Bad writing comes at an expense. These writing mistakes are not just small slip-ups. They really hurt the way you are perceived by others.
According to Grammarly's 2024 State of Business Communication report, conducted with The Harris Poll, the results uncovered this: There is miscommunication occurring at least once a week for every knowledge worker. Actually 1 in 5 business leaders believes that they have lost business due to it. In the meantime, a survey of 1,839 people conducted by Tidio revealed that 97% believe grammar errors impact the way that they view a company or person, and more than half of all respondents indicated that it affects their professional impression.
That is not a small thing. You might well be the first impression a client, a recruiter, a professor, or a reader will get without meeting, talking, or interacting with you. If it doesn't sound professional, then people will think you are not.
The great news is that most of these errors are easily corrected as long as you're aware of them.
These are 16 of the most frequent errors people make in their writing that can take away their credibility without them knowing and how to fix each one.
1. Writing Sentences That Are Too Long
Long sentences can be among the quickest ways of losing readers. American Press Institute studies indicate that readers can comprehend approximately 90% of what is written when the sentences are around 15 words long on average. Expand that to 28 words, and comprehension falls to ~50%. At 43 words, under 10% read you in their entirety.
It's not a drop that is small. It's the difference between being understood and being ignored.
The solution: Take aim at keeping sentences an average of 15 to 20 words each. When you need more than one conjunction and/or comma in a sentence, you know you need to break it up! Read your text aloud. When you can't breathe, they are too long.
Need help? Consider using a sentence shortener to trim long sentences without losing meaning.
2. Using Passive Voice When Active Voice Would Be Clearer
It's not always wrong to use the passive voice, but it's easy to overuse it, sometimes to the detriment of your writing. Compare these two:
- Passive: "The report was submitted by the team on Friday."
- Active: "The team submitted the report on Friday."
The active version is shorter, clearer, and places the topic at the forefront. In the passive voice, the action and the person performing the action are hidden from the reader, which makes for a more difficult read.
The fix: Look for sentences using "was," "were," "is," "are," or "been" followed by a past participle. The pattern of the passive voice is this one. Rewrite them so that the action is done by the subject. Generally use the active voice; only use the passive voice if the action is more important than the person doing the action.
3. Ignoring Grammar and Spelling Errors
This one sounds obvious, but the data shows how much it actually costs. An Opinium survey commissioned by Accuracy Matters found that 73% of UK adults said their perception of a brand would worsen if they noticed spelling or grammatical mistakes in its messaging, and 68% said they would be less likely to buy from that brand.
In another Global Lingo survey of 1,029 people, 59% said they would not engage in any business activity with a company that had noticeable grammar or spelling mistakes in their website or marketing.
That is, a word misspelled can lead to the loss of a customer, client, or job opportunity.
The solution: Don't use spell check as your only source of help. It will not catch "their" used in place of "there" or "manger" instead of "manager." Proofread carefully by hand and preferably have someone else proofread critical documents before they leave. It's also helpful to read your text backwards, sentence by sentence, which will help you spot any mistakes you may have made that your brain would otherwise turn a blind eye to.
4. Overcomplicating Your Language
If you use too many complicated words, you sound like you think you're smarter than you really are. It makes you sound pushy, and it causes people who don't understand the industry, or the slang, to lose interest.
This is particularly true online. A study by the Nielsen Norman Group found that readers rate concise, clear writing significantly higher in usability than writing that is dense, overly promotional, or full of unnecessary complexity.
The solution: If a simpler word exists, use that. Replace "utilize" with "use." Swap "commence" for "start." Change "in the event that" to "if." Clarity, not complexity, is the objective. Apply a sentence simplifier to make your text as easy to read as possible.
5. Starting Every Sentence the Same Way
Read the following three sentences:
"This tool is very useful. This feature helps users save time. This update fixes the main issues."
Notice anything? Each sentence begins with "This" and uses the same subject/verb construction. One of those writing errors that consumers feel BEFORE they can even recognize them is repetitive sentence structure. It develops a flat, robotic beat that sucks any life out from engagement.
The fix: Vary your sentence structure. Avoid stringing together long, explanatory sentences. Begin some sentences with a dependent clause, some with a transition, and some with the verb. When you revise, read your paragraphs aloud and listen for the rhythm. Good writing has one.
6. Burying Your Main Point
Many writers make readers wade through several paragraphs before reaching the actual point. This is the opposite of the way that professional writing works.
Journalists call this the "inverted pyramid": lead with the most important information, then fill in context and detail. Nielsen Norman Group usability research found that users often read only the first sentence of each paragraph when scanning a page. If your main point is in paragraph 4, most of your readers will miss it.
The fix: Make sure to state your primary point in the first sentence of each paragraph and then back up your thesis. Don't drift into your conclusion. Lead with it. When looking at the paragraph, ask, "If the reader reads only the first line of this paragraph, does he or she understand the most important thing I am communicating in the paragraph?"
7. Using Too Much Jargon
Industry jargon has its place. It allows people that have expertise in the same area to make workflows easier. However, if you start using it to communicate with a wider audience, then it goes wrong and leads to a loss of connection. A study published in the International Journal of Business Communication by researchers at the University of Florida and George Washington University found that excessive jargon impairs people's ability to process information, causes negative feelings, lowers their confidence, and makes them less willing to ask questions or share information with colleagues. According to the study's co-author, Olivia Bullock, jargon does more than create confusion. It makes people feel not just uninformed but inadequate.
The fix: When using a technical term, do the following: Ask yourself the question: Can the person I am writing for understand this without context? If the answer is no, define it, replace it, or cut it. Use a sentence simplifier to rephrase overly technical language into plain English.
8. Weak or Missing Openings
Your opening sentence is the only sentence guaranteed to be read. Without grabbing a reader's attention right from the start, anything else doesn't matter!
Common weak openings are like the following:
- "In today's world, writing is very important."
- "This article will discuss the topic of professional communication."
- "There are many reasons why writing matters."
These sentences do not pull the reader in. They waste the reader's attention.
The fix: Begin with something surprising, specific, or provocative. A compelling statement, a bold claim, a brief narrative, or a direct question. The first sentence should get the reader's attention so the reader feels they would be missing out and should read on. Use a hook generator to craft compelling opening lines that pull readers in right away.
9. Repeating Yourself Without Adding Value
Repetition in writing can be intentional, for emphasis, to help the rhythm. Most of the time, writers find that they have to repeat themselves because they are not hard enough on themselves in cutting.
Unnecessary repetition pads your word count, dilutes your message, and signals to the reader that you are not fully in control of your material. It is one of the most common reasons professional writing feels weak, even when the underlying ideas are solid.
The fix: Once you have written your first draft, search for and highlight all the sentences that repeat information. If it doesn't give any new information, cut it. A good paraphrasing tool can also help you rephrase repeated ideas into fresher language that feels deliberate rather than redundant.
10. Inconsistent Tone
If your writing sounds formal in one paragraph and casual in the next, readers notice, even if they cannot explain why. Inconsistent tone makes your writing feel disjointed and unpolished, as if it was stitched together from different sources instead of written in one clear voice.
It can be particularly common on professional emails, reports, or websites that are composed at different times or by various individuals.
The fix: Before you write, determine a tone, then stick to it. Do you speak formally or informally? Direct or explanatory? Technical or accessible? Write that down. Now read your completed draft out loud, using that tone as a lens. Flag anything that does not fit and edit it until it matches.
11. Padding Your Writing With Filler Phrases
Filler phrases are phrases that add no meaning but only take up space. Some of the most common offenders:
- "It is important to note that..."
- "At the end of the day..."
- "As mentioned previously..."
- "In order to..."
- "Due to the fact that..."
These phrases sound like writing, but they are simply delaying. They do not deliver a clear and concentrated message and do not hold your reader's interest.
The fix: Do a search-and-destroy edit of any filler phrases. "In order to" is replaced with the word "to." The words 'due to the fact that' are replaced by 'because.' If you see the phrase "It is important to note that," just delete it and make the statement direct. Every word should earn its place.
12. Not Knowing Your Audience
What's right for a professor is not necessarily right for a social media audience. What sells in the industry will not appeal to the general reader. The most frequent and some of the most harmful writing errors are not adjusting language, tone, and depth to fit the real-world identity of the reader.
It's not about making it easy for them. It's all about having the right person in mind when you write.
The fix: A solution to this is to write only if you answer two questions before you start writing: "Who is reading this?" and "What do they already know?" Use those answers to inform all of your vocabulary, examples, and level of detail. When in doubt, go simpler. It's better to be clear to everyone than sophisticated to a few.
13. Writing a Weak Bio or Self-Introduction
Your bio, whether it's the LinkedIn bio or a conference page or freelance profile or even a company website, is one of the most precious pieces of writing that a lot of people create. And most people write it badly.
Common bio mistakes include writing in the third person when first person is more natural for the platform, leading with a generic job title instead of what makes you distinctly valuable, or writing something so formal it reads like a legal document rather than a human introduction.
The fix: Your bio should give readers a sense of who you are, what you do, and why it's important to them. Keep it specific, not generic. Get rid of the dated phrase "experienced marketing professional" and replace it with "I've worked with 40+ B2B startups to create their first marketing content strategy from scratch." Get a professional and high-quality bio with an AI bio generator that actually represents you well.
14. Overusing Adverbs
Often, an adverb, particularly those that end in "-ly," can indicate that the verb carrying the action isn't powerful enough. If you are writing "ran quickly," what you mean to say is "sprinted." If you put in "angrily," you likely should add the word "snapped" or "growled."
An overload of adverbs is one of the clearest signs of amateur writing. As Stephen King said in his book On Writing, a stronger verb will nearly always do the job better. He is right.
The fix: Every time you use an adverb, ask whether a stronger verb could do the same job better. Use the word 'trudged' instead of 'walked slowly.' Use the word "murmured" in place of "spoke quietly." Stronger verbs provide sharper images and more concisely convey meaning.
15. Ignoring Paragraph Length and White Space
Nothing signals hard-to-read content faster than a wall of text. Online especially, dense blocks of text get abandoned before they are read.
Nielsen Norman Group research found that 79% of web users scan pages rather than read them word for word. Another NNG study showed that pages written concisely scored 58% higher in measured usability than pages written in a dense, promotional style. That is the direct, measurable cost of ignoring visual structure in your writing.
The fix: Keep online paragraphs short, typically two to four sentences. Break up text with headers, many bullets, and space to give the reader visual "breathing room" and to scan the content. Think of white space not as emptiness, but as a deliberate design choice that makes your writing more approachable.
16. Skipping the Edit
The first draft is not the final draft. For anyone. Ever.
Writers who submit or publish their first draft usually write a wordier, less clear, and less polished draft than it could be. The edit is where good writing becomes great. It's where you're going to find the repetition, the buried points, the weak openings, and the filler words that slip through the first pass.
William Zinsser opened his classic guide On Writing Well with a line that has stuck with writers for decades: "Clutter is the disease of American writing." He argued that too much writing hides behind extra words, awkward constructions, and jargon instead of simply saying what it means.
The fix: Do not edit without having a first draft completed. Avoid applying any polishing as you go. Refresh your mind with a fresh perspective on it, preferably after a break. Read it aloud. Cut anything that does not serve the reader. A paraphrasing tool can help you find cleaner, tighter ways to say the same thing when you are stuck on a sentence that is not quite landing.
The Bottom Line
Writing mistakes are rarely about intelligence. They come down to habits: patterns repeated for so long that nobody notices them any more, or nobody was ever shown a better way.
All of the 16 points listed above are fixable! But fixing them requires the same thing good writing always requires: awareness, deliberate practice, and a willingness to edit.
Good writing is not about sounding impressive. It is a matter of clarity, credibility, and respecting the reader's time. When you get that right, people notice, even when they cannot explain exactly why.
Start with one or two mistakes from this list. Apply the fix to something you have already written. Return later to fix the other problems.
And if you want to speed up the process, TotBot's suite of AI writing tools, including a paraphrasing tool, sentence simplifier, sentence shortener, hook generator, and AI bio generator, can help you catch and fix these issues in seconds, not hours.