When writing an essay or doing an assignment, choosing the correct word or phrase to convey your meaning is vital: choosing the wrong word or phrase shakes a marker's confidence in your work.
Though all the exercises here are based on real mistakes in real computing science essays, you may not find the exact word your marker has queried in your particular essay. I hope, though, that you will find the exercises not only clarify the exact meaning of many commonly misused words, but also help you to make better word/phrase choices in future essays.
Word Confusions
Many mistakes are made through word confusions. Here are the most common:
- effect / affect (an effect: a changed state as a direct result of somebody's action; to affect: to act upon, i.e. to have an effect on, somebody or something)
- lose / loose (lose: to mislay, to fail to win; loose: to untether or untighten
- except / accept (except: excluding; accept: to take something offered)
- less/fewer (less is for things that are uncountable, e.g. salt; fewer is for things that are countable, i.e. grains of salt. So - less salt, fewer grains of salt; less flying, fewer flights; less arguing, fewer arguments.
In the exercises on this site, you'll come across other confusions too.
Wrongly used prepositions
Prepositions are short words such as in, at, with, on, over, through, between. Prepositions indicate place, time or relationship. Students often choose the wrong preposition, hence:
- different with instead of different from
- aspects in instead of aspects of
- Which airline are you flying in? rather than Which airline are you flying with?
- according with instead of according to
If you are unsure about which preposition to use, ask somebody. Never just guess.