Why Malaysian Students Have Specific Grammar Patterns
Teaching academic writing in Malaysia requires understanding something that gets overlooked in a lot of general grammar guides: many of the errors Malaysian students make aren’t random. They follow predictable patterns that are directly traceable to how Bahasa Malaysia and Malaysian English differ from standard written academic English.
This matters because if you know why an error occurs, you can fix it more reliably than if you just know that it’s wrong. A student who understands that Bahasa Malaysia doesn’t inflect verbs for tense the way English does will be better equipped to catch tense errors in their own writing than a student who has simply been told “check your tenses.” Similarly, a student who understands that article use is genuinely one of the most complex aspects of English grammar — and that it simply doesn’t exist in Malay — will be more patient with themselves while learning to use “the”, “a”, and “an” correctly.
The errors below are the ones that appear most consistently in Malaysian postgraduate academic writing. Each one includes an explanation of why it happens and a practical approach to fixing it.
Error 1: Tense Inconsistency
Tense management in academic writing is complex because different sections of a thesis use different tenses for legitimate reasons. The literature review typically uses past tense when describing what previous researchers found (Smith (2019) found that…) and present tense when referring to established knowledge or a work’s content (The theory suggests that…). The methodology uses past tense (Data was collected through…). Findings are presented in past tense (The results showed…). The discussion uses present tense for interpretation (This suggests that…) and past tense for referring to specific results (The highest score was recorded…).
Malaysian students often shift tense inconsistently within a single paragraph, mixing past and present without a logical reason. This typically happens because Bahasa Malaysia doesn’t mark verbs for tense the way English does — tense is conveyed through time markers and context rather than verb inflection. Moving between the two systems requires deliberate attention in a way that native English speakers don’t have to think about consciously.
The fix: before proofreading for tense, decide which tense each section of your thesis should use, write it down, and then read each section specifically for tense consistency. Don’t try to catch tense errors in the same pass as other errors — give it a dedicated read.
Error 2: Article Errors (The, A, An)
Article errors are among the most common in Malaysian academic writing and among the hardest to eliminate, because the rules governing English articles are genuinely complicated — and because Bahasa Malaysia has no article system at all. There’s no direct translation for “the” or “a” in Malay; definiteness and indefiniteness are inferred from context.
The basic rules: use “a” or “an” for singular, countable nouns being mentioned for the first time or when the specific identity doesn’t matter. Use “the” when referring to a specific noun that both writer and reader can identify — either because it’s been mentioned before, or because it’s unique, or because it’s contextually obvious. Use no article (zero article) with plural nouns used generally, uncountable nouns used generally, and proper nouns.
In practice: “A study was conducted in three schools” (first mention, not specific). “The study examined reading comprehension” (the study just mentioned). “The Ministry of Education Malaysia” (proper noun with “the” because it’s a unique institution). “Academic writing requires practice” (uncountable noun used generally — no article).
Article rules in English have significant exceptions and edge cases, and mastering them takes time. The practical approach for proofreading: read each sentence that contains a noun and ask “does the reader know which specific one I mean?” If yes, use “the”. If not, use “a/an” for singular countable or zero article for plural/uncountable. If you’re still uncertain, look at how the same noun is used in published academic articles in your field — the pattern will usually become clear.
Error 3: Subject-Verb Agreement Errors
Subject-verb agreement errors occur when the verb doesn’t match the grammatical number of the subject. In English, singular subjects take singular verbs (The result shows) and plural subjects take plural verbs (The results show). This is relatively simple in straightforward sentences, but becomes error-prone in longer constructions where the subject and verb are separated by intervening clauses.
The most common pattern in Malaysian academic writing: “The level of responses from the participants were…” — the writer has been distracted by “participants” (plural) and used a plural verb, when the actual subject is “level” (singular). The correct form is “The level of responses from the participants was…”
Other problematic constructions include collective nouns (a group of students was / were — depends on whether you’re treating the group as a unit or as individuals; in academic writing, “was” is usually correct for collective nouns), and compound subjects joined by “or” or “nor” (the verb agrees with the closer subject: “Neither the supervisor nor the students were…” but “Neither the students nor the supervisor was…”).
The fix: when proofreading for subject-verb agreement, identify the grammatical subject of each sentence — not the nearest noun to the verb, but the actual syntactic subject. Then check whether the verb matches it. This is especially important for sentences that begin with long noun phrases.
Error 4: Preposition Errors
English prepositions are notoriously difficult for non-native speakers because their use is largely idiomatic — there are rules, but there are also enormous numbers of exceptions and fixed phrases that simply have to be learned. Malaysian students often use prepositions that are logical by analogy but wrong in standard English: “discuss about” instead of “discuss”, “cope up with” instead of “cope with”, “based from” instead of “based on”, “emphasis on” is correct but “focus on” not “focus to”.
Common preposition errors in Malaysian academic writing include: “discussed about” (should be “discussed”), “contribute to” not “contribute in”, “differ from” not “differ with” (for comparing things that are different), “independent from” is less common in academic writing than “independent of”, and “related to” not “related with”.
The most reliable fix for preposition errors is exposure to academic writing in your field — reading published journal articles trains your ear for which prepositions appear with which verbs and nouns. For specific items you’re uncertain about, search for the phrase in Google Scholar with quotation marks and see which version appears more frequently in published academic sources. This is an imperfect but practical real-time check.
Error 5: Run-On Sentences and Comma Splices
Run-on sentences occur when two or more independent clauses are joined without appropriate punctuation or a conjunction. Comma splices are a specific type of run-on where a comma is used to join independent clauses that should be separated by a full stop, a semicolon, or a conjunction.
Example of a comma splice: “The data was collected over three months, the analysis was completed in the following semester.” Two independent clauses joined by a comma alone — this is incorrect. Correct options: “The data was collected over three months. The analysis was completed in the following semester.” Or: “The data was collected over three months; the analysis was completed in the following semester.” Or: “The data was collected over three months, and the analysis was completed in the following semester.”
This error is common in Malaysian academic writing because Malaysian English, particularly in spoken registers, uses comma-linked clauses freely. Moving between spoken patterns and formal written conventions requires active attention. The fix: during proofreading, identify every comma in your text and ask “could this comma be replaced with a full stop?” If yes, either replace it with a full stop or add a coordinating conjunction (and, but, or, so, yet, for, nor) after the comma.
Error 6: Passive Voice Overuse
Passive voice is appropriate and often preferred in academic writing — particularly in methodology sections where the researcher’s identity is deliberately backgrounded (“Data was collected through structured interviews” rather than “I collected data through structured interviews”). The problem occurs when passive voice is used uniformly throughout the thesis, including in sections where active voice would produce clearer, more direct sentences.
Over-reliance on passive voice in Malaysian academic writing often stems from a belief that passive voice sounds more formal and academic. This is a partial truth. Passive voice is appropriate when the action is more important than the actor, when the actor is unknown, or when the field convention strongly favours it. It becomes problematic when it makes the writing evasive, unclear, or unnecessarily roundabout.
“The finding was considered to be significant by the researcher” (passive, wordy) is weaker than “This finding is significant for two reasons” (active, direct). “It was concluded by the author that…” can simply be “This study concludes that…”
The fix: aim for a mix. Use passive voice in your methodology and in descriptions of procedures. Use active voice in your discussion and conclusion when you’re making claims and interpretations. “The results suggest…” is active and entirely appropriate in academic writing.
Error 7: Sentence Fragments
A sentence fragment is a group of words that is punctuated as a sentence but lacks a subject, a verb, or a complete thought. Fragments are common in Malaysian academic writing, often appearing as elaborations that have been separated from the sentence they belong to.
Example: “This study uses a mixed methods approach. Combining both quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews.” The second sentence is a fragment — “Combining both quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews” is not an independent clause. It should be attached to the first sentence: “This study uses a mixed methods approach, combining both quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews.”
Fragments often begin with participial phrases (words ending in -ing or -ed), relative clauses (which, that, who), or subordinating conjunctions (because, although, since). These constructions are not sentences on their own — they need to be attached to an independent clause.
The fix: read each sentence and check that it has a subject and a finite verb. If you find a fragment, attach it to the adjacent sentence or rewrite it as a complete clause.
How to Systematically Catch These Errors in Your Own Writing
Knowing what errors to look for is only half the challenge. The other half is actually finding them in your own writing, which is significantly harder because of the familiarity problem — when you’ve written something, your brain reads what you intended rather than what you wrote.
The most effective approach is to proofread specifically for each error type in a separate pass. Don’t try to catch tense errors, article errors, subject-verb agreement errors, and run-on sentences all at once. Read the thesis once specifically for tense. Read it again specifically for articles. A third time for sentence-level grammar. This targeted approach takes longer but catches significantly more than trying to catch everything simultaneously.
Text-to-speech tools are particularly helpful for catching errors that are hard to see but easy to hear — fragment sentences, run-ons, and awkward constructions often become immediately obvious when the text is read aloud by software, because the unnatural cadence is audible even when it’s invisible on the page.
For persistent issues — particularly article errors and preposition errors, which are genuinely difficult to self-correct — an external proofreader who is a proficient academic English writer is often the most reliable solution. A good proofreader won’t just fix errors but can also indicate which types of errors recur most in your writing, which gives you a targeted learning focus for the future.
