E-Portfolio 6 – My Common Grammar Mistakes

One of the most common grammatical mistakes would be forgetting to use the correct tense when I am writing an essay. Often, I mix both past and present tense in the same sentence or paragraph. Even when I am quoting an article or stating a fact, it is common that I unintentionally mix the tenses up. The mistakes are spotted when my essays are double-checked and vetted. An example would be "These statistics listed would be used to shown people how results fluctuate in different readings." After the word "to", only the base form of the word should be used.
The correct sentence should go "The statistics shown would be used to show people how results fluctuate in different reading."

The next error that I would be elaborating on would be the wrong usage of past participle in a sentence. The basic grammar rule would be using the past participle of the word only after the words "has","have", and "had". However, for certain words, for example, “eat”, “take” and "drink", their past participles are spelt differently from the present and the past tense forms of the word. An example would be "They have drank all the water in the fridge!" Past participle, and not simple past tense, should be used in this sentence where there is a critical "have" before the verb. The correct sentence should go "They have drunk all the water in the fridge!"

The last error would be using direct speech when it should be indirect speech. This should only be used when a sentence or a question in a conversation was being quoted by a third party who was not involved in the conversation. "Shall I" and "Will you" are in their direct forms, however, when it is changed to indirect, the sentence structure is different. Not only is the sentence structure affected, the tense should be changed too. "Shall" must be changed to "Should", "Will" to "Would", "May" to "Might and so on and so forth. Even other terms like "today" must be changed to "that day". Pronouns have to be changed accordingly too. "I" must be changed, depending on who "I" represents. An example would be: Mrs Tan said "Bobby, is it possible for you to hand in your homework by 12pm today?" (Direct); Mrs Tan asked Bobby is it possible for you to hand in your homework by 12pm today. (Indirect)
The correct indirect speech should go: Mrs Tan asked Bobby if it was possible for him to hand in his homework by 12pm that day.