Editing Checklist for Speakers of Urdu, Hindi, and other South Asian Languages
* = an incorrect sentence
1. Be sure to capitalize first words of sentences and proper nouns.
2. Be careful of your article use (a, an, the)
3. Your native language doesn’t use do. Be sure to use do in questions and negatives.
Have may also be left out of sentences where it is required in English.
4. The system used to talk about the past is quite different in your language and English.
Be sure to edit your use of the past continuous (I was taking a bath when the phone rang)
the present perfect (We have lived in Youngstown three years) and the past perfect (They
had lived in the house three years before the baby was born).
* They were wanting to go to the UK.
They wanted to go to the UK.
* They had gone home this year.
They went home this year.
*He cooked dinner just now.
He has just cooked dinner.
5. Similarly, the present continuous tense is organized very differently.
Don’t use non-action verbs in the present continuous:
* We are not understanding what you mean.
We don’t understand what you mean,
Don’t use the present continuous to talk about how long something has been
going on.
* She is studying English since six years.
She has studied English for six years.
6. Modal verbs are totally different in the two languages. Check your use and
understanding of can, could, will, would, must, had to, etc.
7. The infinitive of purpose (to + verb) is sometimes a problem.
*He went to college for improving his English.
He went to college to improve his English.
8. Don’t forget to add s to plurals.
two sisters
9. Be careful of comparative adjectives
pretty
prettier
prettiest
good
better
best
10. In general, you may prefer not to use subordination in your writing (relative clauses,
reported speech and so on). English academic writing is full of such structures, so be sure
you develop a good understanding of them.
*Which people lived there, they were all very rich.
The people who lived there were all very rich.
*All that he was doing, that we liked very much.
We very much liked all that he did.
*He asked that if we are doing this.
He asked if we did that./He asked if we had done that.