05-10-2016, 04:45 PM
1457956989-TheBlueBookofGrammarandPunctuation.pdf (Size: 886.58 KB / Downloads: 5)
Introduction
NOW IN ITS TENTH EDITION, The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation
will help you write and speak with confidence. Contrary to what may be
your past experience, you don’t have to be an English major to understand
grammar and punctuation. You just need rules that are easy to understand
with real-world examples.
Whether you are an instructor teaching students the rules of English
or a student, executive, professional writer, or avid blogger honing your
grammar and punctuation skills, this book will help you zip through tests
(including the SAT), reports, essays, letters, e-mails, and resumes and will
make you (or at least your writing) look impressive.
This book is logical, self-paced, and fun to use, with scores of interesting
and challenging quizzes that may be photocopied to your heart’s content.
Best of all, you can look forward to instant gratification because the answers
are included.
If you don’t want to interrupt your thoughts to figure out where the
next comma should go or whether to write who or whom, you will find The
Blue Book a pleasure to use. Dedicated to eliminating unnecessary jargon,
it highlights the most important grammar, punctuation, and capitalization
rules and clarifies the most commonly confused words.
The Blue Book begins with Chapter One, Grammar. Here, you will learn
how to locate Subjects and Verbs so that you can make sure they agree
with each other. Then you will move on to Pronoun Usage so that you
will know whether to write I or me, he or him, who or whom, and so forth.
From there, in the Adjective and Adverb chapter, you will discover why
some words have -ly added to them and why you must say, ‘‘She did well
on the test,’’ not, ‘‘She did good on the test.’’ After that, you will breeze
through Prepositions where you will find some surprising rules and we
will debunk at least one myth. Hint: Is it safe to ask, ‘‘What are you talking
about?’’ or must we ask, ‘‘About what are you talking?’’
The Effective Writing section of this chapter will give you helpful tips to
be able to construct sentences and paragraphs that flow gracefully, making
it easier to write quickly and well.
After that, you will enjoy spending time reading all about affect vs.
effect, lay vs. lie, their vs. there vs. they’re, and its vs. it’s in Chapter Two,
Confusing Words and Homonyms. I have provided hundreds of words for
you in this chapter so you will never have to be confused between farther
and further, continual and continuous, and all the rest of the trickiest words
in the English language.
Chapter Three, Punctuation, contains all the usual suspects: Periods
(including spacing suggestions), Ellipsis marks, Commas, Semicolons,
Colons, Question marks, Quotation marks, Parentheses, Apostrophes,
Hyphens, and Dashes. The best part about these chapters is that you
will find an abundance of examples that you run across every day.
Then comes Chapter Four, Capitalization, where you will get your
most vexing questions answered, such as which words to capitalize in a
title, when to capitalize job titles like president or director, and if it’s really
true that summer and fall are lowercase.
In Chapter Five, Writing Numbers, you will learn when to use numerals
and when to write out numbers as well as how to write both fractions and
large numbers.
Promise not to skip the Quizzes, Pretests, or Mastery Tests in Chapter
Six. The more you practice, the more confident you will become. Once you
get over any fears about test taking, I think you will find the quizzes both
fun and intriguing. You will find the answers in Chapter Seven.
Please visit www.Grammarbook.com, where you will find all the
quizzes in the book in multiple-choice, interactive format. Plus, if you are
a teacher or really jazzed about improving your English skills, on this Web
site you will find:
• Hundreds of additional downloadable, interactive quizzes in the Subscription
area
• All the rules and examples you see in the book
• A sign-up box on the home page for my free weekly e-newsletter with
tips and articles
Problems with Prepositions
Rule 1. You may end a sentence with a preposition. Just do not use extra
prepositions when the meaning is clear without them.
Examples:
Correct: That is something I cannot agree with.
That is something with which I cannot agree.
Correct: How many of you can I count on?
Correct: Where did he go?
Incorrect: Where did he go to?
Correct: Where did you get this?
Incorrect: Where did you get this at?
Correct: I will go later.
Incorrect: I will go later on.
Correct: Take your shoes off the bed.
Incorrect: Take your shoes off of the bed.
Correct: You may look out the window.
Incorrect: You may look out of the window.
Correct: Cut it into small pieces.
Incorrect: Cut it up into small pieces.
Rule 2. Use on with expressions that indicate the time of an occurrence.
Examples: He was born on December 23.
We will arrive on the fourth.
Rule 3. 0f should never be used in place of have.
Correct: I should have done it.
Incorrect: I should of done it.