The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation (9th Edition)

The book uses (sometimes misuses) technical terms that it never bothers to define. That's how carelessly it's been thrown together. The book states (ungrammatically), "Object pronouns are used everywhere else (direct object, indirect object, object of the preposition)." However, the book never defines "direct object," "indirect object," or "object of the preposition." For that matter, it does not even define "preposition." The book makes no mention of transitive verbs, intransitive verbs, appositives, complements, copulative verbs (linking verbs), modals, auxiliary verbs (helping verbs), agents, the subjunctive--the list goes on and on.

This book is also full of errors. Many of the "rules" are misleading or simply incorrect. Moreover, there are grammar and punctuation errors in the writing itself. In the section on finding subjects and verbs, we read, "Being able to identify the subject and verb correctly will also help you with commas and semicolons as you will see later." It is certainly odd that a sentence about proper punctuation should itself include a punctuation error; a mandatory comma has been omitted between "semicolons" and "as." We are told in "Rule 2", "A subject will come before a phrase beginning with 'of'." This is simply not a rule; subjects often follow "of". Consider this sentence: "Hoping to win the respect of her employer, Sandra learned to speak fluent English." The subject, Sandra, comes after a phrase beginning with "of" ("of her employer"), not before one. Someone who followed the rule in the book might falsely conclude that "respect" is the subject, as it comes before "of". We are also told, most unhelpfully, "To find the subject and verb, always find the verb first. [If the reader already knows how to find verbs, why would she be consulting this book?] Then ask who or what performed the verb." This sloppy wording is almost bound to cause confusion. Consider this sentence: "In spite of the bad instructions, the error was found by the student." The verb is "was found," and the student did the finding. It would be natural to suppose, then, that the student "performed the verb" and thus is the subject. The subject, however, is "the error," not "the student". All of these problems (and others I have not mentioned) are found on a mere two pages of text.

The book, sadly, is a bust.

I purchased this for my seventh-grader but after receiving it decided to share it. I recommend it!

I did appreciate how easy it was to find the sections I needed to rewrite my sentences. It was very straightforward and the exercises at the end of the book was a perfect added bonus.

However, as a amateur book writer, I found that it did not cover all elements of writing styles. In my opinion, this book is generally for individuals who need to develop their skills in writing essays and research papers.

But all in all, this is a great reference guide to anyone who would like to improve their sentence structures.

This book is WONDERFUL! I totally recommend it! It breaks down the complicated rules of gramamar and even provides quizzes to test your understanding. You MUST BUY THIS BOOK!

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