Due to the popularity of our previous articles “The Top Five Grammatical/Editing Errors that Make Readers Cringe” I have decided to write a similar type of article, this time focusing on web publication.  If your blog or website is full of grammatical errors, what does that say in regards to your professionalism?  Just because your work is being published on a website and not necessarily in a book, does not mean that you should become relaxed when it comes to your web publications.

Let's look at what I consider to be some of the top grammar errors that haunt Web pages:


1. Periods and commas: do they go inside or outside of quotation marks?

Correct: She said, "Periods and commas always go inside quotation marks, just like this."
Incorrect: This is "incorrect", because the comma is outside of the quotation marks. It should be: This is "correct," because the comma is . . .

2. E-mail vs. email

E-mail stands for electronic mail. According to Mirriam Webster, e-mail should contain the hyphen, and it doesn't have to be capitalized (E-mail).  The same applies to junk e-mail.

This is a fairly common mistake, and most of your audience will likely be searching Google with “email.”  Therefore, if email is one of your keywords, you might need to include both e-mail, and email.

3. Spelling

•    receive (remember: i before e except after c)
•    all right (alright is not a word)
•    definite(ly)
•    embarrassed
•    dependent
•    a lot (always be two words)
•    cannot
•    misspell

4. Hyphens

This is a confusing one!

compound adjectives + noun -- hyphenate when the adjectives appear before a noun but not if used after

Example: The newsletter contains the most up-to-date information from the school’s Principal. (up to date is hyphenated because it is used as an adjective modifying the noun information)

Example: The material in the newsletter is kept up to date. (There's no noun following up to date, so it shouldn't be hyphenated.)

5. Commas

The easiest way to remember where to put in a comma is to read your article out loud.  Whenever you pause to breath or take a natural break, a comma should usually be added.

a. To separate words in a list (apples, oranges, bananas, and grapes). Notice that I used a comma before the and.

b. Introductory phrases and words. Use commas after introductory phrases and words, especially if a slight pause is needed.

Before the movie was over, he left the theatre.
Subsequently, the information was deemed invalid.

In Conclusion

While conversing on social networking sites, or through instant messaging, we tend not to worry about grammar and spelling.  We’re likely having an informal conversation between friends.  But, on our web site, we must remember to maintain a professional front, and ensure that our site is free of grammatical and spelling errors. 

Comments (1)

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Esther said:

... I was quite pleased when I read this, especially when I realized that I do not make any of these mistakes. However, two of the grammatical errors that you listed are not completely correct. 1. Quotation marks This is usually true; however, if a person is writing, say, the name of a poem, the punctuation mark would go outside of the quotation marks. For example: "The Raven", by Edgar Allan Poe, was published in 1845. Or, My favorite poem is Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven". 2. All right vs. alright There is a big debate about this one, but the truth is, "all right" and "alright" have two different meanings. The former means that all is correct, whereas the second means that something is satisfactory or okay. For example: My math problems were all right. The tea is a little cold, but it's alright. Or perhaps this would better illustrate what I mean: After sitting through their debate, I decided that my friends were all right. After sitting through their debate, I decided that my friends were alright. The first means that my friends were all correct. In the second sentence, I'm saying that my friends are okay. While opinions on this matter differ, you can't count it as a mistake if someone chooses to go by the opinion with which you disagree.

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March 10, 2011
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