Write Right!: A Desktop Digest of Punctuation, Grammar, and Style

I keep this book on my desk for easy reference. Many times people have questions that can be found here in a jiffy. The basics are usually what trip people up. The book contains proper usage of often times miss-used words. Like "further and farther", "lie and lay" as well as verb tense and agreement. I recommend it for anyone who wants to use good grammer.

I have both, Write Right! and Rewrite Right! in my essential writer's bookshelf, and use both often.

I love Jan Venolia's approach, info and style, and Lord knows we can nearly all use some help now and then with those pesky sentence fragments, spellings, and all the other horrors we confront daily in our quest to be not only read, but understood and enjoyed.

I've used Jan's sane advice in crafting both my books.

This is a simple, direct, concise review of basic grammar, indispensible for anyone with a short memory and a strong desire to write right. I purchased several copies so that I could give each member on my staff a copy for their desk with the instructions to read it and use it. It will be helpful to improve anyone's writing abilities. The contents are well organized and the examples are very helpful. This book is so good I sometimes use it for bedtime reading when I am preparing to write a special article so that I can do better.

I'm just beginning to teach a freshman writing course at a local college for the first time. Although I have a master's degree in English, I should confess that I've used grammar by "feel." That is to say, I didn't know the rules, but I have read a lot, and I just wrote by instinct. I'm not defending this approach, just explaining!

So now I'm faced with the necessity of teaching grammar to my freshmen students. Alas! After a couple of embarrassing and week lectures, I went to the bookstore to get help. I spent about four hours looking for grammar books I could stand to read myself, and that would help me learn enough to teach my students. Most of the books were very technical and overly-detailed for me, and surely for my students as well. However, I found this book, along with a couple of others that were truly a relief in their clarity, fun approach, and pared down lessons.

So, for anyone else who's just starting out studying grammar, I highly recommend this book. It's simple, relevant, understandable, and whimsical. It's not scary, too technical, and too much information. I don't think you'll be disappointed, unless you really WANT to learn every detail.

Also, the other books I found that were helpful were Grammar for Smart People by Barry Tarshis, and The Everything Grammar and Style Book by Susan Thurman. There's another one called Woe is I that I didn't buy but am thinking about doing so. All of these even look fun, so I brought them in to show my students. I thought perhaps if they saw that grammar books don't have to be boring, boring, and more boring, they might someday possibly maybe consider thinking about buying one of them.

Where this book differs from many style manuals is in its light-hearted approach. It features cartoons, quips, ambiguously worded phrases, and clever quotes to reinforce the many valid pointers contained within its pages.

It will not make a successful writer out of an untalented illiterate, (no resource will), but most readers will find a few tips to improve their writing quality. Whether looking for clarification on a particularly sticky dilemma or just in the mood for an intelligent chuckle, Jan Venolia's slim reference warrants a skim.