4: Typical mistakes

OK, so by now you’ve decided on the objectives of your piece, you’ve considered tone of voice and you’ve identified your target market. Now all you need to do is avoid the most common pitfall of all: grammatical mistakes.

As a professional writer, I must admit that I’m more pernickety than the general population, but the sight of a beautiful, glossy brochure that’s riddled with mistakes makes me wail and gnash my teeth, shouting, “Why? Why?!!” as I bang an anguished fist on the table. No, really. Because mistakes with grammar and spelling are so easy to avoid; as an obvious starting point, turn on your spellcheck.

However, there are some errors that our beloved spellcheck may not pick up on, but you can eradicate the majority of them by using the simple three point checklist here below.

1. It’s, its, shouldn’t and shan’t

Apostrophes have two uses and two uses only.

The first is to indicate that letters are missing, in abbreviations such as in can’t. Usually, the apostrophe very helpfully sits where the ‘o’ of not once was: didn’t, wouldn’t, won’t. Easy, huh?

The second is to indicate possession, which is where everything seems to get confusing. But really, it’s not difficult. All you have to do is think about who the object belongs to, and put the apostrophe directly afterwards.

The bag belongs to Sarah? Then it’s Sarah’s bag.
The bag belongs to the children? Then it’s the children’s bag.

The only exception is when something belongs to it, when we don’t use an apostrophe, because otherwise it would look the same as it’s (= it is).

It’s quarter past eight. (abbreviation)
The dog eats from its bowl. (possession – exception, no apostrophe)

Once you get the hang of this rule, you’ll always be sure whether to use you’re or your, too: since there’s no ‘s’ after the apostrophe, it must represent missing letters, so the real meaning is you are. Simple, eh?

NB: Apostrophes are NOT used in plurals!!!
So, please, no banana’s, even if you have a hundred of them. It’s just plain WRONG!

2. Capital letters

In German, all common nouns (that is, naming words like table, chair and dog) are given capital letters. But in English they’re not. Only proper nouns (names of places, people, towns, countries, companies) take a capital letter.

Common nouns	Proper nouns
(no capital letter)	(use a capital letter)
teacher	Mrs Brown
town	Worcester
restaurant	Peppe’s Pizza
document	Declaration of Independence

3. Woulda, coulda, shoulda

Now, you would never write would of, could of or should of, would you? Good, because these are just the shortened form of the present perfect tense: would have, could have, should have. And so they take the apostrophe to abbreviate them: would’ve, could’ve, should’ve. Easy.

Once you’ve done all that, proofread your work. By which I mean take time to read it, slowly and thoroughly, to pick up any remaining errors. If possible, get someone else to check it – it’s easy for your brain to skip through your own work, and see it as you intended it to be written rather than how it actually appears.

When you’re sure that it’s as good as it can get, then congratulations! You only need to think about structuring your copy, then you’ll be ready to unleash your genius on the world!

Read Part 5: Structure

Need help to get rid of those pesky mistakes? Contact me!