Bad writing (Mashable's 15 words you should eliminate from your writing and my own bug-bears)

I don't see too many of Mashable's choices and there are always reasons for using words (for specific effects after consideration of the audience, purposes and form) but it is useful to reflect on your writing habits by looking at whether you use these or what else you might be doing out of habit that it would be wise to adjust.

You might want to consider these no-nos that I often see (my personal writing bugbears):

• a lot (and, worse, alot) - there are so many alternatives out there that sound more impressive or precise so use only if you are creating a specifically informal register
• using tautology (saying the same thing twice) - one of those uses is redundant unless you want to break the rules for emphasis. This can happen easily e.g. I think it is maybe... (both "I think" and "maybe" introduce tentativity)
• run on sentences - many students, even at A2, seem to think you can blur sentence boundaries by just using a comma (look up comma splicing - there is help on grammar sites like Grammar Bytes) or even continuing into the next sentence with no punctuation. Nearly as bad is lack of clarity by using conjunctions to join too many ideas together
• long paragraphs - lack of planning leads to lack of focus and long, impenetrable paragraphs which give readers/markers headaches; change paragraph every time you change time, place, topic or speaker (TiPTopS). Good PEE for those As and Bs should be well-structured so PLAN!
• no throughline - paragraphs should be linked by discourse markers at the start of each new paragraph; they show how ideas flow one from another, link, or contrast - what does the reader need to know to help them follow what you are saying and prove to them that you've carefully planned how to present your ideas?
• thesaurusitis - using a low-frequency word to look clever is only effective if it means precisely what you think it means and adds clarity: I've read essays and media texts that were incomprehensible because words from the thesaurus had been used as if they were interchangable. Read widely to get a better vocabulary - don't rely on a thesaurus if you are not sure of the shades of meaning created by different word choices
• homophone errors - if you get words from the following circled in your work, make sure you know the rules and check for accuracy until you are sure you are consistently getting them right: to/two/too, their/there/they're, weather/whether, practice/practise, affect/effect, who's/whose
• missing/superfluous apostrophes - even A-grade students sometimes don't have the rules quite right or don't check their work properly and it's important. Missing possessive apostrophes are the most common (or apostophes in the wrong place in plural possessives e.g. it should be "all the neighbours' houses" - since the noun "neighbours" is a plural, the apostrophe comes after the s). I also see superfluous apostrophes added mistakenly into plurals and added after decades/centuries or initialisms: 1980s, DVDs, apples are correct, 1980's, DVD's, apple's are incorrect.

I'll stop there, or thinking about these might make my head explode!