Reflection on my top three Grammar Mistakes

The top three grammar mistakes that bother me most are Subject and verb agreement, wrong word and improper use of passive voice. Though I know that these mistakes are my demises, I could not help making such mistakes again and again. It’s my first time to systematically analyze my grammar mistakes and hope this can help me avoid making those errors again. At least, hope they won’t appear in this journal.

Subject and verb Agreement
This is the most commonly encountered during my writing process. The most obvious example is the title of my writing assignment draft two. In my writing assignment, the title is written as “Is Hybrid Electric Vehicles the perfect solution of mitigating global warming?” However, it is “are” that was supposed to be at the beginning, as the subject is “HEVs”. The SVA mistake could have been avoided if only I pay more attention to clarifying the real subject, which, though is difficult for me, I will try my best to keep an eye on it.

Wrong word
The WW mistake is common among students who are not from English speaking countries. Many people may have the same experience with me that when we are generating ideas to write something complex, we usually use the most convenient or the most familiar language to think and write, and then translate it to English. Finding words with the same meaning is not tough work. However, choosing a proper one from piles of candidates is nerve-racking. I still remember when I was writing an essay about detective, I made a huge mistake and was laughed at for a long time. In Chinese, the meaning of detective and detector are similar, both mean investigating. In my essay, the sentence is” Sherlock Holmes is a detector”. Actually, detective refers to a person while detector refers to a machine! Thus, in my essay, Mr. Holmes became a machine. This reminds me to check the context of words first and try to select a more proper one.

Improper use of passive voice
In order not to always start a sentence with “I”, “they” or avoid monotonous subjects, we need to use passive voice to give some variety. In my case, passive voice means
negative marks. I know it’s good for me to use them but I often forget the relationship between object and subject and the result is a wrong or confusing sentence. For instance, in my writing assignment two, there is a sentence that “With the voice of developing a harmonic and sustainable society, environment related issues become the focal point to be take care of.” Here, I got the active and passive role upside down and the correct form should be “to be taken care of”. Writing down the subject and object may be the easiest way to avoid such mistakes.

Grammar mistakes are unquenchable but if we pay more attention on details, those mistakes can be reduced to a relatively low level. That’s what I’ve retained from my bloody experience.