Most common essay mistakes

olgita
Sat, 02 Aug 2008 19:07:09 +0000

Let’s make a list of the most common essay mistakes to help those who are working on editing their essays. I’m not talking about common misspellings (where the proper spelling is replaced by a nonexistent word), which are usually caught by MS Word, but mistakes in usage, punctuation, structure, and anything else you’ve seen frequently. And please, if you have nothing useful to contribute, just don’t say anything at all. I’ll start:

“They” is generally not accepted as a singular gender-neutral third-person pronoun. That is, if you are referring to a general human with unknown gender, it is not advisable to use “they” to describe him/her. The most correct form would be using “he or she” and “his or her,” but this can become cumbersome very quickly, so the best solution is to choose either “he” or “she” and stick with it through the essay, or work around it with alternatives like “someone,” “anyone,” or “a person.”
Note: using “he” as a pronoun in this case is sometimes considered sexist.


Example:
Incorrect
“If a person owns a dog, they should take care of their animal.”
Correct
“If a person owns a dog, he or she should take care of his or her animal.”
Better
“A dog owner must take care of the animal.”