English mistakes commonly made in a thesis

Students tend to make the same language mistakes over and over again when writing a thesis. Taking a careful look at these lists of mistakes that we often encounter may help you to break these habits.

Spelling mistakes

Although spellcheck features catch many spelling mistakes, they cannot be relied on entirely. These words are still frequently misspelled in many theses.

Incorrect	Correct
acheive	achieve
benifit	benefit
concious	conscious
definately	definitely
dependant	dependent
disatisfied	dissatisfied
existance	existence
focussed	focused
heteroskedesticity	heteroskedasticity
homogenus	homogenous
imediate	immediate
labratory	laboratory
ocassionally	occasionally
payed	paid
posses	possess
practicaly	practically
precedure	procedure
publically	publicly
questionaire	questionnaire
respondant	respondent
seperate	separate
skedesticity	skedasticity
skewedness	skewness
specificly,	specifically
suceed	succeed
therefor	therefore
undoubtably	undoubtedly
unforseen	unforeseen
wether	whether
wich	which

Frequently occurring language mistakes

It is rare that the theses we edit do not contain any of the below mistakes. Not using them will set your writing apart and give it a more polished feel.

Incorrect	Correct	Why?
Researches were conducted.	Research was conducted.	Research is a non-count noun.
Further, the chance of bias is high.	Furthermore, the chance of bias is high.	Further does not mean “in addition”; furthermore does
The amount of variables may change.	The number of variables may change.	Use number with countable nouns (e.g., changes), amount with non-count nouns (e.g., air).
A MRI, a HR directive	An MRI, an HRdirective	An abbreviation that starts with a vowel sound takes “an.”
The teenagers that	The teenagers who	Use who with people, that with things

Other common mistakes are presented by category below.

Adjectives

Incorrect	Correct	Example
Are both similar	Are similar	Although the two cases are similar, they are not identical.
Politic	Political	Both economic and political factors were considered.
So called…, factor based…	So-called…, factor-based…	The so-called experts only conducted factor-based analyses.
Specially	Especially	The authors were especially interested in inflation pressures.

Capitalization

Incorrect	Correct	Example
Results Of The Interviews	Results of the interviews or Results of the Interviews	Additional information is presented in Table 9 (Results of the interviews).

Conjunctions and linking terms

Incorrect	Correct	Example
First of all, firstly	First	First, all participants were given a survey.
However …	However,…	However, most theorists disagree.
Like	Such as	Northern cities such as Oslo and Helsinki have long, dark winters.

Nouns/noun phrases

Incorrect	Correct	Example
Insights in	Insights into	The results offer valuable insights into the problem.
MNC’s, PC’s	MNCs, PCs	Most MNCs purchase thousands of PCs annually.
One criteria	One criterion	Although many criteria were considered, one criterion stood out
Research conclusion	Research conclusions	Chapter 6 contains the research conclusions.
Taxi’s, umbrella’s	Taxis, umbrellas	Taxis are often full of forgotten umbrellas.
The childs behavior, the parents attitude	The child’s behavior, the parents’ attitude	Although the child’s behavior was aggressive, herparents’ attitude was very relaxed.
Two analysis	Two analyses	Several analyses were conducted, but one analysiswas most fruitful.
Two hypothesis	Two hypotheses	This thesis proposes many hypotheses.

Prepositions/prepositional phrases

Incorrect	Correct	Example
Besides, Next to	In addition to	In addition to building dams, the government also invested in roads.
From…till…	From…to…	The ages ranged from 18 to 24.
In the light of	In light of	The test was cancelled in light of the wind.
Per	By	The participants were grouped by height.
To what extend	To what extent	It is not known to what extent the subjects were being truthful.

Pronouns

Incorrect	Correct	Example
A person…their…	A person…his or her (or his/her)	A researcher should cite his or her sources.
You…	One…	If one reads the study, one may indeed be convinced

Punctuating numbers

Incorrect	Correct	Example
10.000,00	10,000.00	The price was exactly $10,000.00.
1960’s	1960s	Many styles of music emerged in the 1960s.

Quantifiers

Incorrect	Correct	Example
A couple of	A few, two/three, a handful of	A few controversial questions were also included.
A lot of	Many, much, several, a great deal of	Much time was spent on the test.

Terms used in citations

Incorrect	Correct	Example
Et al, Et all.	Et al.	The mutation is thought to be widespread (Han et al., 1999)
Et al. has	Et al. have	Omar et al. have asserted that the effect is temporary.

Verbs/phrasal verbs

Incorrect	Correct	Example
Choose yesterday	Chose yesterday	The project manager chose her team before planning began.
Divide in	Divide into	This thesis is divided into seven sections.
Lead yesterday	Led yesterday	Although the Liberals currently lead in the polls, the Conservatives ledlast week.
Make a photo	Take a photo	The time was set to take photos at 20-second intervals.
Send yesterday	Sent yesterday	The email was sent to all employees.

Words that are commonly confused

Which one to use?	Correct	What’s usually the difference?
Effect/affect	The effect was strong; the drug affected all members of the experimental group.	Effect = noun Affect = verb
Personnel/personal	The company’s personnel do not like to discuss their personal problems.	Personnel = noun Personal = adjective
Principal/principle	The principal author outlined the theories and principles that arose from the study.	Principal = adjective Principle = noun
Were/where	Where were you?	Were = verb Where = adjective