Every writer repeats a small, personal set of errors. Finding your own set is worth more than any general list — because you will make those same errors in every paper for the rest of your career unless you name them.
Build your list
- Keep every corrected draft you get back.
- Note the corrections that appear more than once.
- Most writers find five to ten recurring items.
- Check for exactly those before submitting anything.
Frequent recurring items
- Articles: when to use a, the, or nothing.
- Countable and uncountable nouns: research, evidence, information.
- Tense in the methods and results sections.
- Prepositions after specific verbs.
- The first two are the most common and the least often self-corrected.
Hedging correctly
- English academic writing hedges more than many other traditions.
- Suggests, indicates, is consistent with — different strengths.
- Both over-hedging and under-hedging are read as errors.
Use a corpus, not a dictionary
- Search your target journal for how a phrase is actually used.
- Dictionaries give meaning; published papers give usage.
- Usage is what reads as natural.
Read your draft aloud
- Missing articles and wrong prepositions are audible.
- Where you stumble, a reader will stumble.
- It is the cheapest editing pass available.
One thing worth remembering
Keep a personal list of the corrections you receive more than once.
Generic error lists are long and mostly irrelevant to you — your own list will be five to ten items, and checking those specific items before every submission removes most of what reviewers would otherwise flag.
Câu hỏi thường gặp
Why build your own error list?
Because every writer repeats a small personal set of errors, and you will make them in every paper unless you name them.
How do you build it?
Keep every corrected draft, note corrections that appear more than once, and check for exactly those before submitting.
What are frequent recurring items?
Articles, countable and uncountable nouns like research and evidence, tense in methods and results, and prepositions after specific verbs.
What is hedging?
Signalling the strength of a claim — English academic writing hedges more than many traditions, and both over-hedging and under-hedging read as errors.
Why use a corpus rather than a dictionary?
Dictionaries give meaning while published papers give usage, and usage is what reads as natural.
