Table of ContentsIntroduction ...1 About This Book...1 Conventions Used in This Book ...2 What You’re Not to Read...2 Foolish Assumptions ...2 How This Book Is Organized...3 Part I: Layi
Trang 1Contents at a Glance
Introduction 1
Part I: Laying Out the Concrete Slab: Grammar Basics 7
Chapter 1: Placing the Proper Verb in the Proper Place 9
Chapter 2: Matchmaker, Make Me a Match: Pairing Subjects and Verbs Correctly 23
Chapter 3: Who Is She, and What Is It? The Lowdown on Pronouns 35
Chapter 4: Finishing What You Start: Writing Complete Sentences 49
Part II: Mastering Mechanics 65
Chapter 5: Exercising Comma Sense 67
Chapter 6: Made You Look! Punctuation Marks That Demand Attention 81
Chapter 7: One Small Mark, a Whole New Meaning: Apostrophes 91
Chapter 8: “Let Me Speak!“ Quotation Marks 101
Chapter 9: Hitting the Big Time: Capital Letters 113
Part III: The Pickier Points of Correct Verb and Pronoun Use 125
Chapter 10: The Case of It (And Other Pronouns) 127
Chapter 11: Choosing the Best Pronoun for a Tricky Sentence 141
Chapter 12: Traveling in Time: Tricky Verb-Tense Situations 155
Chapter 13: Are You and Your Verbs in the Right Mood? 167
Part IV: All You Need to Know about Descriptions and Comparisons 177
Chapter 14: Writing Good or Well: Adjectives and Adverbs 179
Chapter 15: Going on Location: Placing Descriptions Correctly 189
Chapter 16: For Better or Worse: Forming Comparisons 205
Chapter 17: Apples and Oranges: Improper Comparisons 215
Part V: Writing with Style 227
Chapter 18: Practicing Parallel Structure 229
Chapter 19: Spicing Up and Trimming Down Your Sentences 243
Chapter 20: Steering Clear of Tricky Word Traps 255
Part VI: The Part of Tens 267
Chapter 21: Ten Overcorrections 269
Chapter 22: Ten Errors to Avoid at All Cost 273
Appendix: Grabbing Grammar Goofs 277
Index 293
Trang 3Table of Contents
Introduction 1
About This Book 1
Conventions Used in This Book 2
What You’re Not to Read 2
Foolish Assumptions 2
How This Book Is Organized 3
Part I: Laying Out the Concrete Slab: Grammar Basics 3
Part II: Mastering Mechanics 3
Part III: The Pickier Points of Correct Verb and Pronoun Use 4
Part IV: All You Need to Know about Descriptions and Comparisons 4
Part V: Writing with Style 4
Part VI: The Part of Tens 4
Icons Used in This Book 4
Where to Go from Here 5
Part I: Laying Out the Concrete Slab: Grammar Basics 7
Chapter 1: Placing the Proper Verb in the Proper Place 9
Choosing among Past, Present, and Future 9
Shining a Light on Not-So-Perfect Tenses 11
Navigating among Irregular Forms 12
Mastering the Two Most Common Irregulars: Be and Have 13
Getting By with a Little Help from Some Other Verbs 15
Calling All Overachievers: Extra Practice with Verbs 16
Answers to Problems on Verbs and Verb Tenses 17
Chapter 2: Matchmaker, Make Me a Match: Pairing Subjects and Verbs Correctly 23
When One Just Isn’t Enough: Plural Nouns 23
Isn’t Love Groovy? Pairing Subjects and Verbs 24
Taming the Brats: Difficult Subjects to Match with Verbs 26
Calling All Overachievers: Extra Practice with Hitching Subjects and Verbs 29
Answers to Subject and Verb Pairing Problems 30
Chapter 3: Who Is She, and What Is It? The Lowdown on Pronouns 35
Separating Singular and Plural Pronouns 35
Taking Possession of the Right Pronoun 37
It’s All in the Details: Possessives versus Contractions 38
Avoiding Double Meanings 40
Calling All Overachievers: Extra Practice with Basic Pronouns 42
Answers to Pronoun Problems 43
Chapter 4: Finishing What You Start: Writing Complete Sentences 49
Seeking Out the Subject/Verb Pair 50
Checking for Complete Thoughts 51
Going for Flow: Joining Sentences Correctly 52
Finishing with Flair: Choosing Endmarks 55
Trang 4Complete or Incomplete? That Is the Question 56
Calling All Overachievers: Extra Practice with Complete Sentences 58
Answers to Complete Sentence Problems 59
Part II: Mastering Mechanics 65
Chapter 5: Exercising Comma Sense 67
Making a List and Checking It Twice 67
You Talkin’ to Me? Direct Address 69
Dating and Addressing 70
Introducing (and Interrupting) with the Comma 71
Setting Off Descriptions 73
Calling All Overachievers: Extra Practice with Commas 75
Answers to Comma Problems 76
Chapter 6: Made You Look! Punctuation Marks That Demand Attention 81
Connectors and Dividers: Hyphens 81
Just Dashing Through 82
Sorting Out Semicolons 84
Placing Colons 85
Calling All Overachievers: Extra Practice with Hyphens, Dashes, Colons, and Semicolons 85
Answers to Punctuation Problems 87
Chapter 7: One Small Mark, a Whole New Meaning: Apostrophes 91
Putting Words on a Diet: Contractions 91
Taking Possession 93
Calling All Overachievers: Extra Practice with Apostrophes 95
Answers to Apostrophe Problems 96
Chapter 8: “Let Me Speak!“ Quotation Marks 101
Lending Written Words a Voice: Punctuating Direct Quotations 101
Embedding One Quotation inside Another 103
Punctuating Titles 105
Calling All Overachievers: Extra Practice with Quotation Marks 106
Answers to Quotation Problems 108
Chapter 9: Hitting the Big Time: Capital Letters 113
Bowing to Convention and Etiquette: People’s Names and Titles 113
Entering the Worlds of Business and Academia 115
Capitalizing Titles of Literary and Media Works 116
Placing Geographical Capitals 117
AM or p.m.? Capitalizing Abbreviations 118
Calling All Overachievers: Extra Practice with Capital Letters 120
Answers to Capitalization Problems 121
Part III: The Pickier Points of Correct Verb and Pronoun Use 125
Chapter 10: The Case of It (And Other Pronouns) 127
Meeting the Subject at Hand and the Object of My Affection 127
To “Who” or To “Whom”? That Is the Question 129
xii English Grammar Workbook For Dummies
Trang 5Linking Up with Pronouns in “To Be” Sentences 130
You Talkin’ to Me, or I? Pronouns as Objects of Prepositions 131
Matching Possessive Pronouns to “-ing” Nouns 132
Calling All Overachievers: Extra Practice with Pronoun Case 133
Answers to Pronoun Case Problems 135
Chapter 11: Choosing the Best Pronoun for a Tricky Sentence 141
Nodding in Agreement: Pronouns and Possessives Come Head to Head 141
Working for the Man: Pronouns for Companies and Organizations 143
Decoding Who, That, and Which 144
Getting Down to Specifics: Avoiding Improper Pronoun References 146
Calling All Overachievers: Extra Practice with Tricky Pronoun Situations 149
Answers to Advanced Pronoun Problems 150
Chapter 12: Traveling in Time: Tricky Verb-Tense Situations 155
Telling Tales of the Past 155
The Unchanging Universe: When You’re Stuck in the Present 157
Tackling the Timeline: Verbals to the Rescue 158
Calling All Overachievers: Extra Practice with Verb Tenses 159
Answers to Advanced Verb Tense Problems 161
Chapter 13: Are You and Your Verbs in the Right Mood? 167
Stating the Obvious: Indicative Mood 167
Taking Command: Imperative Mood 168
Telling Lies or Being Passive: Subjunctive Mood 169
Calling All Overachievers: Extra Practice with Moody Verbs 171
Answers to Verb Mood Problems 172
Part IV: All You Need to Know about Descriptions and Comparisons 177
Chapter 14: Writing Good or Well: Adjectives and Adverbs 179
Distinguishing between Adjectives and Adverbs 179
How’s It Going? Choosing between Good/Well and Bad/Badly 181
Mastering the Art of Articles 182
Calling All Overachievers: Extra Practice with Descriptors 183
Answers to Adjective and Adverb Problems 184
Chapter 15: Going on Location: Placing Descriptions Correctly 189
Little Words Mean a Lot: Situating “Even,” “Only,” and Similar Words 189
It Must Be Here Somewhere! Misplaced Descriptions 192
Hanging Off a Cliff: Dangling Descriptions 194
Dazed and Confused: Vague Descriptions 196
Calling All Overachievers: Extra Practice Placing Descriptions 198
Answers to Description Placement Problems 199
Chapter 16: For Better or Worse: Forming Comparisons 205
Visiting the -ER (And the -EST): Creating Comparisons 205
Going from Bad to Worse (And Good to Better): Irregular Comparisons 207
Words That Are Incomparable (Like You!) 208
Calling All Overachievers: Extra Practice with Bad Comparisons 210
Answers to Comparison Problems 211
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Table of Contents
Trang 6Chapter 17: Apples and Oranges: Improper Comparisons 215
No One Likes to Feel Incomplete, and Neither Do Comparisons 215
Being Smarter than Yourself: Illogical Comparisons 217
Double Trouble: A Sentence Containing More than One Comparison 219
Calling All Overachievers: Extra Practice with Improper Comparisons 221
Answers to Complicated Comparison Problems 222
Part V: Writing with Style 227
Chapter 18: Practicing Parallel Structure 229
Geometry Invades English: Parallelism Basics 229
Avoiding Unnecessary Shifts in Tense, Person, and Voice 231
Matchmaking 101: Either/Or, Not Only/But Also, and Similar Pairs 234
Calling All Overachievers: Extra Practice with Parallels 236
Answers to Parallelism Problems 237
Chapter 19: Spicing Up and Trimming Down Your Sentences 243
Beginning with a Bang: Adding Introductory Elements 243
Smoothing Out Choppy Sentences 245
Awkward but Interesting: Reversed Sentence Patterns 247
Shedding and Eliminating Redundancy 248
Calling All Overachievers: Extra Practice Honing Your Sentences 250
Answers to Sentence Improvement Problems 251
Chapter 20: Steering Clear of Tricky Word Traps 255
Separating Almost-Twins: Commonly Confused Words 255
Comparing Quantities without Numbers 257
Sorry to Bust Your Bubble, but Some Common Expressions Are Wrong 258
Verbs That Will Give You a Headache 260
Combining Rightfully Independent Words 261
Calling All Overachievers: Extra Practice with Tricky Words 262
Answers to Tricky Word Problems 263
Part VI: The Part of Tens 267
Chapter 21: Ten Overcorrections 269
Substituting “Whom” for “Who” 269
Inserting Unnecessary “Had’s” 269
Throwing in “Have” at Random 270
Sending “I” to Do a “Me” Job 270
Speaking or Writing Passively 270
Making Sentence Structure Too Complicated 270
Letting Descriptions Dangle 270
Becoming Allergic to “They” and “Their” 271
Being Semi-Attached to Semicolons 271
Not Knowing When Enough Is Enough 271
Chapter 22: Ten Errors to Avoid at All Cost 273
Writing Incomplete Sentences 273
Letting Sentences Run On and On 273
Forgetting to Capitalize “I” 273
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