research topic itself isn’t well-justified, the rest won’t matter all that much.

Need a helping hand?

3. Having a research topic that’s too broad

Another common mistake that we encounter when reviewing dissertations is that students often pursue a topic that isn’t focused or specific enough – that is, a topic that’s too broad . While this issue has its origins much earlier in the dissertation development process, it tends to reveal itself in the introduction chapter and acts as a tell-tale sign of pending problems .

As a researcher, it’s understandable that you want to try to tackle the world’s problems with your research. However, it’s important to realise that as an individual, you’ll seldom be able to single-handedly solve a research issue. However, you can contribute to a larger field of research by building on the work of others (and producing research that others can build on). For this reason, your topic can’t be too broad, or you’ll end up just scratching the surface and not generating any meaningful insight. Conversely, a narrow, tightly-defined research aim will allow you to go deep.

For example, if you’re looking at the impact of telecommunications on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), try narrowing it into one aspect of telecommunications. Ask yourself what specifically about telecommunications are you interested in. By doing this, you can narrow your research question, and end with something like, “How are SMEs using Zoom for business meetings?” This will narrow your research scope , allowing you to go deeper and generate richer insights.

4. Having poorly defined research aims, objectives and research questions

This mistake often goes hand in hand with the previous one (too broad a topic). Without clear research aims, objectives and research questions, your study can get a bit murky and lack direction . Therefore, it’s important to make sure that you clearly define and communicate your research aims, objectives and research questions within your introduction. These three elements set up the expectations for the rest of your project and (should) form a “golden thread” of consistency throughout your dissertation or thesis.  

Let’s return to the example of telecommunications and SMEs.

The topic was too broad, so we narrowed it down to focus on how Zoom is used by SMEs for business meetings. Now we need to look a little closer and answer the question of what exactly it is that you’re interested in understanding about Zoom and SMEs. You could, for example, look into how Zoom facilitates collaboration in business meetings, or how Zoom breakout rooms are used.

With this narrower focus, you would then frame it as a research aim . For example, “This project aims to investigate the impact of Zoom breakout rooms in collaborations of SMEs”. By narrowing the scope, the reader has a much better idea of what you’re trying to do, and you have a much clearer focus for both your literature review and fieldwork .

Importantly, your research aim (or aims) should directly lead to your research questions , and your research objectives should be specific steps you’ll take to answer your research questions and address your research aims. When crafting these three elements, aim for specificity and clarity . Clearly communicate in the introduction chapter exactly what you’ll be investigating by detailing your research aims, objectives and questions.

5. Having misaligned research aims, objectives and research questions

Related to the previous mistake is the common issue of having research aims, objectives and questions that pull in different directions . In other words, misalignment between the three elements of the golden thread .

Misalignment within the golden thread is a major problem , as it means that the study cannot achieve its research aims (or perhaps has the wrong aims altogether!). So, it’s essential that your research aims, objectives, and research questions are all tightly aligned .

Your research aim (or aims) needs to answer the question, “What is the main goal and purpose of your research?”. This is typically pretty formulaic , where you can say something along the lines of, “This project aims to/seeks to/will investigate the impact of Zoom breakout rooms in SMEs.” Simply put, the research aims describe what you’re trying to achieve in high-level terms .

Your research objectives are the “how” of your research. This is where you turn your aims into actionable points , a bit like a to-do list. Sticking with the Zoom example, the research objectives might look something like the following:

• Identify what proportion of SMEs make use of Zoom breakout rooms
• Identify what the purpose/function of such use is
• Assess the value generated by such use

When you write up your research objectives, make sure that you stay on topic and aligned with the research aims. For example, if your study focuses on Zoom and SMEs, don’t drag in Skype or MS Teams.

Lastly, your research questions are the specific questions you’ll look to answer with your study. The easiest way to create research questions (and ensure they’re aligned) is to take your research aims and objectives and turn them into questions . For example:

• “What is the impact of Zoom breakout rooms in SMEs?”
• “How do SMEs make use of Zoom breakout rooms?”

The most important thing is that your research aims, objectives and research questions are all tightly aligned . These should move from broad to narrow and follow the same direction. So, make sure that everything matches and that you don’t go off on any unnecessary tangents.

6. Having a poorly defined and/or justified scope

A further mistake we see students make with their introduction chapter is having a poorly defined and/or justified scope . Naturally, it can be tempting to try to achieve the “next big thing”, but as we mentioned earlier, the overall aim of your study is to contribute to a body of research. While you may want your research to be generalisable and applicable to different contexts, this is typically extremely difficult (if not impossible) to achieve in reality. Therefore, you need to narrow your scope and get specific about the boundaries of your research.

In your dissertation or thesis introduction chapter, it’s important to talk about the where , the when , and the who of your research project. If we return to our example of Zoom and SMEs, which types of SMEs are you looking at specifically (and how do you define SME)? What industry are they in and where are they situated? Is the focus on start-ups or later stage SMEs? You could, for example, narrow the scope of your topic by choosing to work with SMEs in the financial sector and centring on UK-based companies that have been active for 5 years.

By narrowing your scope,  your project will become a lot more focused, manageable and replicable . A good scope not only helps you stay focused  but also helps other researchers if they want to recreate your study .

Next, make sure that you provide a clear justification for your scope. It’s fine, for example, to focus on SMEs in the UK, but it’s important to explain why you made this choice. Why these SMEs specifically? Why are they worth studying?

Make sure that you also mention how much research has already been undertaken in your research area of interest. If there isn’t much extant literature, that will form part of your justification. However, don’t just say, “It hasn’t been done before”. Why hasn’t it been done? For example, when studying SMEs in the UK, there may be something about their policies, culture or mindset, or maybe that the banking sector is highly regulated and getting access to information is challenging. These contextual factors will all form part of your scope justification .

7. Not providing a clear structural outline

The final mistake we’ll discuss in this article is that of not providing a clear outline of the dissertation/thesis document structure . A good outline serves to help orient the reader by getting a clear view of what to expect in the document and where to find any specific information they’re looking for.

In practical terms, your outline should appear at the end of your introduction chapter , as it prepares the reader for the rest of your document. Without it, your introduction chapter will end very abruptly and disparately.

The outline itself needn’t be lengthy . A line or two covering each chapter should be ample. The writing itself can be quite formulaic, simply describing what each chapter covers. Here’s an example:

In Chapter two, the theoretical framework will be developed, with a view to first conceptualising and defining organisational trust, and then identifying potential antecedents thereof, leading to the formation of hypotheses.

In Chapter three, the adoption of a quantitative, deductive research approach will be justified, and the broader research design will be discussed, including the limitations thereof.

In a large document like a thesis or dissertation, it can be hard to achieve a flow or to maintain a golden thread throughout your document. As you can see from the example above, a good structural outline helps tie it all together , as it tells the story of your research project and helps to prepare the reader for what is to come.

Recap: Dissertation Introduction Mistakes

In this post, we’ve covered 7 common mistakes we see students making with their dissertation or thesis introduction chapters. Naturally, this isn’t a comprehensive list , but it’s a useful starting point to help you avoid the common pitfalls.

To recap, the mistakes include:

If you have any questions about these mistakes, please leave a comment. Remember, you can also download our f ree introduction chapter template here to help fast-track your writing.

If you’d like hands-on help with your introduction chapter, check out our 1-on-1 private coaching services here to book an initial consultation with a friendly GradCoach.

Psst... there’s more!

This post was based on one of our popular Research Bootcamps . If you're working on a research project, you'll definitely want to check this out ...

A brief comprehensive piece that widened my scope of Research methodology subj ct

Brief and to the point.

Some really good points! But others are indicative of poor supervisors. A good supervisor should never let a student get as far as writing up with too broad of a topic or misaligned research aims.

Submit a Comment Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

• Print Friendly

Stack Exchange Network

Stack Exchange network consists of 183 Q&A communities including Stack Overflow , the largest, most trusted online community for developers to learn, share their knowledge, and build their careers.

Q&A for work

Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search.

What can I do if I find errors in someone's thesis?

I was browsing someone's thesis from a US university. I found several typos and missing (incomplete) sections. There was no plagiarism and dishonesty though. What would happen if I write to their advisor? Can some action be taken or is it a closed case once a thesis is accepted and signed.

• errors-erratum

• 7 Someone once asked me 'have you found the hole in your thesis yet?' They hadn't read it at that point. The point was that pretty much every thesis will have mistakes. The published version might be more correct. Citing a thesis is relatively rare, in my field at least. –  Jessica B Commented Dec 25, 2014 at 15:51
• 11 What kind of "action" do you envision the advisor taking? –  Nate Eldredge Commented Dec 25, 2014 at 16:02
• 1 Related (but not duplicate): Are spelling and/or grammar mistakes a cause for submitting Errata? –  Wrzlprmft ♦ Commented Dec 25, 2014 at 16:42
• 2 I'm not familiar with academia, but why can't you tell the author directly? –  Navin Commented Dec 26, 2014 at 5:25
• @Navin: Lack of contact details for the author would be the first issue that comes to my mind. The chance to find such contact details may be a little higher for doctoral theses than for Bachelor and Master theses, yet even for previous doctoral candidates that have since left the university, university e-mail addresses are often not kept alive for very long. –  O. R. Mapper Commented Dec 27, 2014 at 13:11

6 Answers 6

Generally no official action can or should be taken regarding errors in a dissertation (assuming they are not a sign of dishonesty or fraud). However, it could be worth pointing out errors to the author in case he/she is preparing a publication based on the dissertation. I wouldn't do this if it's from long ago or you see that the material is already published, but you could be providing a useful service to the author otherwise. (If these errors have already made it into publications, then it's worth reporting them to the authors if they are substantive, so they can decide whether to publish errata, but it may not be worth reporting typos. I'm a perfectionist and would like to know of typos in my publications, but others might be annoyed.)

But you certainly shouldn't write to the advisor. That comes across like you are reporting bad behavior to an authority figure, so it's not appropriate unless that's the message you want to send (for example, if you discover plagiarism). Instead, you should communicate directly with the student who wrote the dissertation. If you can't figure out how to track down the author, then you can assume he/she isn't pursuing a research career and you don't need to worry about it.

• 3 Writing to the Author would be the best, but definitely not to the adviser. –  user26982 Commented Dec 26, 2014 at 6:48
• 3 I would not like to be told about typos in published papers where I can't correct them. Obviously they are almost certainly there, but knowing specificly where they are would be annoying. –  Jessica B Commented Dec 26, 2014 at 7:29
• 1 @jessica So Gaiman's first law - "Picking up your first copy of a book you wrote, if there’s one typo, it will be on the page that your new book falls open to the first time you pick it up"- doesn't apply to papers for you? ;) –  Voo Commented Dec 26, 2014 at 16:54
• @Voo I'm young enough never to have had a physical copy of a published paper of mine. –  Jessica B Commented Dec 26, 2014 at 20:35

I do not know really. After all, it is the adviser, who bears the primary responsibility for checking the results of the thesis (the student is not mature enough most of the time and the rest of the committee do not care much this way of the other).

My personal experience with this was that my adviser gave me a 50 page thesis of his former student (written like 5 years before) and asked me to close the gap between the lower bound of $m$ and the upper bound of $m\log 1/m$ for some quantity depending on the small parameter $m$. With my usual laziness, I decided just to see what I can get myself instead of reading anything someone else did, and after a few weeks I had a lower bound of $\sqrt m$ with a short and very clear proof, which, obviously contradicted the upper bound in the thesis.

Now, it is today that I'm a middle age cynical person with fairly low opinion of human abilities and standards of behavior, including my own. At that time I was a young boy to whom my adviser looked if not like a semi-god, then, at least, as an impeccable mathematical professor of intelligence bordering on supernatural. It was absolutely impossible that he could pass anyone with a wrong result!

So, I set up looking for a mistake in my own argument. By the end of the second week of search I was feeling like in a few days I would need to be sent to a mental asylum if I spend just a few more hours on it. The argument was absolutely clean. The heretical thought crossed my mind that the thesis might contain an error, after all , and I started to sift through 50 pages of dense text in which I didn't even know some words. In three more weeks I had read all of it and saw no error either. Back to my proof. Watertight. Back to the thesis and its half-page long computations. Nothing. When I finally found the mistake in the thesis (which was as stupid as $\sin x\to 1$ as $x\to 0$ done en passe in the middle of a long sophisticated limit computation with trigonometric functions), I was half insane.

Moral. If you see an error in a (at least, mathematical) work, by all means, let it be known! It can save if not the life, then the sanity of someone in the future, while all you can harm is something as ephemeral as "self-esteem".

The story is real though I omitted the names (some of which are easy to figure out and some are not).

The best way to report the error is, of course, to figure out what should really be there yourself first and to offer both the criticism and the way out simultaneously. Some good joint papers have been written exactly this way :-)

You should do nothing and hope that the people who find the errors in your own documents are kind enough to do the same. (There is at least one error in my own master's thesis and at least one in my doctoral dissertation. There are also errors in textbooks by respected authors. I've found one in a fifth edition of a book; I checked and it's in the first four editions, too.)

If the document were a book, a web page, or something else amenable to revision, one would send the author a polite note. The "do nothing" advice is for a "one and done" document like a thesis or dissertation.

• Also see the answer by Anonymous Mathematician about notifying the author if there are errors that might be propagated into future publications. –  Bob Brown Commented Dec 25, 2014 at 20:02
• 3 I dislike this answer. I once found an typo in an article (with lots of tables with hundreds of datas I had to check). This wasted me lot of my time and ruined part of the work I did from these datas. In the era of Internet, I whish there would be a place where one can report and check these mistakes to save other people's time. –  Taladris Commented Dec 27, 2014 at 3:36
• @Taladris: Well, your downvote got me a hat. As far as wishing, there are things for which I wish that aren't and will never be real, too. The question was "what can I do?" and not "what ought to exist?" –  Bob Brown Commented Dec 27, 2014 at 3:50

I think that not finding an error in a thesis would be much more impressive. If you've never seen errors in a scientific piece of work before, it is that you are not very attentive. You probably know of the famous Excel error of Reinhart-Rogoff . Actually, this kind of thing happens all the time, in the best papers too. And it's normal. Scientists are human beings. That is why science is about replication. I don't even speak about typos and such. 90% of scientists writing in English are not English native speakers, so of course they (we) make a lot of mistakes. And so what ? Is it better to spend 100 hours reading again and again the same paper to correct a handful of spelling mistakes without any consequences, or should this time be better employed solving scientific problems ?

There are at least two errors in my thesis. One I corrected in preparing a portion of the thesis for publication. The other remains unresolved, but I believe it can be patched up. I'm sure there are some others as well. It bothers me that they are there, but not to the point that I lose sleep over it. At this point in my career, it is probably almost irrelevant. I work in another area now, but I would like to go back and fix them some time, when I can find the time.

What are you really hoping to accomplish by emailing the person's advisor? It sounds like you want to have the student's "case" re-opened and that you possibly disagree with the person's worthiness of his or her qualification. This is a huge deal (not a small one, by any measure). I think you are opening up the proverbial can of worms, and for no good reason I might add. Sorry to be blunt, but is this your business, really? (The question is only semi-rhetorical, but I think the answer is "no".)

Please read the responses of "Anonymous Mathematician" and Bob Brown above --- they are quite on the mark.

If the author wrote the thesis relatively recently, then do let him or her know directly (not through the advisor), as your constructive criticism could be useful as he or she prepares publications. If the person submitted their thesis some time ago, check to see which publications, if any, arose from it. Maybe the gaps have been closed in those publications.

These things are all that you should do. Leave it alone, otherwise.

A committee of experts at some point decided that the person's thesis was worthy of a degree. They may not have cared that certain gaps existed in the write up. What was presented in the thesis was sufficient and interesting enough for them. The student succeeded in demonstrating a sufficient expertise, by their standards. The thesis may not live up to your own personal standards, but that doesn't matter at all. When you are on a graduate committee, you can apply your standards as you see fit.

If no academic dishonesty has been committed, then I say that you should leave this issue alone. Focus your efforts on your own work and achieving something that meets your own standards.

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for browse other questions tagged thesis errors-erratum ..

• Featured on Meta
• Announcing a change to the data-dump process
• Upcoming initiatives on Stack Overflow and across the Stack Exchange network...
• We spent a sprint addressing your requests — here’s how it went

Hot Network Questions

• Is it possible to have a double miracle Sudoku grid?
• Why is the MOSFET in this fan control circuit overheating?
• What is a good translation for these verbal adjectives? (Greek)
• Is it worth it to apply to jobs that have over 100 applicants or have been posted for few days?
• Always orient a sundial towards polar north?
• How to receive large files guaranteeing authenticity, integrity and sending time
• ANOVA with unreliable measure
• Does the universe include everything, or merely everything that exists?
• Homebrew DND 5e Spell, review in power, and well... utility
• Subscripting a custom \mathbin operator
• Why are some elves royalty?
• Is "farfel" an idiolectical quirk/part of a familect?
• Teaching students how to check the validity of their proofs
• Is this circuit safe to put in my ceiling? What improvements could I make?
• How well do universal rack rails work with vertical spacing?
• Relation between Unity of Apperception and judgements in Kant
• How would I translate GPT to German?
• I found a counterexample to an assumption in a proof but not to its result – can I publish this as a paper?
• Does the question "will I get transplanted" make sense to your ears?
• What is the meaning of the "Super 8 - Interactive Teaser" under "EXTRAS" in Portal 2?
• Postman signs for delivery himself. Any laws broken?
• How can I handle an ambitious colleague, promoted ahead of me, that is self-serving and not that great at his job?
• Do we always use "worsen" with something which is already bad?
• Examples of distributions with easily solvable quantile functions but hard to solve CDFs

The Plagiarism Checker Online For Your Academic Work

Start Plagiarism Check

Editing & Proofreading for Your Research Paper

Get it proofread now

Online Printing & Binding with Free Express Delivery

Configure binding now

• Academic essay overview
• The writing process
• Structuring academic essays
• Types of academic essays
• Academic writing overview
• Sentence structure
• Academic writing process
• Improving your academic writing
• Titles and headings
• APA style overview
• APA citation & referencing
• APA structure & sections
• Citation & referencing
• Structure and sections
• APA examples overview
• Commonly used citations
• Other examples
• British English vs. American English
• Chicago style overview
• Chicago citation & referencing
• Chicago structure & sections
• Chicago style examples
• Citing sources overview
• Citation format
• Citation examples
• College essay overview
• Application
• How to write a college essay
• Types of college essays
• Commonly confused words
• Definitions
• Dissertation overview
• Dissertation structure & sections
• Dissertation writing process
• Graduate school overview
• Application & admission
• Study abroad
• Master degree
• Harvard referencing overview
• Language rules overview
• Grammatical rules & structures
• Parts of speech
• Punctuation
• Methodology overview
• Analyzing data
• Experiments
• Observations
• Inductive vs. Deductive
• Qualitative vs. Quantitative
• Types of validity
• Types of reliability
• Sampling methods
• Theories & Concepts
• Types of research studies
• Types of variables
• MLA style overview
• MLA examples
• MLA citation & referencing
• MLA structure & sections
• Plagiarism overview
• Plagiarism checker
• Types of plagiarism
• Printing production overview
• Research bias overview
• Types of research bias
• Example sections
• Types of research papers
• Research process overview
• Problem statement
• Research proposal
• Research topic
• Statistics overview
• Levels of measurment
• Frequency distribution
• Measures of central tendency
• Measures of variability
• Hypothesis testing
• Parameters & test statistics
• Types of distributions
• Correlation
• Effect size
• Hypothesis testing assumptions
• Types of ANOVAs
• Types of chi-square
• Statistical data
• Statistical models
• Spelling mistakes
• Tips overview
• Academic writing tips
• Dissertation tips
• Sources tips
• Working with sources overview
• Evaluating sources
• Finding sources
• Including sources
• Types of sources

Your Step to Success

Plagiarism Check within 10min

Printing & Binding with 3D Live Preview

Common Mistakes in Academic Writing & How to Avoid Them

How do you like this article cancel reply.

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Academic writing, while demanding, can be mastered with a good grasp of language rules and careful attention to common pitfalls. Mistakes ranging from structuring, style, to grammatical errors can distract from your argument and undermine the credibility of your work. Most of these common mistakes are avoidable, so it’s important to know which mistakes you’re likely to make. Explore our guide to transform these challenges into opportunities for improvement in your academic writing.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

• 1 Common Mistakes – In a Nutshell
• 2 Definition: Common mistakes
• 3 Common mistakes: British vs. American English
• 4 Common mistakes: Citation terms
• 5 Common mistakes: Quantifiers
• 6 Common mistakes: Nouns & plurals
• 7 Common mistakes: Punctuating numbers and dates
• 8 Common mistakes: Adjectives
• 9 Common mistakes: Verbs/phrasal verbs
• 10 Common mistakes: Words that are mixed up
• 11 Common mistakes: Conjunctions and prepositions

Common Mistakes – In a Nutshell

• There are many common mistakes in writing.
• Researchers can use British or American English in their work, although it must be consistent throughout.
• Students should ensure their work is free from any mistakes before submitting their work.

Definition: Common mistakes

Common mistakes are errors in academic writing that most students fail to notice in their research. There are different common mistakes ranging from inappropriate punctuation to improper sentence structure and more. Proofreading and editing your work is essential to correct language mistakes and other errors, as they can give you a lower score even if your research is well-structured.

Common mistakes: British vs. American English

British English and American English are the main languages used in academic writing by students and researchers. However, some words are spelled differently, and students should use the instructed language in their work to avoid common mistakes in language use.

Common mistakes: Citation terms

Terms used in a citation, including et al. are commonly miswritten as Et al or Et all. For example:

✘  The spread of the bubonic plague was largely influenced by trade and immigration (Gretel et all. , 1976)

✘  The spread of the bubonic plague was largely influenced by trade and immigration (Gretel et. al. , 1976)

✓  The spread of the bubonic plague was largely influenced by trade and immigration (Gretel et al. , 1976)

Common mistakes: Quantifiers

Common mistakes: Nouns & plurals

Some common mistakes in noun plurals include:

Common mistakes: Punctuating numbers and dates

Using commas correctly ensures proper punctuation of numbers, as follows:

Common mistakes: Adjectives

Students also make some common mistakes when using adjectives correctly. For instance:

Common mistakes: Verbs/phrasal verbs

Some common mistakes include:

Common mistakes: Words that are mixed up

It is common for students to mix up certain words, especially those that have similar pronunciations, such as:

• Effect – noun
• Affect – verb

The effect of the pandemic was widespread, it affected many people in the world.

• Personnel – noun
• Personal – adjective

The school’s personnel like to keep their personal items in their cars.

• Principal – adjective
• Principle – noun

The principal theme of the study draws on principles defined in the main source.

• Were – verb
• Where – adjective

They were found in the park where they like to play.

• Bear – verb
• Bare – adjective

The axle bears the load on a bare surface.

Common mistakes: Conjunctions and prepositions

Conjunctions and prepositions are used frequently in academic writing. Some common mistakes include the following:

What are the common mistakes in academic writing?

The most common mistakes in writing are grammatical errors from incorrect punctuation, spelling, and word groups. They also include misuse of phrases and confusing similar words.

How can you avoid common mistakes in your written work?

Proofreading and revising is the best way to find errors. Also, confirm the correct forms of words and spellings before using them.

What is the difference between American and British English?

There are different spellings for certain words in these forms of writing. For instance, the use of “s” and “z” may vary, such as analyse and analyze.

How do you punctuate numbers correctly?

Use a comma in the right place to show a number correctly. For instance 10,000 not 10.000.

I am so so happy I found BachelorPrint!!! I was first working with Book1One,...

We use cookies on our website. Some of them are essential, while others help us to improve this website and your experience.

• External Media

Individual Privacy Preferences

Cookie Details Privacy Policy Imprint

Here you will find an overview of all cookies used. You can give your consent to whole categories or display further information and select certain cookies.

Accept all Save

Essential cookies enable basic functions and are necessary for the proper function of the website.

Show Cookie Information Hide Cookie Information

Statistics cookies collect information anonymously. This information helps us to understand how our visitors use our website.

Content from video platforms and social media platforms is blocked by default. If External Media cookies are accepted, access to those contents no longer requires manual consent.

Privacy Policy Imprint

I took my kids to Dubai for our first international trip. It would've been better if we'd avoided these 4 mistakes.

• I took my kids to Dubai on our first international family vacation , but we had some missteps. 
• We should've paid closer attention to the hours and days popular attractions are open.
• Walking shoes  and having some advanced reservations would've made our trip better. 

My husband and I recently traveled to Dubai with our two kids and his mother on our first international trip together as a family.

It seemed like a solid pick. After all, Dubai was the No. 2 most attractive city destination last year for travelers, according to the annual report from Euromonitor International, a global market research company.

On our 10-day trip, we had a lot of fun and family time. We had a great time and would go back.

But although we set out with a spirit of adventure, we made mistakes along the way and didn't make "full use" of our time as well as I'd hoped.

Our trip to Dubai could've been way better if we hadn't made these common mistakes.

We didn't allocate enough time for each of the places we visited

When visiting the Dubai Mall, we knew we didn't want to miss seeing the famous musical fountain shows, which start every half an hour until 11 p.m.

But while exploring the extensive mall's aquarium and waterfall and grabbing dinner, we missed the last show. We had to go another night to experience it.

Looking back, I wish we'd scheduled more time to explore the millions of square feet of the Dubai Mall and its many attractions.

We also underestimated how long it would take us to explore Legoland Dubai. We got there at 1:30 p.m., and our kids didn't have enough time to see all of the attractions before the park closed at 6 p.m.

After Legoland, we headed to the neighboring Motiongate theme park. My kids were disappointed to find most of the rides closed before 7:30 p.m. It turns out the park closes at 8 p.m. most days.

Honestly, I'd say all three of these places needed at least a full day to experience them fully.

We learned too late that some attractions have varying hours depending on the day

Throughout our trip, we explored Dubai at all times of the day or night. It was difficult to rouse the kids up for the next day's itinerary, and we invariably ran late.

But we learned that a few hours could make all the difference depending on the day.

The Louvre Abu Dhabi 's galleries and exhibitions close at 6:30 p.m. most weekdays and 8:30 p.m. from Friday through Sunday. The museum is closed on Mondays.

Related stories

Unfortunately, the day we visited, the exhibits closed at 6:30, and we didn't arrive until late afternoon. We didn't get to see much, but we were glad we got to explore the space-themed children's museum.

I also wish we'd confirmed which days of the week some places close.

We thought the kids would love Dubai Dolphinarium, a massive family entertainment space filled with aquatic animals. But we didn't end up going because we realized too late it's closed on Tuesdays, the only day we were available.

We didn't book tickets in advance for attractions we really wanted to see

We didn't want to overload our itinerary, but we learned the hard way that some popular attractions require visitors to book really far in advance.

For example, we wanted to take the kids to the highly recommended Museum of the Future, which is filled with virtual-reality experiences and three-dimensional displays.

When we checked online for tickets during our trip, the only ones available were for dates three months away.

We should've packed comfier walking shoes

We walked a lot throughout our trip to Dubai, probably 8,000 to 10,000 steps each day. It was exhausting, and not having proper walking shoes didn't help.

On our next trip to this city, we plan to pack shoes that are made for walking.

• Main content