Editing Detective, Nancy Gordy

Above is a photo of what an Edmonton hotel left for their guests to read. Unfortunately, it is extremely poorly written.

The ability to write free of any grammatical errors is a skill.

It's a skill that will more than likely never be completely mastered by an individual as it is a learning process that continues through ones life. Mistakes will happen from time to time and some will go noticed while others go unnoticed. The mistakes that are identified however, create learning opportunities. With so many things to be looking out for when writing, it is no wonder that a writer can become overwhelmed and simply miss a mistake.

When reading the newspaper or online articles, I regularly come across errors. Some are simple errors that can probably be credited to a typo; however, I have come across many that are clearly due to poor writing.

After reading several articles on the Metro News website, I was able to discover a few errors.

The first article I found an error in was one about a celebrity burglary suspect. Overall, the story did contain good writing. I wasn't able to find any errors in the story other than near the end where it reads "He told investigators that she would identify targets and that the would then research them on the Internet, according to search warrant filings in Las Vegas." This is a very simple error that can easily be fixed. All the writer or editor would have to do is put in the letter 'y' after the word 'the' so that it reads "He told investigators that she would identify targets and that they would then research them on the Internet, according to search warrant filings in Las Vegas."

Although this is such a little error, readers pick up on them more than often, and if it's reoccurring, it could begin to cast a negative spotlight on the writer in one way or another.

The second article I noticed had an error present was also found on Metro News.

The article discussed the use of time machines in movies. The first error I found was a misuse of a comma. There was no comma put before the coordinating conjunction 'but' in a sentence in the first paragraph that was joining two independent clauses. The second error I found was the use of the word 'a' rather than the word 'an' that was needed. Writer's should not have any problem with this mistake. When we speak out loud we are able to identify these types of errors more easily because it simply doesn't sound right. When writing however, we must be more careful and read the sentences over to make sure that they also sound right.

The third article I found errors in was an article on Metro News about car filters. I didn't enjoy this article at all. Not because it was about cars, but because the writing was very choppy. The writer started off many of the sentences with the word 'but' and 'and', which can be done, but only if you know how to break this rule properly and can do it with an appropriate style. In this article however, it just doesn't work. The article also contained a sentence fragment. The fragment was found right below a subhead so I'm sure the writer thought that it would make sense to the reader, but it didn't make sense to me upon my first read of the sentence. The sentence read "The least expensive filter and the one that has the most bearing on overall vehicle longevity." The fragment could have been fixed by saying "It is the least expensive filter and the one that has the most bearing on overall vehicle longevity."

Although there are much worse mistakes that can be made in the world of writing, simple mistakes such as these ones should still be identified and corrected. It can be quite frustrating when reading a newspaper that is littered with errors. It makes the newspaper as a whole seem not worthy of reading and perhaps it isn't so credible if it's poorly written. Tyler Grant's blog post titled 'We Regret the Error' also discusses how an abundance of mistakes can lead to the reader discarding the story.

The lesson is that writing should always be checked over and over and over for any mistakes, and in turn, this will create a better writer in the long run.