Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing (Quick & Dirty Tips)
Online sensation Grammar Girl makes grammar fun and simple in this New York Times bestsellerAre you stumped by split infinitives? Terrified of using “who” when a “whom” is called for? Do you avoid the words “affect” and “effect” altogether?Grammar Girl is here to help! Mignon Fogarty, a.k.a. Grammar Girl, is determined to wipe out terrible grammar—but she’s also determined to make the process as painless as possible. A couple of years ago, she made a weekly podcast to tackle some
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It’s a excellent book even if you don’t listen to the podcast,
I didn’t have expectations about this book from the podcast because I only learned Grammar Girl a few days before the book was unrestricted. I like books about usage, and I loved this one. It’s organized in chapters of related usage problems and the rules for the most frequent cases. For many issues, the book gives not only the right way to do it, but demonstrates common incorrect ways too, and clearly marks them so you won’t pick up the incorrect way if you’re skimming. Many of the entries include memory devices to help you remember what to do next time.
The drawings and examples were cute, but sometimes the references to Squiggly and Aardvark felt like inside jokes, but fortunately not to the top where I felt like the joke was on me. I didn’t know if there were personalities for the characters that would have given me a deeper understanding of the examples they demonstrated, or if they were just generic illustrations.
The voice is regular, and the delivery is small and sweet, or as the author puts it, quick and dirty. Nothing is belabored that shouldn’t be, but each issue is adequately covered for most situations. If an item is controversial, the book mentions the controversy and gives an overview of the foremost arguments. Matters of style are also identified, even if the author has a strong preference for a particular way.
The last chapter, “Work It,” is an unusual chapter for a usage book, and especially valuable. It gives writer-oriented tips for interviewing people, generating thoughts, fighting writer’s block, and proofreading. Some of the tips it gives are brilliant, and in the right situation, may make the difference between success and failure. I want to see that chapter expanded into a book of its own.
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|More Than Mere Grammar,
Who needs another book on grammar?
Well, to be sincere, most of us. We all struggle with the usual problems like lie vs. lay, affect vs. effect, and where to insert commas. In terms of these basic grammar questions, Mignon delivers the goods. In the guise of Grammar Girl she provides simple, memorable lessons in … well … grammar.
The book is more than just a grammar handbook. Go back and read the full title. Go ahead. I’ll wait.
You see the part that says “For Better Writing”? That’s the real meat of this book. Mignon isn’t some dusty academic who wants to place you in your place and make you feel inferior when you misuse a semi-colon. She’s a talented writer who wants to help you improve your writing. Tucked in among the tips are dozens of ways to make your writing stronger and more engaging. She even covers writing for blogs and Twitter.
Last century we had Strunk and Colorless as guides. This century we have Mignon.
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|Fun Tips but a Brief Read,
This book was made by a woman who runs an active podcast. That is, she is used to responsibility weekly small “tips” about how to handle a grammar situation. That’s very cool in a quick-blurb world, but you can really see those roots in this book. There’s no real coherence here, and if you pick the book up looking for help with a given situation you’ll have to dig to find the answer. One chapter is called “I’m So Stylish”. What is that about? Apparently it’s about writing “I’m sooooooooooooo pleased” and that not life excellent grammar. Would I have ever thought to look in that chapter for that information? Would I have ever really wondered if spelling so with 18 Os was right?
The book is cute. If you read small snippets each day – perhaps as a “bathroom book” – you’re sure to pick up some tips here. You gather about “that” vs “who”. You gather about “like” vs “as”. You might reckon a lot of these differences are minor. If you do a Google search you’re sure to find people using each mis-spelling that exists, and contravention each grammar rule. But, it all comes down to life qualified to your consultation. If you continually mis-spell “existence” maybe 50% of your readers won’t care – but the other 50% will be more and more turned off by your repeated mistakes.
If we want to communicate clearly, it certainly is in all of our best interest to gather the proper rules and to try our best to follow them. I’m sure we can all name dreadful websites we have been to where the grammar was so dreadful that we could not follow what the person was saying. There are of course different degrees of this problem – so the more clearly you can write, the better!
So in general I agree greatly with the premise. I reckon we should all gather to write more clearly. I just have found that convert-to-book-from-the-web books tend to suffer in the organizational area. I recently read another book from a “well loved blog turned into a book” and it had the exact same problem. It had lots of unsystematic tips sort of loosely place into chapters.
A fun read, but I would certainly get other more clearly organized books on grammar for your daily use and education.
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