Adviser or advisor? 30 spellings students get wrong

The pairs where one is simply wrong

These have a rule. Learn the rule once and the pair stops being a decision.

• Affect / effect — affect is usually the verb (it affects the result), effect usually the noun (the effect was small). 'Effect' as a verb means to bring about: to effect change.
• Principle / principal — a principle is a rule or belief; principal means main, or the head of an institution. The principal principle is that principals are people.
• Complement / compliment — complement completes something; compliment is praise.
• Discreet / discrete — discreet means tactful; discrete means separate and distinct. Statistics uses discrete.
• Elicit / illicit — elicit is to draw out; illicit means unlawful.
• Cite / site / sight — cite a source, visit a site, lose your sight.
• Its / it's — it's is only ever 'it is' or 'it has'. The possessive has no apostrophe.
• Their / there / they're — possessive, place, and 'they are'.
• Whose / who's — who's is 'who is' or 'who has'.
• Lose / loose — lose a mark, loose a knot.
• Than / then — comparison, and time.
• Led / lead — the past tense of 'lead' is 'led'. 'Lead' as a past tense is the metal.

The pairs that depend on where you are

Both spellings are correct; which one is correct for you depends on your country and, sometimes, your part of speech.

• Practice / practise — in UK, Australian and NZ English, 'practice' is the noun and 'practise' the verb: you practise in a practice. In US and Canadian English, 'practice' does both.
• Licence / license — same rule. UK noun 'licence', verb 'license'. US uses 'license' for both.
• Adviser / advisor — both correct everywhere. 'Adviser' is more traditional in UK usage; 'advisor' is standard in US usage and in formal titles.
• Enquiry / inquiry — UK usage often reserves 'inquiry' for formal investigations and 'enquiry' for general questions. US usage prefers 'inquiry' throughout.
• Judgement / judgment — UK general usage takes the 'e'; UK legal writing drops it. US drops it always.
• Programme / program — UK uses 'programme' except for computer programs. US and Australian usage prefer 'program' throughout.
• Ageing / aging — UK keeps the 'e'; US drops it. Both are common in Australian usage.

The -ise / -ize question

Contrary to what most students believe, '-ize' is not American. It is the preferred form of Oxford University Press and appears throughout British academic publishing. '-ise' is the more common British convention generally and is required by most UK universities.

Australian and New Zealand English use '-ise'. Canadian English is split and leans '-ize'.

What matters more than the choice: never mix them. 'Organise' and 'analyze' in the same paragraph reads as carelessness in any variety of English.

Words that are not the word you want

• Comprise — the whole comprises the parts. 'Is comprised of' is disputed; 'consists of' or 'comprises' avoids the argument.
• Infer / imply — a writer implies; a reader infers.
• Less / fewer — fewer for things you can count, less for quantities you cannot. Fewer participants, less variance.
• Amount / number — number of participants, amount of data.
• Data — plural in strict academic usage ('the data show'), increasingly singular in general usage. Follow your discipline; sciences usually keep it plural.
• Between / among — between two, among more than two.
• e.g. / i.e. — e.g. is 'for example', i.e. is 'that is'. They are not interchangeable and markers notice.
• Etc. — avoid it in academic writing. It usually means the list was not thought through.
• Utilise — almost always just means 'use'. Longer is not more academic.
• Impact as a verb — widely disliked in academic writing. 'Affects' is safer.
• Alternate / alternative — alternate means every other one; alternative means a different option.

Set your checker to the right country

The most common locale error we see is a UK student writing 'analyze' because their word processor defaults to US English, or an Australian student submitting 'color' in a nursing assignment.

Set your document language explicitly. Our writing checker has a UK / US / AU switch for exactly this, and it flags the mismatches automatically — it runs in your browser, so nothing is uploaded.