Writing Pet Peeves
1. Failure to capitalize the word “West.” The West is a specific place just like Europe or
North America. As such it is a proper noun and its forms (e.g. Western), take a capital
W. When used in the sense of a direction use a lower case w.
2. Failure to capitalize the word “Earth” when referring to the planet. It too is a place.
When used in the sense of “dirt”, use the lower case e.
3. Improper use of i.e., e.g. and et al. i.e. is Latin for id est and means “that is”. e.g. is
Latin for exempli gratis and means “for example”. Do not confuse them. et al. is Latin
for et alii and means and others. since al. is an abbreviation it takes a period
4. Underling anything. Underlining comes from the age of typewriters when italicizing was
either unavailable or inconvenient. Italicize for emphasis. Do not italicize book or
journal titles.
5. Using the first person. Academic writing should be objective not subjective. The
objective person is the third person. In most cases, but not all, it is better to write in the
third person (one) rather than the first person (I) or second person (we, you). Use of the
first person should generally be reserved for referring to personal research.
6. Confusing “their” and “there”. The word ‘their’ is the plural possessive. The word
“there” means in that place. Do not confuse them.
7. Confusing “than” and “then”. “Than” is a comparative conjunction, used in the sense
of: “Tom is taller than Tyler”. “Then” is usually used as an adverb and generally means
at a particular time, as in “We walked to the store and then we walked home”.
8. Using possessive date ranges. When referring to the years in a particular decade, such as
the 1960s, one refers to a plurality of years. Thus, the proper form is a plural form
(1960s), not a possessive form (1960’s) i.e. no apostrophe. And not an abbreviated form
(‘60s).
9. Over use of the word “moreover”, “furthermore”, “additionally” and words of similar ilk
— and especially at the beginning of a sentence. Use such words sparingly. “Further” or
“in addition” are preferable.
10. Using “firstly” and “secondly”. Although not incorrect “first” and “second” are
preferable. Do not mix the two forms.
11. Using the word “amongst”. The word ‘amongst” is archaic, use “among”.
12. Improper use of embedded quotes. The proper form in social science writing is: open
bracket, author, year, colon, page, close bracket, e.g. (Smith 2007:57). Occasionally a
space is inserted after the colon. This is acceptable so long as it is consistent.
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13. Vagueness when referring to people; e.g. “Some scientists [anthropologists, historians,
people] argue [or believe] that the world is flat”. Who are these scientists? I want to
know. Be specific and name them and provide a reference.
14. Using contractions such as "don't", "can't" and "won't". Write the full words.
15. Use of colloquial vocabulary. Colloquial vocabulary includes words and expressions
used in everyday spoken language. They are inexact and informal. For example, instead
of “we must face the fact that” use “the fact is”.
16. Use of figures of speech, clichés and idioms. Instead of “in recent years” use “recently”;
instead of “a stumbling block”, use “a point of contention”; instead of “above board” use
“legitimate”, etc.
17. Using rhetorical questions. Rhetorical questions are questions for which an answer is not
expected. It is assumed the reader either knows the answer, or the answer is
subsequently provided. Rhetorical questions risk misunderstanding. The reader might
not know the answer, or might have a different answer than expected. The point can
usually be made more strongly and clearly when expressed as a statement. For example,
instead of “how absolute is this seemingly unbridgeable chasm between gift and
commodity exchange?”, use “the chasm between gift and commodity exchange seems
unbridgeable”.
18. Using the word “interesting”, as in “another interesting aspect of ….” While it may be
interesting to you it may not be interesting to your reader. If you think it is interesting
make it so through your writing.
19. Being wordy. Being wordy means your sentence or paragraph conveys too little
information with too many words. For instance replace “In the book by Geertz (1997)
there is a statement that says…” with “Geertz (1997) states…”
20. Providing titles of articles and books referred to in the body of the essay. This is a
particular instance of being wordy. Use the author-date form as in pet peeve number 19
and provide the titles in the references at the end.
21. Praising or condemning authors. To praise or condemn an author is personal opinion,
usually unsupportable, and almost always irrelevant to your argument. This does not
mean you can not agree or disagree with them just don’t say how great their book is.
22. Page-length paragraphs. Break long paragraphs into two or more.
23. Using Wikipedia as reference. Wikipedia is constantly changing, is not peer reviewed, is
written by numerous unknown authors with unknown credentials and unknown motives.
It is great for gaining an understanding of the issues and basic information on a topic and
can lead to more in-depth scholarly articles, but do not quote it or use it as a reference.
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