Well, first of all, we all are humans and, humans make mistakes. However, there are mistakes as a result of your mind wandering off, and there are mistakes which severely hampers your reputation.
We are talking here about mistakes, which we miss by chance, or as a result of any app misleading us. It’s natural and is something that every web writer has to deal with.
Having said this, it does not in any way indicate that you skip the small details or stop using such apps. We are trying to say that be aware of what you are writing.
Now be honest to yourself – would read an article, where the first paragraph itself is filled with typos?
Of course not! Because, your audience will probably not be able to understand what is it that you are trying to say.
Mistakes like these not only ruin your content, but also cost you time and potential customers.
And no sensible person under God’s green earth would want that!
So, the real question here is – what’s to be done?
Well, for starters you can try to pay more attention while you are preparing your content. And, please remember that you are doing this for yourself!
Getting rid of grammatical errors from your content makes it easy for the reader exactly what you are trying to convey or sell. It also helps you to rank high as per the Google norms, as a result of which you will be able to attract more traffic to your site.
Not only this, you might even be able to convert your audiences with a seamless content, but that’s for another time.
For now, let’s keep our focus on eliminating any such errors.
What our experts are saying
According to experts in our content writing agency, it is alright to let go of one or two small errors. Paying too much attention to these doesn’t only waste time and it is highly possible that the reader might miss them as well.
It is mandatory for you to keep a check on the common grammatical mistakes that writers make. They are worth every second of your attention, as these are the ones that gets noticed the most. Here’s a trick that might help you:
- Anything that’s really worth your time is going to help your business grow ten times of itself.
- The remaining 10%, requires only a small portion of your attention. Spending too much time on these, will only help you to grow slowly, literally at a snail’s speed.
Thus, if you can manage to avoid grammatical mistakes, you can very save yourself from the wrath of Google algorithms.
Following these rules might just help you to chalk out an efficient model for your business.
Does it really look and sound so bad?
It depends from one person to the other. For example, if you are one of those grammar-snobs, then even a small mistake in a working mail can burn your skin.
However, if you really want to establish yourself as a reliable source of information on the internet, you don’t have any other option. You have to simply erase the big and glaring grammatical errors.
Errors like, using ‘there’ instead of ‘their’ or writing ‘billion’ in place of ‘million’ can adversely affect your credibility.
And this article is going to be all about these mistakes and how to avoid them. So, sit back and enjoy the ride!
Here’s a list of goof-ups that skips our eyes:
1. Using incorrect words in the right place-
Let us take the following sentences as an example:
- I like cricket better then football.
- If you do not do it than I will have to do it.
- The after-affects of the medicines might be severe.
Hopefully, you understand why the words ‘then’ and ‘than’ has been underlined in red in the above image. It is because they are used in the wrong context.
If you read these sentences aloud, they might sound correct to you. But, look carefully, are they really correct? The intentions are, set the grammatical errors are glaring. These kind mistakes are probably most common amongst writers. The reason being they sound the same to you. Such words are called homophones.
If you look at the first two sentences the words ‘then’ and ‘than’ are clearly placed in the wrong places.
‘Then’ denotes duration, while ‘than’ denotes a comparison. Therefore, the correct sentences should have been:
- I like cricket better than football.
- If you do not do it, then I will have to do it.
Again, coming to the 3rd sentence. You will notice that the 3rd sentence ‘affects’ has been used.
Now, we all know that ‘affects’ means something that’s happening. On the other hand ‘effects’ means to have an impact.
As you can easily see from the above image, where the word ‘affects’ have been demarcated as a mistake, albeit contextual.
Hence the correct sentence should have been –
The after effects of the medicines might be severe.
Now we understand that it’s hard to avoid grammatical errors like these in the beginning.
But ask yourself this – “Do I want to succeed in the long run or not?’’. If your answer is yes, then we assume, the urge to improve will come from within yourself.
2. Misuse of ‘in regards to’
Please make it a point to avoid grammatical mistakes like these.
Again be honest. Doesn’t your ear burn up whenever you hear an intellectual blatantly makes such grammatical errors? And no one can blame you for it!
The most common misuse has to be the one where you hear people saying – ‘in regards to’. Here, they mean to say – ‘in regard to ’, which means ‘in reference’ to something.
Always remember, when you say ‘regards’, then you use it in a particular context. You should use when you are trying to convey your wishes and compliments to another person.
Although it must be said that many today consider phrases like these to be fillers, or sentences that increase your word count.
3. You’re vs. Your
Such grammatical errors are indeed very subtle. A simple apostrophe might change the entire meaning of your sentence.
Here are two examples for you-
- Did you finish your homework? Sure you’re fast!
- How was your test yesterday?
As you can see, the two sentences have completely separate meanings. ‘Your’ has a possessive vibe to it. While ‘You’re’ is just an abbreviation for ‘you are’.
And, you cannot blame anyone, who reads your article and takes you for a lazy person for making such common grammatical mistakes.
Incomplete Comparisons
When you read the above words, the questions that might bother you are, ‘Worthy of whom or what?’
Now, read the following sentence – I am stronger, fitter, faster. Again, the first question that comes to your mind is – what the comparison is done with? Is it with a person or someone or anything?
These grammatical mistakes are usually made by rookies. However, once you get a hang of it such grammatical errors, will start disappearing.
Coming back to the mistake, make it a point to do a thing. Always make it clear for your audiences, what is it that you are comparing with.
Although, it might not be your priority, committing such grammatical errors might ruin your credibility.
4. It’s vs. Its
Here comes the dilemma of the apostrophe yet again. You can be rest assured that even the most experienced of writers gets confused.
‘Its’ have a possessive connotation. On the other hand ‘It’s’ is a shortened version of ‘It is’. What confuses the writers is the apostrophe ‘s’ after it. Many think that this must indicate possessiveness, but in reality, the opposite is true.
One suggestion to avoid grammatical mistakes, such as this one, is rechecking. Go through what you have written, thoroughly – mistakes like these and others will surely crop up.
5. Referring to any entity as ‘they’
This is one of the most common grammatical mistakes.
So, let us get one thing clear for you – there are entities on this earth that do not have a plural form.
Take the word ‘business’ for example. You can never refer to it as ‘they’ since it is a singular entity. Instead, the correct pronoun should be ‘it’. Everyone agrees right?
The solution again is to read your article multiple times. You can also take the help of applications like Grammarly.
6. I vs. Me
These sorts of grammatical errors, unfortunately, happen to everyone who tries to put words to their thoughts. The reason for it being, unfortunate is because all of us know the difference between ‘me’ and ‘I’ but mess things up, while writing a sentence.
Take for example this sentence – Once you are done, send the files to Jenna and I.
Although, the above sentence might sound right, what happens when we remove ‘Jenna’ from the equation? Then it starts sounding weird right?
Therefore, the correct sentence should be – Once you are done, send the files to Jenna and me.
Now it sounds appropriate, what do you say?
To avoid grammatical mistakes like these, keep the following pointer in mind:
‘I’ should never be used as an object, instead, use ‘me ’in such situations’.
Clearer now?
Therefore in conclusion..
Whenever you start writing anything for the web that has marketing values, always make an effort to limit grammatical errors to the minimum.
As already mentioned, you are doing this to promote yourself. And in today’s market only the ones who can communicate seamlessly can survive.
The above-mentioned mistakes are only some of the errors that writers like you and me make. There are plenty more of such goof-ups. And, these goof-ups might very well return to haunt you.
So always be sharp-eyed about what you are writing. Make sure there no grammatical and spelling errors in your article.
You won’t believe the changes your content marketing agency will make, provided they follow these rules stated by us.
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