Spelling
Spelling tests both memory and rules. Learn the patterns, but also learn the exceptions and the words that appear often in writing tasks.
Core rules
i before e except after c, when the sound is long e: receive, ceiling. Exceptions include weird, seize, and either. Drop a final silent e before a suffix beginning with a vowel: make → making, hope → hoping; keep it before a consonant: hopeful. Change y to i after a consonant when adding a suffix: carry → carried, happy → happiness; keep y after a vowel (played) and before ing (carrying). Double the final consonant when a one-syllable word ends in consonant-vowel-consonant: stop → stopped, run → running. Do not double when the stress is not on the last syllable: visit → visited.
Plurals
Add s normally; add es after s, x, z, ch, sh (boxes, churches); change consonant plus y to ies (city → cities); some words change f to ves (leaf → leaves); irregulars include child → children, tooth → teeth, mouse → mice.
Commonly confused and misspelled words
their/there/they're; to/too/two; quiet/quite; loose/lose; desert/dessert; practise (verb) and practice (noun); necessary, separate, definitely, government, February, received, because, friend, believe.
Worked example
Which spelling is correct: 'beginning' or 'begining'? Reasoning: Begin ends in consonant-vowel-consonant and the stress falls on the last syllable, so the final n doubles before ing. The correct form is beginning.
Traps
Writing how a word sounds rather than how it is spelled; dropping the e before a consonant suffix; doubling consonants when the stress is earlier; and mixing British and American spellings in one piece of writing.