Practice materials to improve your writing

This is a collection of web-based materials to help you improve your writing. Your teachers' feedback may have identified any of the following types of errors in your paper. Click through to explanations and links to exercises.

  1. Article

  2. Marker/Connective

  3. Unclear

  4. Not the best choice - improve

  5. Paragraph structure

  6. Phrase construction

  7. Preposition

  8. Punctuation

  9. Reference

  10. Relative pronoun

  11. Repetition

  12. Comma splice

  13. Incomplete sentence

  14. Run-on sentence

  15. Sentence too long

  16. Number of noun

  17. Spelling

  18. Verb tense

  19. Verb form

  20. Vocabulary mistake

  21. Word form

  22. Word order

  23. Missing word(s)

  24. Use of source materials

Keep a record of work done in your independent learning guide. What did you do? What did you learn in the exercise? What was useful or not so good? This information will also help us improve the collection.


The categories above were originally conceived by Carolyn Walker, ELC University of Exeter. This summer, Sue Nuttall, Patrick Jehu and Norbert Berger modified the original set to contain the 24 categories above. The link lists, the button set for Markin Software and the web-materials were conceived and programmed by Norbert Berger.


If you find more useful exercises for any type of error, please let us know and we will add the links. Visit www.ngberger.com for other materials that may help you on your pre-sessional course or other studies in academic or business English.

Please send your comments to Norbert G. Berger. This document was updated 03/08/2003.

Error Typology - © English Language Centre, University of Exeter, UK. 2003.

For use within educational institutions as part of IT-assisted teaching provision only. If used outside the Universities of Exeter (UK) and Graz (Austria), acknowledgement must be made to the English Language Centre, University of Exeter. Not to be reproduced in a different medium or modified without permission.