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A while back, a client of mine complained that the copy I wrote had too many dangling prepositions, which is a fancy way of saying I had ended sentences with prepositions — something all of our fifth grade language arts teachers told us not to do.

And I admit it: Like feet into eel-infested waters, I dangled those prepositions. I did it because I was writing in a style that would put the reader at ease — in a way that’s informative and conversational at the same time. It’s a style you’re all familiar with, because it’s the style almost every capable writer on the Internet embraces. And if we all put listening to our fifth grade language arts teachers above creating cogent, readable copy, this blog — and many like it — would look a heck of a lot different. And it’d be a heck of a lot less fun to read. So when it comes to dangling prepositions, I don’t understand what all the fuss is about.

(See what I just did there?)

But alas: There are many writers on the Internet who never seemed to learn any of the most basic spelling and grammar rules — the ones that make their writing look cheap and amateurish. I’m frequently called upon to clean up copy on Web sites written by business owners who know more about pharmaceutical compounding or mold remediation than writing, and I’ve seen some real doozies, penned by people who think that if they avoid using contractions, we’ll all forget the ten run-on sentences they just wrote. But the mistakes don’t stop there — plenty of bloggers and copywriters make the same mistakes, over and over. Here are four of the more glaring mistakes I’ve seen repeated:

Spelling definitely with an A. For reasons I can’t understand, this one seems specific to the Internet; I’m sure some enterprising student could write a Master’s thesis in communications on how the Internet has affected the way we write, and the answer would be contained therein; for now, it’s easiest for copywriters to remember that the word definitely is not spelled defanitely or definately. Leave the letter A at the beginning of the alphabet, where it belongs, and remember that the word definitely contains the word finite.

Using an apostrophe to form plurals. The plural of house is houses. The plural of movie is movies. The plural of dangling preposition is dangling prepositions. And so it goes.

Really, the only time you’ll use an apostrophe in a plural is when that plural is also a possessive, and with possessives you’ll be using the apostrophe anyway. For instance: The sentence A surgeon’s hands are his most precious tools would turn into Surgeons’ hands are their most precious tools when pluralized. Unless there’s ownership going on, leave the apostrophe next to the semicolon key where it belongs.

Using passive voice. This is a little tricky, because a lot of people think the phrase “passive voice” describes the general tone of a piece of writing, when it actually refers to a very specific syntactic situation. Passive voice does NOT simply describe a piece of writing that doesn’t jump off the page, or that doesn’t make you want to buy the product or service it’s advertising — though if you use passive voice too much, these things may very well happen to your writing. I’ll explain.

Passive voice is the opposite of active voice — and active voice is something you want plenty of in your writing. A sentence uses active voice when its subject is doing the action:

Kevin wrote this blog post.

In that sentence, Kevin is the subject, and he’s performing the action of writing. In that sentence, I’ve used active voice. Try to avoid burying nouns that perform action in prepositional phrases at the ends of sentences, like:

This blog post was written by Kevin.

In that sentence, I’ve used the passive voice to demonstrate how much less direct and bold it is than the active voice. Passive voice has its uses, to be sure, but when you’re writing copy that’s meant to be assertive and confident, active voice is the right tool for the job.

Not paying heed to the classics. When I was teaching freshman comp, my students used to make fun of me for carrying a copy of Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style in my bag at all times. In response, I made fun of them for listening to stupid music and having silly emo hairstyles. But I found that the students who bought Strunk and White’s invaluable little book always wrote better essays.

The Elements of Style is, without exaggeration, the best writing resource I have ever used. Its writers (one of whom wrote Charlotte’s Web) address nearly every issue of grammar, style and usage you might come across as a writer. I don’t think I’ve ever had a question about writing that wasn’t answered by William Strunk and E.B. White. At less than ten bucks just about anywhere you buy it, it’s an absolute steal.

So remember these tips, and read sites like Copyblogger, which feature all sorts of valuable information about good grammar and usage. Someday it may even save you a heated discussion with a client.

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