Sentence Errors

Establish a professional voice and persona in your texts by identifying and eliminating grammatical and mechanical errors at the sentence level.  Achieve clarity in communications. Establish a professional tone/voice.

Sentence Errors are errors related to grammar and mechanics within sentences in Standard Written English.

Related Concepts: Awkward Sentence Structure; Style; Styles of Writing


“Students make errors in the process of learning, and as they learn about writing, they often make new errors, not necessarily fewer ones. But knowing basic grammatical terminology does provide students with a tool for thinking about and discussing sentences. And lots of discussion of language, along with lots of reading and lots of writing, are the three ingredients for helping students write in accordance with the conventions of standard English”

NCTE’s Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar,
Some Questions and Answers about Grammar, NCTE

How Can I Avoid Sentence Errors?

Common Grammatical Errors

  1. Keep a record of the errors you tend to make in your sentences. Then, check for these errors when editing your work.
  2. Read each sentence independently. If possible, read each sentence outloud. Perhaps even place a sheet of paper across the text you are reading to block the sentences that follow and the sentences that proceeded the current one. Then, focus on
    1. coordination or subordination errors
    2. diction problems
    3. modification errors
    4. parts of speech errors
    5. parts of a sentence errors
    6. parallelism errors

Common Errors with Mechanics

Common Sentence Errors include

<a target= blank rel=noreferrer noopener href=httpswwwflickrcomphotos50514859N00220645446>Bay Bridge Collapse<a> by <a target= blank rel=noreferrer noopener href=httpswwwflickrcomphotos50514859N00>sanbeiji<a> is licensed under <a target= blank rel=noreferrer noopener href=httpscreativecommonsorglicensesby sa20ref=openverse>CC BY SA 20<a>

Why do Sentence Level Errors Matter?

For better or worse, some educated readers will make judgments about your character and ethos and about the veracity of your evidence based on whether or not you can write error-free sentences.

The bottom line is that sentence-level errors impair any efforts on your part to establish a professional writing prose style.

Recommended Resources

CCCC Statement on Ebonics. Conference on College Composition and Communication. 6/30/21

Students’ Right to Their Own Language. Conference on College Composition and Communication. (April 1974, reaffirmed November 2003, annotated bibliography added August 2006, reaffirmed November 2014)

Why is Grammar Important? NCTE Position Statement (National Council of Teachers of English. 7/1/2002.

References

NCTE’s Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar. Some Questions and Answers about Grammar, NCTE. 71/2002

Related Articles: