Includes index.

Introduction -- 1. Finding the right words -- Spelling it out -- Commonly confused words -- 2. Parts of speech -- Nouns -- Pronouns -- Adjectives -- Verbs -- Adverbs -- Comparisons with adjectives and adverbs -- Prepositions -- Conjunctions -- Interjections -- 3. Basic sentence structure -- Subjects and predicates -- Complements -- Subject complements -- Phrases -- Clauses -- Restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses -- Sentence functions -- Subject-verb agreement : keeping the harmony -- 4. Verb varieties -- Verbals -- Verb tenses -- Irregular verbs -- Moods -- 5. Pronoun problems -- Problems with agreement -- Problems with indefinite pronouns -- Vague pronoun references -- Choosing the right person -- Pronoun cases -- Situations with than and as -- Who and whom : a different slant -- 6. Punctuation and style -- Ending a sentence -- Quotation marks -- Using apostrophes -- Commas -- Colons -- Semicolons -- Hyphens -- Dashes -- Parentheses -- Square brackets -- Italics and underlining -- Angle brackets -- Ellipsis points -- The slash/virgule/solidus -- 7. Writing better sentences -- Misplaced modifiers -- Dangling modifiers -- Squinting modifiers -- Parallelism in writing -- Writing logically -- Sentence fragments -- Run-on sentences -- Transitional words and phrases -- 8. Avoiding common errors -- Steering clear of clichés -- Eliminating repetition -- Cutting out wordy expressions -- Double negatives -- And the survey says -- 9. Getting down to business : writing and revising -- Helpful preliminaries -- Your first draft -- Revising your writing -- A final reading -- 10. Writing formats : essays, summaries, reports, and more -- A single paragraph -- The five-paragraph essay -- The abstract -- The argument essay -- The cause-and-effect essay -- Compare and contrast -- A critical analysis -- A personal journal -- Descriptive essays -- Autobiographical narratives -- The précis -- The process paper -- Business and technical writing -- The research paper -- The review -- Appendix A. 1001 frequently misspelled words -- Appendix B. Suggested substitutes for wordy phrases -- Appendix C. Helpful grammar and writing Web sites -- Index.

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