In the no-nonsense, authoritative tradition of the best-selling AP Stylebook, the top editors at the AP have written the definitive guide to punctuation. More people write for the Associated Press than for any other news service, and more writers take their style and word-usage cues from this world-famous institution than from any other journalism source. From the when and how of the ampersand to the rules for dashes, slashes, and brackets; from the correct moment for the overused exclamation point to the rules of engagement for the semicolon, The AP Guide to Punctuation is an invaluable and easy-to-use guide to the most important aspect of clear and persuasive writing.
How does good writing stand out? If its purpose is to convey facts, findings, or instructions, it need be read only once for its content to be clear. If its purpose is to entertain or to provoke thought, it makes readers want to come back for more. Revised and updated, this guide covers four essential aspects of good writing: Individual words: spelling variations, hyphenation, frequently confused homonyms, frequently misused words and phrases, irregular plurals and negatives, and uses of capitalization and type style to add special meanings Punctuation: the role of each mark in achieving clarity and affecting tone, and demonstration of how misuses can lead to ambiguity Syntax and structure: agreement of subject and verb, parallel construction, modifiers, tenses, pronouns, active versus passive voice, and more Style:advice on the less hard-and-fast areas of clarity and tone, including sentence length and order, conciseness, simplification, reading level, jargon and cliches, and subtlety Filled with self-test exercises and whimsical literary quotations, Grammatically Correct steers clear of academic stuffiness, focusing instead on practical strategies and intuitive explanations. Discussions are designed to get to the heart of a concept and provide a sufficient sense of when and how to use it, along with examples that show what ambiguities or misinterpretations might result if the rules are not followed. In cases where there is more than one acceptable way to do something, the approach is not to prescribe one over another but simply to describe the options. Readers of this book will never break the rules of language again – unintentionally.
This all-in-one reference is a quick and easy way for book, magazine, online, academic, and business writers to look up sticky punctuation questions for all styles including AP (Associated Press), MLA (Modern Language Association), APA (American Psychological Association), and Chicago Manual of Style. Punctuate with Confidence—No Matter the Style Confused about punctuation? There’s a reason. Everywhere you turn, publications seem to follow different rules on everything from possessive apostrophes to hyphens to serial commas. Then there are all the gray areas of punctuation—situations the rule books gloss over or never mention at all. At last, help has arrived. This complete reference guide from grammar columnist June Casagrande covers the basic rules of punctuation plus the finer points not addressed anywhere else, offering clear answers to perplexing questions about semicolons, quotation marks, periods, apostrophes, and more. Better yet, this is the only guide that uses handy icons to show how punctuation rules differ for book, news, academic, and science styles—so you can boldly switch between essays, online newsletters, reports, fiction, and magazine and news articles. This handbook also features rulings from an expert “Punctuation Panel” so you can see how working pros approach sticky situations. And the second half of the book features an alphabetical master list of commonly punctuated terms worth its weight in gold, combining rulings from the major style guides and showing exactly where they differ. With The Best Punctuation Book, Period, you’ll be able to handle any punctuation predicament in a flash—and with aplomb.
The authoritative guide to using the English language effectively, from “the greatest writer on grammar and usage that this country has ever produced” (David Yerkes, Columbia University). The author of The Chicago Manual of Style’s popular “Grammar and Usage” chapter, Bryan A. Garner is renowned for explaining the vagaries of English with absolute precision and utmost clarity. With The Chicago Guide to Grammar, Usage, and Punctuation, he has written the definitive guide for writers who want their prose to be both memorable and correct. Garner describes standard literary English—the forms that mark writers and speakers as educated users of the language. He also offers historical context for understanding the development of these forms. The section on grammar explains how the canonical parts of speech came to be identified, while the section on syntax covers the nuances of sentence patterns as well as both traditional sentence diagramming and transformational grammar. The usage section provides an unprecedented trove of empirical evidence in the form of Google Ngrams, diagrams that illustrate the changing prevalence of specific terms over decades and even centuries of English literature. Garner also treats punctuation and word formation, and concludes the book with an exhaustive glossary of grammatical terms and a bibliography of suggested further reading and references. The Chicago Guide to Grammar, Usage, and Punctuation is a magisterial work, the culmination of Garner’s lifelong study of the English language. The result is a landmark resource that will offer clear guidelines to students, writers, and editors alike. “[A manual] for those of us laboring to produce expository prose: nonfiction books, journalistic articles, memorandums, business letters. The conservatism of his advice pushes you to consider audience and occasion, so that you will understand when to follow convention and when you can safely break it.”—John E. McIntyre, Baltimore Sun
Punctuation Revisited is an advanced, comprehensive guide to the importance of punctuation in conveying meaning and augmenting the power of a message. Richard Kallan provides guidance on how to structure sentences accurately and in a manner that enhances their readability and rhetorical appeal. This book discusses in fine detail not just when and how to employ specific punctuation marks, but the rationale behind them. It also notes when the major academic style manuals differ in their punctuation advice. These unique features are designed to benefit beginning, intermediate, and advanced students of standard punctuation practice. Punctuation Revisited is a wonderful resource for students of composition and writing, an essential read for writing center tutors and faculty, as well as the perfect addition to anyone’s professional library.
We all know the basics of punctuation. Or do we? A look at most neighborhood signage tells a different story. Through sloppy usage and low standards on the internet, in email, and now text messages, we have made proper punctuation an endangered species. In Eats, Shoots & Leaves, former editor Lynne Truss dares to say, in her delightfully urbane, witty, and very English way, that it is time to look at our commas and semicolons and see them as the wonderful and necessary things they are. This is a book for people who love punctuation and get upset when it is mishandled. From the invention of the question mark in the time of Charlemagne to George Orwell shunning the semicolon, this lively history makes a powerful case for the preservation of a system of printing conventions that is much too subtle to be mucked about with.
How to Write for Class: A Student's Guide to Grammar, Punctuation, and Style is a comprehensive guide to the concepts students need to know to write effectively for school. Rather than treat grammar as a series of rules to be memorized, it emphasizes the logic behind the English language as well as the relationship between grammar and meaning. The approach taken in this book is also based on the observation that students often find it challenging to apply rules studied in isolation, or through overly-simplified examples, to the more complex statements they want to include in their own writing. How to Write for Class is designed to help bridge that gap: it makes use of numerous examples from actual papers and walks students through the process of constructing the type of sophisticated but grammatically coherent statements that will raise their academic writing to the next level. Appropriate for advanced middle-school through college writers.
The bestselling workbook and grammar guide, revised and updated! Hailed as one of the best books around for teaching grammar, The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation includes easy-to-understand rules, abundant examples, dozens of reproducible quizzes, and pre- and post-tests to help teach grammar to middle and high schoolers, college students, ESL students, homeschoolers, and more. This concise, entertaining workbook makes learning English grammar and usage simple and fun. This updated 12th edition reflects the latest updates to English usage and grammar, and includes answers to all reproducible quizzes to facilitate self-assessment and learning. Clear and concise, with easy-to-follow explanations, offering "just the facts" on English grammar, punctuation, and usage Fully updated to reflect the latest rules, along with even more quizzes and pre- and post-tests to help teach grammar Ideal for students from seventh grade through adulthood in the US and abroad For anyone who wants to understand the major rules and subtle guidelines of English grammar and usage, The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation offers comprehensive, straightforward instruction.
