Processes and Guidelines in Technical Writing

1. Common Spelling Mistakes Homonyms accept, except advice, advise affect, effect cite, site, sight complement, compliment counsel, council, consul its, it's lose, loose personal, personnel principal, principle stationary, stationery than, then their, there, they're to, too, two whose, who's your, you're

Doubled internal consonants Internal syllables or letters Many words have short, practically unpronounced internal syllables that are easily omitted or misspelled: for example, athletics, category, disastrous, optimistic, privilege, and desperate. Perhaps the only way to learn these is to repeat them several times, emphasizing the internal syllable: for example, ben-EH-fi-cial, bound-AH-ries, cat-EH-go-ry. Words with endings such as -ance and -able Another source of spelling difficulties is words with similar-sounding endings: extravagant, occurrence, compatible, irresistible, and performance. Words ending in -sede, -ceed, and -cede Still another group of confusingly spelled words is that group ending in -sede, - ceed, and -cede: for example, precede, proceed, exceed, supersede. Again, the best thing to do is memorize them or look them up. The groups of words discussed above are by no means all of the possibilities. You may have trouble with words ending in -or and -er or those ending in -ary, -ery, and -ory. Make your own lists of such word groups that give you problems in spelling.

The silent -e rule When words end in a silent -e (for example, write), you drop the -e when adding a suffix (write + ing = writing). The rule for -ie and -ei Use i before e except after c in words in which the sound is a long e (as in "feet") in words such as piece, receive, and fiend. There are exceptions to this rule: leisure, either, weird, and seize. Doubling consonants When you add a suffix to a word ending in a consonant, make sure you know whether to double the final consonant: drag becomes dragged, but equip becomes equipment. Words ending in -y enjoy becomes enjoys, but try becomes tries.