For many, grammar is something that they still mess up even after years of education. To be honest, grammar is not that easy. Words and phrases that sound fine in your head can look like gibberish when you write them down.
Avoid Adverbs
Overuse of adverbs is the hallmark of lazy, cluttered writing. Good dialogue should use strong verbs rather than ‘-ly’ adverbs. They’re okay once in a while, but in excess, they’re an indicator of weak verb choices.
Reduce Unnecessary Prepositional Phrases
Prepositions are those words that often come before nouns and pronouns to show direction, location, or time. Sometimes prepositional phrases aren’t really necessary, especially when you use them (instead of an apostrophe + s). Common examples of prepositional phrases that can be abridged include “in order to,” which is often shortened to “to,” and “with regard to,” which can be replaced with “regarding” or “concerning.”
Comma Splice
A comma splice is found in a sentence where a comma is used to join independent clauses when a stronger separator is called for. One way to fix a comma splice is to add conjunction immediately after the comma. With most comma splices, the conjunction you’ll want to add is probably and, but, or so. You can change the comma to a semicolon instead. Unlike commas, semicolons are strong enough to glue two independent clauses together.
Word length
Wordy sentences use too many useless words that clutter writing. Good writing is simple and direct; it uses the simplest word possible that conveys the same meaning. This issue can be resolved by: eliminating redundancy, deleting empty words and phrases, avoiding expressions that can be more clearly said in another way, avoiding using the passive voice, and substituting verbs with prepositions.
