Sentence

[nyggus]

Do you the following sentence? "More than 600 exercises and solutions help reader to make this an excellent home-study text."

Best,
Nyggus

[Tdol]

to help the reader

[nyggus]

Thanks, tdol. But shouldn't it be "help the reader make" instead of "help the reader to make"?

Best,
Nyggus

[Tdol]

Sorry- yes, it should.

[nyggus]

Exactly! Thanks, tdol. The point is that this sentence was copied from the back page of "Essential English Grammar" (unfortunately, I don't remember the author)!!! I looked at Google Scholar (the engine searching sholar publications) and found that "help to" is very often used! Simple example: click here to count the use of "help to understand" (about 20,500) and click click here to count the use of "help understand" (about 25,000). Amazing, isn't is? Even in titles "help to understand" has been used!
Best wishes,
Nyggus

[Tdol]

It's different:

This example has a different meaning:

More than 600 exercises and solutions to help the reader = subject of make this...

Help someone do/to do are both used, but this is not the structure here.

[nyggus]

So, in any case "help do" is correct, even if "help someone to do sth" (or other phrase with 'to do') is correct, too?

Best,
Nyggus

[Tdol]

Help smne do is correct.