Learning English is a difficult task for many students while developing skills such as reading, listening, speaking and writing. Of these four skills, writing is the most difficult task to master. Even though Sri Lanka University students are exposed to English from the early stages of life, their English writing skills seem to be weak and they tend to make many mistakes when laying out the basics of writing. The purpose of this study is to find out the factors that are responsible for writing errors in English and thereby provide recommendations for minimizing the problems that university students in Sri Lanka face when writing in English. The study used qualitative data collection methods. The data collected from the responses of the subjects were analyzed and led to the appropriate conclusions. This study will be useful to future scientists, teachers, schoolchildren and any other interested party who is interested in spelling errors in English.