"to make sure of"

3) To make sure that you've made no obvious errors.

I would have said 'To make sure there's no obvious, foolish errors."

1) is definitely wrong - but I can't tell you why in grammar terms.

"Make sure of" = prove beyond doubt.

But you would never say To 'prove beyond doubt' no errors. It's missing a connecting word/phrase - 'Prove beyond doubt' there are no errors. Parses so much more better ;-)

Maybe it's just the preposition 'of' isn't acting on a noun?

Its really hard to explain. The reason why your first example is wrong has to do with the fact that the part that comes after "to make sure of" is negated with "no." If you take out the no the sentence will read fine. It definitely won't make actual sense, but will make grammatical sense.

If you're making sure of something, you're affirming its validity. I guess you can't validate no error, but you can validate the nonexistence of error.

"To make sure of the nonexistence of obvious, foolish errors" makes grammatical sense. (I think)

I may very well be mistaken.

Thanks so much for your help everyone!

To make sure there ARE no errors.

Other than the fact that the first sentence is a passive construction, and some grammarians frown upon them, I don't see that it isn't correct.

Doesn't it sound very off, though?

"To make sure no obvious, foolish errors were made" is passive as well, but sounds okay at least.

To make sure of no obvious, foolish errors.

I don't know much about this, but to me it just sounds off. Instead, maybe try:

"To make sure that there are no obvious, foolish errors."

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs uses this construction in its examples of the phrasal verb "make sure of."



(found at The Free Dictionary)

To me it's a bit archaic sounding, Modern English at its beginning, but not incorrect.