Shawnee State University
Academics Future Students Current Students Faculty/Staff Alumni/Friends Parents

  Home> Offices> Reading and Writing Center
Reading and Writing Center
Reading and Writing Center
  ::  Student Information
  ::  Instructor Information
  ::  Tutor Information
  ::  General Information
  ::  Grammar OWL
  ::  Errors in SSU Student Writing

Alternate Error Chart

The "top ten" error chart ranks student error according to the total number of times each error in the entire sample of student writing.  However, certain errors that appear repeatedly in some papers never appear in others.  The following chart indicates what percentage of student papers contain each type of error.

 

  Error Percentage of Papers Containing Error Rank of Error in Entire Sample
1 Comma error 96% 1
2 Pronoun error 95% 2
3 Wrong word error 89% 4
4 Spelling error 87% 3
5 Sentence boundary error 72% 7
6 Unnecessary words 63% 8
7 Missing word 60% 6
8 Apostrophe error 56% 11
9 Modifier problem (tie) 49% 18
9 Subject/verb agreement error (tie) 49% 13
11 Capitalization error 47% 5
12 Quotation mark error 43% 9
13 Faulty parallelism (tie) 41% 20
13 Subject/object agreement error (tie) 41% 16
15 Verb error 36% 17
16 Hyphen error 35% 12
17 Unnecessary tense shift 32% 10
18 Idiomatic error 28% 14
19 Semicolon error (tie) 21% 21
19 Period error (tie) 21% 15
21 Underlining/italicizing error 20% 19
22 Question mark error 19% 24
23 Colon error 13% 23
24 Dash error (tie) 4% 24
24 Transposition (tie) 4% 26
26 Double negative 3% 25
27 Parentheses error 1% 25
28 Other 1% 28
Directories Offices Library Search MySSU

This page maintained by Debra Knutson
 

Shawnee State University
940 Second Street
Portsmouth, Ohio 45662-4344
 To_SSU@shawnee.edu
740.351.4SSU
TTY: 740.351.3159

Last Updated:
02.06.2008 09:41 AM

For technical issues, please contact the webmaster at Webmaster@Shawnee.edu
©Shawnee State University