Common Writing Problems In a survey of Solent university teaching staff, we came up with this list of common things that tutors find wrong with student writing: Overall • No clear introduction • Poor structure with little or no signposting (linking words or phrases) • Generally too descriptive, often with little or no analysis or reference to theory • Writing in the first person or slipping in and out of third and first person willy-nilly. • Poor referencing (everything is treated as a summary, with no page numbers for specific points) – see also at paragraph level, below. Paragraph level • Weak or non-existent topic sentences • Paragraphs are often very short with little development of the main idea, no supporting evidence or relevant examples. • Poor transition between paragraphs (links and signposts again!) • Only placing a single reference at the end of the paragraph - even when it is obvious that more than one source has been used. Sentence level • Incomplete sentences • Incorrect word order. Grammar Difficulties with: • Subject/verb agreement (they was, etc.) • As above with collective nouns (the government were) • Use of passive voice Misuse of the apostrophe • Using contractions (not good practice in academic writing) • Using the apostrophe to create plurals (incorrect) • Omitting or misplacing the apostrophe for possession (the student’s work) • Using “it’s” instead of “its” for possessive Misuse of the comma • Missing comma after an introductory element • Missing comma in a series • Missing comma with a non-restrictive element (independent clause) Stylistic errors • Not using single quotes and double quotes correctly (single for quotation, double for quotes inside a quote) • Using quotation marks with block quotes (incorrect, quotes of three or more lines should be indented with no quotation marks) • Not understanding the difference between a reference list and a bibliography • Not knowing the difference between an acronym and an abbreviation and how and when to use them