NOTES ON COMMON GRAMMAR ERRORS

COMMON HOMOPHONE ERRORS

Homophones are words that sound alike but mean different things.

Apostrophes indicate either missing letters OR possession.

YOUR: a possessive pronoun that means something belongs to the person called "you."

EX: Is that your book? (Does that book belong to you?)

YOU'RE: a contraction of "you are"

EX: You're missing a book. (YOU ARE missing a book.)

THERE: an adverb indicating location

EX: Your notes are over there. (Your notes are in that location.)

THEIR: a possessive pronoun that means something belongs to the people called "they"

EX: Their notes are over here. (The notes belonging to "they" are over here.)

THEY'RE: a contraction of "they are"

EX: They're not here today. (THEY ARE not here today.)

IT'S: a contraction of "it is"

EX: It's always sunny in Philadelphia. (IT IS always sunny in Philadelphia.)

ITS: a posessive pronoun that means something belongs to "it."

EX: The dog left its toy by the stairs.

Even though they sound the same, NEVER write "could of," "should of," or "would of."

The words are "could have," "could've," "should have," "should've," or "would have", "would've."

"Alot" is NOT a word. It is two separate words: a lot.

VERB TENSE ERRORS

The most common error I see in student writing is the verb tense error. Most writing is either done in
the past tense or the present tense. Generally, whatever verb tense your first sentence is in will be the
verb tense for your entire paragraph and your entire essay.

Simple Verb Tenses

Infinitive Past Present Future

to walk walked walk(s) will walk
To run ran run(s) will run
To be was is will be
could can ----
should shall ----
would will ----

Ex. The rest of Harry's sentence was drowned out by a high-pitched mewling from somewhere

near his ankles. He looks down and finds himself gazing into a pair of lamp-like yellow eyes.

In this example, the word "looks" should be "looked" and "finds" should be "found" because the

paragraph begins in past tense ("was drowned out".)