This chapter will repeat things I've already stated before. I'm including it as an easy reference to help editors and self-editors alike. This is simply a list of the twenty most common grammar and edit mistakes I see in writing, my own included. If you're an editor, take a second, use the "find" function, and track down every single one of these mistakes, and I'm betting you'll find yourself half done with editing after tackling these problems.

Rather than doing a "full" edit, from top to bottom, if you're like me and tend to miss things as you read, perhaps you can avoid some of the most obvious and annoying mistakes simply by making a bunch of quick passes looking for these particular problems. Simply use your word's find option to track down every mistake, and once these common ones are all fixed, then do your "real" edit, which is free from obnoxious distractions.

So here's the list in no particular order of importance!

You know it would be on the list, so we might as well get it out of the way first. There, their, and they're is probably the most common "mistake". For most people, it's probably not even a mistake, just a result of typing fast and not realizing it until you're done.

So use your find, look for every instance of these three words. You can highlight these words, or just search for every there, then they're, then their, and make sure you used them correctly.

There: Refers to a place. "Look over there!"

Their: A possession. "I have their money."

They're: A contraction of "They are". "They're cool!"

Not every mistake will be from the "Commonly Misused Words" chapter, but I figured if you mess up they're and their, you probably mess up you're and your for the same reason. If you ever struggle, just automatically read they're and you're as they are, and you are. As a result, when you read it, it'll instantly come out why it doesn't fit in certain cases.

You're: A contraction of "You are". "You're right!"

Your: A possession. "I have your money."

"Hey, don't say that," She said. is .

"Hey, don't say that," she said. is .

Use your find function and search for ," and then make sure all your descriptive beats and dialogue tags are properly used. If you're confused about when it should be capitalized and not capitalized, return to my chapter on writing dialogue.

"Onto" is to get onto something physically, or to figuratively be on top of an event or issue (handling it).

"I climbed onto the roof."

"On to" has a temporal property to it. You're moving to something new.

"I continued on to the village."

This one is a real pain in the butt to fix, but if you realize you've accidentally started writing in present or past tense and need to fix everything, there are a few tricks you can take. Obviously, fixing every "is" to "are" would go a long way. Also use your find function to scan for –ed to track down all of your past tense words. If you select suffix in your find options, you can shrink that down to words that end in ed. Here is a list of irregular verbs (that is words that aren't spelled the same in present or past) It is entirely up to you if you feel it'd be worth the time to use "find" on 50 some different words written in past (if you're trying to convert to present) or present (if you're trying to convert to past}. Also remember that words in dialogue might very well be in a different tense. You can also find or build your own "macros" for doing this automatically, but I'll leave it up to you if you want to set that up. Just use google.

arise, awake, be, bear, beat, become, begin, bend, bet, bite, bleed, blow, break, bring, build, burn, burst, buy, catch, choose, cling, come, cost, creep, cut, deal, dig, dive, do, draw, dream, drink, drive, eat, fall, feed, feel, fight, find, fit, flee, fling, fly, forbid, forget, forgive, forgo, freeze, get, give, go, grind, grow, hang, have, hear, hide, hit, hold, hurt, keep, kneel, knit, know, lay, lead, leap, leave, lend, let, lie (down), light, lose, make, mean, meet, pay, prove, put, quit, read, ride, ring, rise, run, saw, say, see, seek, sell, send, set, sew, shake, shave, shear, shine, shoot, show, shrink, shut, sing, sink, sit, slay, sleep, slide, sneak, speak, speed, spend, spill, spin, spit, split, spread, spring, stand, steal, stick, sting, stink, strew, strike, strive, swear, sweep, swim, swing, take, teach, tear, tell, think, thrive, throw, undergo, understand, upset, wake, wear, weave, weep, win, wind, withdraw, wring, write

arose, awoke, was, were, bore, beat, became, began, bent, bet, bit, bled, blew, broke, brought, built, burned or burnt, burst, bought, caught, chose, clung, came, cost, crept, cut, dealt, dug, dived or dove, did, drew, dreamed or dreamt, drank, drove, ate, fell, fed, felt, fought, found, fit, fitted, fled, flung, flew, forbade or forbad, forgot, forgave, forwent, froze, got, gave, went, ground, grew, hung or hanged, had, heard, hid, hit, held, hurt, kept, knelt or kneeled, knitted or knit, knew, laid, led, leapt or leaped, left, lent, let, lay, lit or lighted, lost, made, meant, met, paid, proved, put, quit, read, rode, rang, rose, ran, sawed, said, saw, sought, sold, sent, set, sewed, shook, shaved, sheared, shone or shined, shot, showed, shrank or shrunk, shut, sang, sank, sat, slew, slept, slid, sneaked or snuck, spoke, sped, spent, spilled or spilt, spun, spat or spit, split, spread, sprang, stood, stole, stuck, stung, stank or stunk, strewed, struck, strove or strived, swore, swept, swam, swung, took, taught, tore, told, thought, thrived or throve, threw, underwent, understood, upset, woke or waked, wore, wove, wept, won, wound, withdrew, wrung, wrote

A comma "," is used when you are uniting a dependent phrase/clause/sentence with an independent phrase/clause/sentence. A semi-colon ";" is used when you are uniting two independent phrases. What is a dependent clause? A dependent clause is not a sentence by itself.

"When Joe petted the dog."

That's not a sentence, that's a sentence fragment. That's dependent on what comes after.

"When Joe petted the dog, the dog growled."

"The Dog growled." Is a full sentence by itself, and is thus independent.

"He petted the dog; the dog growled."

That is two independent sentences, "He petted the dog." And "The dog growled." both worked without each other, thus semi-colon.

Putting and into a sentence turns an independent into a dependent.

"He petted the dog, and the dog growled."

It's a comma, because the sentences are "He petted the dog." (independent) and "and the dog growled." (dependent).

The words all turn an independent phrase into a dependent one.

It's not difficult to search for commas and semi-colons using the find feature in Microsoft word (or open office), so good luck!

Like your and you're and their and there, here's one more common mistake. However, the reality isn't as intuitive as you might think. Since English uses apostrophes for both possessive and contractions, it's really misleading, which might mean a quick search with the find button might be the best way to fix this one too.

"It's" is a contraction of "It is". "It's a nice day."

"Its" is the possessive form. Yes, there is no apostrophe, yes it's a weird exception. "Did you see its eyes?"

"Its' " isn't a word, just to be clear.

This becomes less of a problem as your vocabulary increases, but before that happens, a quick scan to make sure you properly hold the difference between "misinformed" and "uninformed" and the dozens of other potential word flips wouldn't be a bad idea. Click "prefix" in your find and replace function in order to located each of these.

Un- = The exact opposite of the word. It means NOT.

Dis- = "Not" in the sense of "outside of" or intentionally not. How does this differ from "un-"? If you are uninterested you are NOT interested. If you are disinterested you simply lack interest, ie "indifferent".

Im- = "Not" in a more powerful sense beyond the negative. A little tricky, but just treat it as a little more finite than "un-". For example, if something is "impossible", it doesn't mean "not possible", it means it absolutely cannot be done!

Mis- = Means "wrong". You still had the action, but the action was wrong. For example, if you misinterpreted, you still interpreted, you just did it wrong.

Otherwise known as starting sentences with a coordinating conjunction. I was tempted to put this at the semi-colon and comma section, but I figured it deserves its own statement here. Okay, so let's start this out. You can grammatically start a sentence with And or But. However, it follows the same rules I mentioned in number 6. Adding a coordinating conjunction turns an independent clause into a dependent one. If you don't attach your sentence to an independent sentence, it is a FRAGMENTED sentence.

"She was so cool. And sweet, too!" is .

"She thought about leaving school. But she knew that her parents expected her to finish the job and work hard for their sake." is .

Having trouble telling the difference? Try replacing "But" with "However, ", or "And" with "Furthermore," or "On top of that,". It should be a lot clearer to you after making the switch whether you're dealing with a complete sentence or not. Personally, I don't use "But" to start a sentence. I use "However,". But some people arbitrarily decided that "However," sounds stuffy to them, so you can use the shorter "coordinating conjunctions" to make your writing sound more casual.

Yikes, there is a lot of things to fix, huh? It seems like "Like' is something often used incorrectly in writing. It is not interchangeable with "as though". Like is always followed by a noun or pronoun.

"He is like a dog." Or "You are beautiful like a butterfly.".

If you compare them to something more complex than a noun or pronoun, then the proper word is "as though".

"I felt like I had just had my heart torn out." is .

"I felt as though I had my heart torn out." is .

So like is followed by a noun or pronoun. You can be "like" a person, place, or thing. If it's before a verbal clause, the correct use is "as though".

The removal of passive voice is important. Passive voice is when you refer to something as having had happened, while putting emphasis on the object without putting emphasis on the subject.

"I hit the boy." is an voice.

"The boy was hit." is a voice.

The easiest way to get rid of it is to do a search for "to be", "been", and all the other passive verbs. The freely available Hemingway app actually marks uses of passive voice, so tossing it in there is a really easy way to fix this problem, if it's a problem you suffer from.

However, the reason removing passive voice is important is because...

"He had beautiful eyes with a nice red tie."

That implies his beautiful eyes had a nice red tie hanging from them. When you have a lot of passive voice, these mistakes become very frequent, but even if you don't, they can become a problem if you're dangling modifiers like the example above. Some subject/verb is tougher to remove than others. For the easy stuff...

First, scan for pronouns.

Then, make sure the sentence that has those pronouns makes it absolutely clear who the pronoun is referring to. When possible, clarify or rearrange sentences to be clearer.

"Because Joe was less interested in science rather than history, he sometimes neglected studying it." "It" isn't terribly clear in this sentence.

How about... "Because of his interest in history, Joe sometimes neglected studying science."

This... won't get rid of the first example given. It's a tricky problem to fix, but you should always be aware of the potential for subject/verb confusion. Never assume your readers are following things as simply as you are.

This one is another tough one to fix. The addition of "–ing" at the end of a verb can ONLY be performed on Action verbs.

"I'm running away." is a action verb.

"I'm feeling you." is actually

So is "I'm loving it."

Non action verbs are verbs that are either abstract, talk about feelings, senses, or belongings. Here is a list:

be, believe, belong, care, dislike, envy, exist, fear, feel, forget, hate, have, hear, imagine, know, like, love, mean, need, own, possess, remember, see, seem, smell, sound, taste, think, understand

I should add that adding –ing to non action verbs in dialogue is acceptable, especially if you're trying to emulate how certain people might talk.

Other than their, there, and they're, I could create a list twenty pages long on just easily confused words. In fact, I did. Check out my chapter on common misused words. However, from an editing perspective, if you just want to catch the most common ones on a quick pass, here are the top ones to fix after yours, its, and theres, which I felt were prevalent enough to get their own numbers.

A) To, Too, and Two

B) Accept and Except

C) Affect and Effect

D) Than and Then

E) Ellicit and Illicit

F) Principle and Principal

G) Advice and Advise

H) All together and Altogether

I) Alter and Altar

J) Ensure and Insure

K) Sight and Site

L) Through and Threw

I'll stop there, but you don't have to. Like I said, the list is a mile long. The important thing is to pick the ones YOU make the mistake on the most. Once you realize which mistakes you make, create your own top 10-20 based on your writing style, then do your own once through to fix it.

Another loaded number with a lot of little fixes. First off, every period (.) should have a space after it. Questions should have question marks, nothing surprising there.The find and replace command can fix this easily. Second, make sure your quotation marks are all finished. The start and end of the talk should have a quotation, and your descriptive beats and dialogue tags should NOT be quoted. Furthermore, if you're quoting inside a quote, the outside quotes should be double (") and the inside quotes should be single ('). As mentioned before, dialogue tags will have commas and descriptive beats usually will have periods. Read the dialogue chapter to catch all the intricacies for that.

You already sorted out its versus it's... now take that to all of the other nouns in your work. If you're talking about more than one of something, it ends with an s and no apostrophe. If you're talking about someone possessing something, that would be s with an apostrophe. If it is both plural AND possessive, then you need to have the apostrophe AFTER the s. (s'}

"The ropes were tangled."

"The rope's end was tangled."

"The ropes' ends were tangled."

Here's a quick list of contractions too:

aren't - are not

can't - cannot

couldn't - could not

didn't - did not

doesn't - does not

don't - do not

hadn't - had not

hasn't - has not

haven't - have not

he'd - he had; he would

he'll - he will; he shall

he's - he is; he has

I'd - I had; I would

I'll - I will; I shall

I'm - I am

I've - I have

isn't - is not

let's - let us

mightn't might not

mustn't - must not

shan't - shall not

she'd - she had; she would

she'll - she will; she shall

she's - she is; she has

shouldn't - should not

that's - that is; that has

there's - there is; there has

they'd - they had; they would

they'll - they will; they shall

they're - they are

they've - they have

we'd - we had; we would

we're - we are

we've - we have

weren't - were not

what'll - what will; what shall

what're - what are

what's - what is; what has

what've - what have

where's - where is; where has

who's - who had; who would

who'll - who will; who shall

who're - who are

who's - who is; who has

who've - who have

won't - will not

wouldn't - would not

you'd - you had; you would

you'll - you will; you shall

you're - you are

you've - you have

So yeah, make sure all of those words have the expected apostrophes too, or break them into their appropriate words. Good Luck!

This one isn't a hard one to catch.

"Joe and I went to the park." is "Joe and me went to the park." Is .

"She gave Joe and me a kiss." Is . "She gave Joe and I a kiss." Is .

How can you tell? Remove the other person. In this case, Joe. Without Joe, whether it's I or me should be clear.

"I went to the park."

"She gave me a kiss."

Just a quick find for any case of "me" and a check to make sure you used it right should be all it takes.

Greater and Fewer are quantifiable. More and Less are not. If you can count it, you can say greater. If you can't count it, say more.

"I need more cowbell."

"I need greater than three cowbells." is

"I need more than three cowbells." is

There is an exception when it comes to time, money, distance, and weight. The reason is a mathematical one. Time, money, distance, and weight are continuous, not whole numbers. You can have 1 puppy, and 1 mile. You can have 1.05 miles, but you can't have 1.05 puppies (hopefully, please don't try to prove me wrong). As a result, distance, money, time, and weight can be considered unquantifiable since there is no finite number and thus you have more or less money.

"We have less than $20 in our pockets."

"Whom" should only be used when the person spoken about is the object of the sentence. In other words, when you're referring to a him, her, or them.

"Who" should be used for people when they are the subject of a sentence. In other words, when you're referring to a he or a she or they.

"That" is used on a thing when that thing is essential to the sentence.

"Which" is used on a thing when that thing does not clarify the sentence.

So, some examples are in order.