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Twenty Common Usage Errors

Robert J. Connors and Andrea A. Lunsford studied 3000 college essays and how instructors responded (or failed to respond) to a variety of mechanical errors. See "Frequency of Formal Errors in Current College Writing, or Ma and Pa Kettle Do Research," (as published in The St. Martin's Guide to Teaching Writing 2nd ed. Ed. Robert Connors and Cheryl Glenn. New York: St. Martin's, 1992. page 398.) Andrea Lunsford and Karen Lunsford repeated the study in 2008, with the results widely available in Andrea Lundsford's (2015) The St. Martin's handbook, Bedford/St. Martin's.

This table below summarizes their 1992 analysis. (The 2008 analysis is largely the same.) Their research suggests areas in which students might concentrate when writing for an academic audience.

Table 1: The twenty most common usage errors in first-year university writing

Rank by frequency of error	Error or Error Pattern	No. found in 3000 papers	% of total errors	No. found marked by instructor	% marked by instructor	Rank by no. of errors marked by instructor
1.	No comma after introductory element	3,299	11.5%	995	30%	2
2.	Vague pronoun reference	2,809	9.8%	892	32%	4
3.	No comma in compound sentence	2,446	8.6%	719	29%	7
4.	Wrong word	2,217	7.8%	1,114	50%	1
5.	No comma in nonrestrictive element	1,864	6.5%	580	31%	10
6.	Wrong or missing inflected endings	1,679	5.9%	857	51%	5
7.	Wrong or missing preposition	1,580	5.5%	679	43%	8
8.	Comma splice	1,565	5.5%	850	54%	6
9.	Possessive apostrophe error	1,455	5.1%	906	62%	3
10.	Tense shift	1,453	5.1%	484	33%	12
11.	Unnecessary shift in person	1,347	4.7%	410	30%	14
12.	Sentence fragment	1,217	4.2%	671	55%	9
13.	Wrong tense or verb form	952	3.3%	465	49%	13
14.	Subject-verb agreement	909	3.2%	534	58%	11
15.	Lack of comma in series	751	2.7%	184	4%	19
16.	Pronoun agreement error	752	2.6%	365	48%	15
17.	Unnecessary comma with restrictive element	693	2.4%	239	34%	17
18.	Run-on or fused sentence	681	2.4%	308	45%	16
19.	Dangling or misplaced modifier	577	2.0%	167	29%	20
20.	Its/it's error	292	1.0%	188	64%	18

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For more information about these and other grammatical and usage issues, consult

• Modern English Grammar "Error Correction Terms and Abbreviations"

  A list of resource around the web with helpful advice on finding, editing, and correcting the twenty common usage errors listed above.

• Free tools! My Editing Toolbar and macros for Microsoft Word

  Based on the 20 most common errors above, this Word toolbar will help you insert comments into your students' documents. Scroll to the bottom of the page to download the toolbar and read the installation instructions.

• The Modern English Grammar HyperTextBook

  A thorough and rigorous review of modern English grammatical structures from the word rank to the clause rank and beyond, written by yours truly.

• Guide to Grammar and Writing

  On online usage handbook by Charles Darling at the Capital Community College.

The Composition Links page (click on manet) below has another wide range of useful online handbooks, style guides, and dictionaries for the writer.

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