Steps To Writing Well // A BOOK

[rosyrose]

Hi
Here is a book hope to be helpful in giving you the right steps to writing

HERE

click thanks or leave no comment

[BobK]

Hi
Here is a book hope to be helpful in giving you the right steps to writing

HERE

click thanks or leave no comment

On whose authority??? And why should I thank anyone for pointing me to a book that claims to GIVE me STEPS? That's a collocation that's entirely new to this native speaker. FYI, here are the first 25 collected by the BNC:

1 GIVE RISE 769
2 GIVE WAY 548
3 GIVE EVIDENCE 331
4 GIVE ADVICE 194
5 GIVE EFFECT 160
6 GIVE PEOPLE 140
7 GIVE BIRTH 126
8 GIVE NOTICE 112
9 GIVE DETAILS 108
10 GIVE INFORMATION 103
11 GIVE REASONS 98
12 GIVE PRIORITY 91
13 GIVE THANKS 60
14 GIVE CREDIT 59
15 GIVE MONEY 49
16 GIVE CHILDREN 48
17 GIVE SUPPORT 47
18 GIVE EXAMPLES 46
19 GIVE DIRECTIONS 43
20 GIVE TIME 43
21 GIVE GUIDANCE 39
22 GIVE ORDERS 37
23 GIVE ACCESS 35
24 GIVE STUDENTS 34
25 GIVE HELP 33
.
.
.
(No sign of 'give steps' in the first 100. For more, go here: http://corpus.byu.edu/bnc - Use the query string "give [n*]" )

This looks to me suspiciously like bare-faced advertising of a pretty questionable product.

b

[Anglika]

I agree

[RonBee]

I've heard of take steps, but never give steps.

[rosyrose]

Hi

What's up ? Are you against the book or against using the right verb?What I meant is that it would be useful as a guide to writing ,that's all.
I am not advertising any product but found the book and thought it might be good to share it with my new friends.


What's wrong if I say the book is giving steps or guidance or examples
The book does not take steps but give steps .

Please read my sentence again in the first thread . I think there is nothing wrong with it, however i would always respect your openion as a native speaker.

[BobK]

...
What's wrong if I say the book is giving steps or guidance or examples
The book does not take steps but give steps .
...

It gives examples/guidance/advice/instances... but not steps. When RonBee mentioned 'take steps' he wasn't suggesting that 'that was what you really meant'. He was just mentioning another possible collocation.

b

PS I dealt with rosyrose's other points in a PM.

[BobK]

PPS Further to RonBee's comment, here are the first 30 BNC hits for "[v*] steps":

1 TAKE STEPS 162
2 TAKING STEPS 67
3 TAKEN STEPS 62
4 TOOK STEPS 44
5 ARE STEPS 17
6 TAKES STEPS 14
7 WERE STEPS 9
8 FOLLOW STEPS 9
9 REPEAT STEPS 8
10 HAVE STEPS 6
11 MAKE STEPS 5
12 'S STEPS 3
13 MAKING STEPS 3
14 PUT STEPS 3
15 KICKED STEPS 3
16 DANCE STEPS 3
17 HEARD STEPS 3
18 END STEPS 3
19 CLIMB STEPS 3
20 BE STEPS 2
21 BUILDING STEPS 2
22 COUNTING STEPS 2
23 CONSTRUCTING STEPS 2
24 BEGAN STEPS 2
25 CUTS STEPS 2
26 HAS STEPS 2
27 HEAR STEPS 2
28 SUPPORTS STEPS 2
29 CLIMBING STEPS 2
30 WELCOME STEPS 1
.
.
.
(There are plenty more with only one hit, but only 6 of those get into double figures, and 5 of those are inflected forms of 'take'.) BNC has just over 500 hits for "steps" immediately preceded by a verb, and of those about 350 make the collocation "take steps". In other words, in the BNC's 100 million word corpus, there is a 70% chance that if "steps" is preceded immediately by a verb, the verb will be some form of "take".

b