Textual Editing

Textual Editing
Grade 11
1. Misrelated Participle
He was listening to their conversations. Trying to find out all the latest gossip.
Staring into the eyes of the dragon.
Error: “trying” and “staring” are participles – verbs that end in “ing” or “ed/en”. A sentence cannot start
with a participle.
Correction: add a subject or change the punctuation.
2. Punctuation errors
Say No!!
Error: Double exclamation marks – you can’t exclaim an exclamation.

Capital letters in the middle of a phrase/sentence.
This phrase is in direct speech, include inverted commas.
Correction: Remove the second exclamation mark.
Either write both N and O in capitals for extra emphasis, or remove capital N.
Place inverted commas to indicate direct speech.
The lion always made an attempt to eat first because he was the king and the others
, like the hyena and vultures, knew that they had to wait.
Error: A comma cannot be placed on a new line.

Correction: Write “others” on a new line and then include the comma.
In the middle of the jungle deep in the wild. There lived a baboon.
Error: The first “sentence” is incomplete, what happens in the middle of the jungle? The full stop is used
incorrectly. The second “sentence” is also incomplete.
Correction: Place comma after “jungle” and after “wild”.
3. Error of concord – misrelated pronoun
Each member of the family has their jobs.
Error: The sentence speaks of each individual member of a family – singular, but uses the plural pronoun
“their”.
Correction: make the pronoun agree with the singular in the subject. “Each member of the family has
his/her job.”
4. Error of concord – agreement between subject and verb
Everyone of us were born different.
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Error: “Everyone” is singular, “were” is plural – the subject and verb don’t agree.
Correction: “Everyone of us WAS born different.”
5. Tautology (repetition)
The drink must be unique, unlike any other.
Error: “Unlike any other” means the same thing as “unique”.

Correction: Remove “unlike any other”.
6. Apostrophe
The man owned six company’s.

He was down in the dump’s.
The hyenas voice could be heard across the plane. However, he couldnt move.
Error: There is a common misconception that every word which ends in “s” needs an apostrophe. Not so!
The apostrophe DOES NOT indicate a plural form of the word. It can only indicate possession/ownership (as
in the hyena example) or contraction (couldn’t).
Correction: “companies” (no apostrophe necessary), “dumps” (no apostrophe necessary), “hyena’s”,
“couldn’t”
7. Register
He had a wife and 6 kids. Anyway, as I was saying, he couldn’t afford to feed them. So, he packed
up their stuff and sent them out to sort things coz he knew that they’d die otherwise. The kids were
upset, but decided that they were gonna work to prove their father wrong. They worked hard, till
one day, they came back. They found their old man asleep under a tree. They were a bit peeved coz
here they thawt that they’d help him out but mean time he was lousy lazy oke.
Error: The use of colloquial, informal language is inappropriate in a formal context, a category into which an
English essay most certainly fits! Do not write the way you speak!
8. Tenses
The hyenas attempted to attack the wounded zebra, but alas, the harder they tried, the more the
zebra escaped their terrible grasp. Even though he was hurt, the zebra displayed tremendous
strength and he was determined not to allow himself to be destroyed by the cunning hyenas.
So, the zebra sits under a tree, waiting for the hyenas to pass. He comes up with a clever plan to
outwit the hyenas and save himself once and for all. For this, he asks the wise owl for help.
The owl decided to help the zebra out, and together they sorted the hyena problem!
Error: The first and third paragraphs are written in the past tense (indicated by the verb “was”, and verbs
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ending in “ed”. The second paragraph switches to the present tense. This confuses the reader.
Correction: Write using ONE tense!
9. Cliches
The word spread like wild fire.

The animals found themselves in the firing line.
The zebra bit off more than he could chew.
Error: Avoid using overused expressions, they lower the register of your story and create a negative
impression about your ability as a writer.
10. Comma-splice (using a comma in a sentence instead of a full stop)
The elephants were furious at the obvious disregard for their right to eat off any of the trees, they
decided to meet to discuss the matter.
Error: There are two ideas contained in this sentence: firstly, the elephants’ anger and secondly, the
meeting which transpired. They need to be separated by using a full stop.
11. Spelling rules
● When adding the present participle ‘ing’ to words such as ‘come’, ‘use’, ‘create’, ‘quote’, ‘receive’,
‘give’, and others that end in an ‘e’, drop the ‘e’ and add the ‘ing’. (coming, using, quoting, creating)
● When adding the present participle ‘ing’ to words such as ‘swim’, ‘dim’, ‘slap’, double the consonant.
(swimming, dimming, slapping)
● To keep the shortness of the vowel, double the consonant: ‘capped’, ‘wrapped’, ‘slapped’ but not
‘writting’ as ‘writing’ has a long vowel sound so the consonant does not need to be doubled.
● Learn the difference between: their, there; it’s, its; know, now; knew, new; where, were.
● ‘se and ce’ words: Practise – verb, Practice – noun; advise – verb, advice – noun.
● As we follow the Oxford English spelling rules, the American spelling for words like “honour,
humour, colour” where the ‘u’ is left out does not apply.
● ‘Affect’ – receiving an action – I am affected by a decision made.
● ‘Effect’ – refers to the causes of – The effects of the Tsunami are evident.
● ‘I before E except after C’! (belief and receive)
● Capital letters indicate the beginning of sentences, the use of proper nouns and the pronoun ‘I’. They
are not randomly placed in the middle of words like: sTreeT.
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Error: Double exclamation marks – you can’t exclaim an exclamation.

Error: A comma cannot be placed on a new line.

3. Error of concord – misrelated pronoun

Each member of the family has their jobs.

4. Error of concord – agreement between subject and verb

Everyone of us were born different.

The drink must be unique, unlike any other.

Error: “Unlike any other” means the same thing as “unique”.

The man owned six company’s.

The word spread like wild fire.

10. Comma-splice (using a comma in a sentence instead of a full stop)

11. Spelling rules

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