The Longman Student's Grammar of Spoken and Written English (Grammar Practice)

This is a set book for my Level 3 Open University English course and it is supposed to be heavily used especially at the start. I believe the title of this Grammar could be misleading though - it is mainly for advanced English students - not for the majority of learners of English as a foreign language and it would not provide a straightforward answer for those who want to know, for example, when to use "will" and when to use "shall".
One cannot bravely read it page after page (unless you are a seasoned student and are used to this type of material) - it is for dipping in short doses only. Luckily the chapters are not too long and sensibly sub-divided, the index is excellent and the main terms are highlighted.
So far the book has provided me with the majority of answers for my first assignment and gave me excellent definitions and descriptions of lexical words, functional words and inserts. Let's hope that it will be just as useful in the future.

Very useful revision book for students and professionals who need to understand how the English language works. There are answers included so you can check your progress. My only criticism would be that the book is quite slim - I did not feel that I had properly consolidated a topic before moving onto the next one. More please. This book offers practical exercises as a companion book to The Longman Student's Grammar of Spoken and Written English (Grammar Practice). It is recommended for advance study by the Open University for a level 3 course E303 'English Grammar in Context'. This course provides you with a really good CD-Rom with extensive practical exercises. Perhaps Longman's could consider offering such a CD-Rom as an additional learning aid. I found this hyper link to a grammar DVD but I have not seen it. English Grammar: Sentence Structure [2004] (REGION 1) (NTSC). Also these CD-Roms might be useful English Grammar In Use with Answers and CD ROM Klett Edition: A Self-study Reference and Practice Book for Intermediate Students of English,Macmillan English Grammar in Context Intermediate with Key and CD-ROM Pack,Advanced Grammar in Use With CD ROM.

An invaluable reference book if you want to get right down to the real nitty-gritty of grammatical usage. Detailed and extensive, descriptive rather than prescriptive, and corpus-based, this is a grammar for the C21st.

This book really is a gem given its size and the amount of grammar it covers. It is invaluable for answering all of the difficult questions TESOL teachers may face, e.g. phrasal verbs, modality and compound nouns etc. It also explains why written and spoken grammars are so different, and should be treated as so. All of the examples used are from a corpus of real language. I have used it both in my undergraduate and now post-graduate work. It is simply the best.