Analyzing Common Writing Errors Among College Students Enrolled in the Education Block of Aldersgate College

Proficiency in writing is a fundamental skill for academic success and effective professional communication, and proper capitalization and punctuation are essential to maintaining text clarity, coherence, and precision. However, many students struggle with applying these language conventions in formal compositions. This qualitative study analyzed a corpus of 90 student essays across three genres, argumentative (30), narrative (30), and persuasive (30), written by undergraduate students at Great Books to identify common writing errors, understand their underlying causes, and propose pedagogical strategies. Using systematic coding, frequency and pattern analysis, qualitative extraction, and statistical testing (chi-square), the study identified 615 errors across all genres, with punctuation errors (such as comma misuse at 38.7%) more prevalent than capitalization errors (27.5%). Distinct error patterns emerged by genre: argumentative essays exhibited frequent comma (45%) and semicolon (20%) errors due to complex sentence structures; narrative essays contained high capitalization errors (50%), particularly with proper nouns introduced during story building; and persuasive essays showed significant misuse of quotation marks (25%) due to direct citation integration. Surveys and qualitative insights revealed that primary causes include limited explicit instruction, influence from informal digital communication, and language transfer challenges. To address these difficulties, the study recommends incorporating explicit mini-lessons into writing curricula, implementing structured peer review and immediate feedback, and integrating technology tools like grammar-checking software to cultivate writing precision.