Some common grammatical errors and how to avoid them
What do you think is common in blogging and good copy writing? It is the conversational style that appears in both blog and a well written copy. Since the conversational writing style is a personalized form, there have been relaxations regarding strict grammatical rules for communicating effectively. Often you find sentences ending with prepositions, a technical word would dangle at the end or even abbreviations are used in the place of em dash. All this is basically incorporated to get the feel of talking into the content.
But this informal style of writing doesn’t give you the authority to mess up with all the grammatical rules. You need to avoid mistakes that would affect your credibility. Even though it is true that the message that has to be conveyed is more important, some people are very particular about the grammar and they simply would not subscribe or link to your blog if it lacks authenticity.
Using ‘you’re’ instead of ‘your’: This is a common mistake that most copy writers commit. You can easily avoid this error if you simply take a second and think about what you are trying to convey. Basically ‘your’ is a possessive pronoun which is used to indicate some possessions. For e.g.: your blog, your website. Whereas ‘you’re’ is the contraction for ‘you are’ as in ‘you’re writing a blog for many reasons’.
Messing up ‘it’s’ with ‘its’: It is yet another common confusion among the copywriters who use it’s in the place of its. This can also be avoided by thinking through what you are trying to say. ‘It’s’ is a contracted version of ‘it is’ or ‘it has’; like ‘It’s easy to avoid spelling mistakes’. On the other hand, ‘its’ is a possessive pronoun as in ‘The company is losing its identity’. There is actually a golden rule of thumb; if you have doubtful about using ‘its’, just repeat your sentence out loud using ‘it is’ instead. If that sounds senseless, then ‘its’ is the right word.
‘There’ v/s ‘their’: This mistake happens occasionally to everyone often as a complete typo. The only way to prevent it is by looking for the error during proofreading. ‘There’ is used as a reference to a place (She wants to go there) or as a pronoun (There is no money). Whereas ‘their’ is a plural possessive pronoun. For e.g.: It is their house. If you want to get rid of the confusion, ask yourself if you are talking about more than one person and something that they possess. If yes, then you need to use ‘their’.
Confusing ‘affect’ with ‘effect’: Even the grammar experts would pause while before using affect and effect at the right place. As with any other grammatical errors, you just need to take a second and understand the whole sentence before using the words. Basically ‘affect’ is a verb and ‘effect’ is a noun. For e.g.: ‘Your spendthrift nature will affect your wealth’ and ‘Your character will have an effect on your child’. The confusion can be clarified by putting ‘the’ in front of the prospect word. It has to be noted that ‘the’ will not come in front of a verb. So it won’t come in front of affect.
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