Common Writing Errors

This page last updated 06/03/2007

When writing papers in biology, students often think that factors like grammar and spelling do not matter. Unfortunately, this is not true! While some instructors may not specifically grade papers for grammar a poorly written paper still reflects badly on your work and may result in a lower grade. It is well worth your time to write the best paper you can. This time can lead to significantly improved grades. This page lists some of the common errors that students make when writing papers in biology. By checking for these errors in your writing, you can help improve your grade and you can help improve your instructor's mood. There is nothing worse than reading a stack of papers that are all poorly written!

General writing problems:

Failing to run a spell check on your paper - spell checking software is often a problem in science writing because there are so many technical terms. The spell checker will report those technical terms as being misspelled. However this does NOT mean that you should just skip the spell checker. If you don't run the spell checker, you run the risk of turning in a paper that is full of errors. If technical terminology is a problem, you can add technical terms to the glossary of most word processing programs. Just make sure before you add a new term that it is spelled correctly!

Spelling errors that won't be caught by spell checking software - unfortunately, there are several common writing errors that will not be detected by a spelling checker. Most of these come from confusing two words that have similar spellings but different meanings. You should be vigilant in avoiding the ones listed here, although there are certainly others:

Confusing "lose" with "loose".

Confusing "affect" with "effect".

Affect is a verb, while effect is a noun.

Confusing "choose" with "chose"

Choose is present tense, while chose is past tense.

Confusing "its" and "it's"

	Its is a possessive - "The dog was chewing its bone"
	It's is a contraction meaning "it is" - "It's too late to find a present for his birthday"

Confusing "two", "too", and/or "to"

	Two is a number - "There were two people in the room"
	Too means in addition or to excess - "There was too much noise"
	To is a preposition that is used for a variety of reasons like motion towards ("He moved five feet to the left")

Confusing "their", "they're" and "there"

	Their indicates possession - "I see their car"
	They're is a contraction of "they are" - "They're waiting for us"
	There indications location (among other things) - "The keys are over there on the table"

Problems that specifically apply to writing in biology

Inappropriate use of Latin species names - the technical names for ALL species in biology are written in Latin, and must include the name of the species and the genus together.

	While you can use the name of the genus alone, you NEVER see the species names alone. For example, the name for the human species is Homo sapiens. You might see references to the genus Homo, but you'll never see sapiens by itself.
	Also notice that because the name is from Latin, they must always be written in text that is italicized or underlined.
	The genus name is always capitalized but the species name is always lower case. Homo sapiens, not Homo Sapiens or homo sapiens.
	There is NO "The" in the front of species names. You would write "My paper is based on the evolution of Macaca mulatta" not "My paper is based on the Macaca mulatta."

Misuse of the word species - The word species is used for singular AND plural situations. There is no such thing as a "specie" in biology.