The following 20 tips will correct 80% of your mistakes.

Lessons 1–7: building a solid foundation in grammar, punctuation and formatting.

1 Double negatives

2 Sexism

3 Long sentences

4 Avoid “It”

5 Avoid “This”, “These”, “Those” and “They”

6 Mastering the apostrophe

7 Numbers or spel the number

Lessons 8–20: developing the style and readability that distinguish good theses from excellent ones.

8 Verbs near begining of sentences

9 Avoid redundant words

10 Awkward phrases

11 Meaningless words

12 Long phrases

13 Prefer shorter words

14 Prefer strong verbs

15 Shorten long “of” phrases

16 Correct preposition

17 Prefer active voice

18 Use correct plural form

19 Commonly confused words

20 Exploit parallel structures