Here are a few points of grammar and usage that I've run into in the last few days: there is an infinity to choose from.
1 Indirection. I am always trying to prevent it, and the Times story made that quite clear.
2 The restrictive and non-restrictive clauses are the second point I am always working on, and they are very easy to cope with: take the comma out if the clause is restrictive; put the comma in if it's non-restrictive. "She was looking for three strong young men who had carried packages for her yesterday" (obviously restrictive -- the same young men), and "She was looking for three strong young men, who could carry packages for her" (non-restrictive -- just any such men).
3 On the subject of "who" and "whom," some of my younger colleagues have trouble deciding which is correct -- "It is he whom I want to see" or "It is he I want to see." For some reason, people don't like to use "whom," and they often don't know that they can often avoid it by saying "who it is" instead, as in avoiding "I'll find whom you're looking for" by saying "I'll find who it is you're looking for."
4 I try to avoid improper sequence: "They headed for the street, where they found the house three doors down," needs "and there" instead of "where."
5 I also try to avoid repeating constructions within a sentence, like "It was in a town on a hill near a road from an airport."
6 I keep an eye out for changes of tense. Very often a conversation is reported to have begun "he said" [to come -- line cut off]
7 Other quote trouble involves mistakes like He said that he "was leaving soon. I have to get home early." The spoken words should start with He said, "I am leaving..." or else "I am leaving soon," he said, "I have..."
8 Now a list of various misuses I made notes on during the past week:
"He was diagnosed as having pleurisy" is wrong, because it's the disease, not the person, that is "diagnosed."
"She would bring a sample of one as well as a complete object" is wrong, because, according to Fowler, "as well as" means "and not only" -- a mis-emphasis.
"The media is" -- obviously wrong number.
"The reason why" -- redundancy.
"He tried to convince them to go with him" -- "convince" needs the phrase "that they should..."
"They tackled the project early on" -- should be just "early," because "early on" is meaningless.
"It was some kind of an endeavor" -- the "an" should come out.
"The crew is ready to start, but they were held up..." is, of course, the wrong number.
And
"She says it as if she means it" -- perhaps one of the most common errors: "as if" always signals a statement contrary to fact.