Common Mistakes/Common Mistakes 5

Academic English Structures - Common Mistakes.

The following are examples from students’ essays. Re-write them correctly. The number in brackets indicates how many mistakes or problem areas there are.



1) The results of the author’s survey of equipments used is showing below: (two)

Please write your answer here:[ANSWER]


2) Because of they are using the computer wrong, many people got hypertension. (three) [ANSWER]


3) My research emphasizes on techniques used to know how the design layout should be decided. (two) [ANSWER]



4) The amount of students is more than I never expected. (two) [ANSWER]


5) When he joined, the firm was only small, but when he left, the firm had grown into a very large firm. (two?) [ANSWER]




Do you need some hints and clues (pieces of helpful information)? Then scroll down...................

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Hints and clues:

1) The results of the author’s survey of equipments used is showing below: (two)

.

1) “equipment” is uncountable.

Also:

The verb "show" is much more likely to be in the present simple tense, rather than the present continuous. What's more, it should be in the passive voice, not the active voice. Also it doesn’t agree with its subject. What is the subject? Is it singular or plural? [ANSWER]

2) Because of they are using the computer wrong, many people got hypertension. (three)

.

2) A sentence subject (they) can never follow a preposition (of).

Also:

Wrong is an adjective. What should be used here?

Also:

“got” is the past tense of “get”. Which tense should be used? [ANSWER]

3) My research emphasizes on techniques used to know how the design layout should be decided. (two)

.

3) “emphasizes” is never used with “on”. But it’s the wrong word anyway!

Also:

“know” is the wrong word. [ANSWER]

4) The amount of students is more than I never expected. (two)

.

4) “amount” is the wrong word.

Also:

Nothing can be more or less than something that never happened! [ANSWER]

5) When he joined, the firm was only small, but when he left, the firm had grown into a very large firm.

.

5) This illustrates the principle of substitution. How can you avoid

repetition of “the firm”? [ANSWER]

(Note: When writing research papers you shouldn’t write “I”. You

should write “the author”. Can you think of any substitute words for
“the author”?)

When you've rewritten the sentences, check further down the page to see if they're the same as the suggested answers..............

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Answers:

.

1) The results of the author’s survey of equipments used is showing below:

.

1) The results of the author’s survey of equipment used are shown below: (two)

2) Because of they are using the computer wrong, many people got hypertension.

.

2) Because (-) they are using the computer wrongly,many people get hypertension.

Note: Maybe a better sentence would be: Because they are using the computer wrongly, many people suffer from hypertension.

3) My research emphasizes on techniques used to know how the design layout should be decided.

.

3) My research focuses on techniques used to discover (or “find out”) how the design layout should be decided.

4) The amount of students is more than I never expected.

.

4) The number of students is more than I ever expected.

5) When he joined, the firm was only small, but when he left, the firm had grown into a very large firm.
.

5) When he joined, the firm was only small, but when he left, it had grown into a very large organisation.



(Note on substitution. In academic writing you should avoid the use of "I". Instead you could use "the author". Other possibilities (substitutes) for "the author"...... you could use "the writer" or "the researcher". Or you could use the passive voice. So instead of "The author found that...", you could simply use, "It was found that...".)

Photo Album:

This is known as the "angel glacier". Why do you think that might be?

(Use "shaped like" in your answer)

Answer:

It might be because the glacier is shaped like an angel. (Photo: Icefield Parkway, Alberta, Canada.)

.

Note:

I wanted to "emphasise" certain words above and make them stand out from the rest of the sentence. If you want to make a special word or phrase stand out from the rest of the sentence you can use italic font, or you can "put it in inverted commas" ( "-----" ). This is a very useful technique in academic writing. For example you might want to use inverted commas when describing statistics:

......

When asked what they considered most important when choosing a computer chair, fifty percent of those questioned chose "comfort", while another thirty percent chose "cost". Only ten percent chose "appearance". The remainder chose, with the largest percentage first, "adjustability, mobility" and "size".

Or italics:

When asked what they considered most important when choosing a computer chair, fifty percent of those questioned chose comfort, while another thirty percent chose cost. Only ten percent chose appearance. The remainder chose, with the largest percentage first, adjustability, mobility and size:

Or, in the particular example of describing statistics from pie charts, bar charts and so on, you can use capital letters at the start of the word:

When asked what they considered most important when choosing a computer chair, fifty percent of those questioned chose Comfort, while another thirty percent chose Cost. Only ten percent chose Appearance. The remainder chose, with the largest percentage first, Adjustability, Mobility and Size.

......

Personally I prefer the second or third of these methods, as the first looks a bit "messy".

Do you get it?

Two baby girls were born within one hour in the same hospital bed to the same mother. But they were not twins. How do you explain this?

Answer:


They were two members of a set of triplets.

Language note (prefixes):


tw- often means "two" (for example twins, twice, twosome)

tri- often means "three" (for example triplets, triangle, tricycle)


Additional note:

This riddle (word puzzle) shows an example of "lateral thinking". Google Edward De Bono for more information. He is often thought of as the originator of this type of thought.