Oxford A-Z of Grammar and Punctuation

One thing I always say to people with whom I work on writing non-fiction is "don't try to break grammar and punctuation rules unless you know what they are to start with, otherwise you can make yourself look utterly stupid." This book is a vital tool in any writer's box; it enables you to know what the correct answers are no matter how much you may be confused by "text speak," "email speak" and the total vaporisation of the apostrophe. If you still want to break the rules you'll be able to do so at an acceptably low level. And who knows? You might even be tempted to stick to those rules after all...

I Like this little book! Referenced alphabetically, comfortable size for handling, effective examples and user friendly explanations. Great for brushing up on punctuation and grammatical rules! Oxford A-Z of Grammar and Punctuation

Don't know what a "past participle" is? Then buy this book - it gives good, short, easy to understand definitions for all kinds of grammatical terms.

This is a great little reference book of modern English grammar for post-GCSE students. Even though, it's arranged in an A-Z fashion, it contains such a wealth of excellent, well-presented information that many (like myself) will be avid to read it from cover to cover. It also includes a remarkably informative introduction to the elements of sentences, clauses and phrases - a kind of baseline for understanding the rest of the book.

Traditional grammarians may take offence at its unapologetic inclusion of Determiners as a word class, as these are arguably nothing more than a superset of certain pronouns and adjectives. And, in a short work such as this, there are also of course some omissions. For instance, although Seely rightly castigates the use of "dangling participles", he makes no mention of the perfectly acceptable "subjective absolute" (or "nominative absolute" as it is more traditionally known).NB. These remarks are based on the 2004 edition.

Shortcomings aside, though, the contents-to-price ratio must earn it 5 stars.

This book is the kind of thing you can take with you when travelling, if you are the sort who needs accuracy in your writing, but don't expect more than superficial information, enough to get you through that sentence with reasonable confidence. Layout is very good indeed. I should think A level students would benefit from it as well. Overall, very good value for what it is.