SMASHING GRAMMAR

Many people have sound writing skills, but if you talk grammar specifics with them, it may become clear that they have learned grammar only through unstructured lessons. The aim of this entertaining, succinct and easily searchable book is to be a guide to improving your writing skills and avoiding common mistakes which could damage your credibility, make you look careless plus ones you will be forgiven for and probably get away with and many 'mistakes' that might annoy some readers but actually aren't mistakes. 'To really try' is a split infinitive, or not? And what about starting a sentence with And or But? The use of an apostrophe in an awkward plural, treating 'none' as a plural word, the use of the Comma, using too many passive sentences, using hyphens with adverbs ending in -ly (extremely-talented actor), or illogically placing punctuation inside or outside a quotation, confusing poisonous and venomous - we could go on and on. Such fun! An A-Z of punctuation guides us through the essentials and is packed with real-life examples. Nice clear layout and headers, 272pp.