Line by Line: How to Edit Your Own Writing

Very good book. It's a very comprehensive guide that every serious writer should have in their library; indispensable.

The long sentences and choppy -yes, I used choppy!- examples in this book are hard to understand. The examples the author offers as "fixes" to wrong sentence structure are hardly fixes. I finished the book out of principle, but after page 30 I hardly paid any attention to the content. reading "Line by Line:..." was painfully confusing. My advise? buy "Grammatically Correct" by Anne Stilman. Unlike Ms. Kehrwald Cook, Ms. Stilman does follow her own advise in writing.

As a new writer, I was looking for all the help I could muster so I searched the web.I also belong to a writing workshop and a fellow writer recommended this book to me. It has been assisting me with editing and rewriting my novel
"Nereid's World, soon to be for sale on Amazon. Oh...first I must complete the book and 'Line by Line is a big help...Remember 90% of good writing is rewriting. ... Line by Line is a good buy.

Vincent J. Arcuri

Based upon the Modern Language Association guidelines, Claire Kehrwald Cooks' instructive 'how to' manual for aspiring authors, "Line By Line: How To Edit Your Own Writing" completely demystifies the process of self-editing, a vital aspect of honing, polishing, and otherwise preparing a manuscript for publication. All the relevant issues are addressed including basic grammar; pruning unnecessary words and phrases; balancing related sentence elements; making subjects and verbs agree; using pronouns accurately; the correct usage of punctuation marks; and avoiding the 'questionable usage' of words and phrases. A welcome and core addition to personal and professional writing reference collections, "Line By Line" is especially recommended reading for aspiring writers, published professionals, business managers and government officials needing to communicate with clarity, advertising and public relations professionals, scholars and students, as well as technical and science writers.

I've bought a lot of grammer books over the years. Some of them are well written some are not. They don't help me much but I keep buying them and hoping that someday I'll find one that helps me with all my style problems. I consider Elements of Style the best of the lot, but this one is a close second. Her examples of good writing as opposed to poor writing are very helpful. She provides not only a poor sentence and an alternative one but also various alternatives of style and sentence structure. I think the process of working towards a clear crisp sentence very helpful.