This practical book is an essential reference tool for managers, writers, editors, publishers, lawyers, typists, teachers and students. An important but often neglected aspect of writing — punctuation — is explained in great detail in this work, which also deals with spelling, grammar, "plain English" and word usage.

The compendium can also serve as a house style manual for Australian business and other organisations desiring to lift their standards. This is a revised and greatly expanded edition of the popular "Elements of Style and Good Writing" which was first published in 1990. It contains sections on topics such as:

• internal consistency
• the principles governing punctuation
• apostrophes
• hyphens
• capital letters
• plurals
• quotation marks
• syntax
• concord
• numbers
• neologisms
• tautology
• Americanisms
• metric units
• Roman numerals
• Latin phrases
• automatic spellcheckers
• editing and proofreading
• indexing
• Internet considerations

This is a modern book that, unlike some other guides, deliberately sets out to help writers by being prescriptive rather than descriptive. It discusses numerous examples of common errors, inconsistencies, jargon and gobbledegook found in actual business communications. It gives simple explanations of all significant grammatical concepts and includes a list of commonly misused words and phrases. Sir Arvi Parbo provided the Foreword.

The author is a very experienced writer, with around 50 books and over 500 articles to his credit. This is a work for the personal libraries of all amateur and professional writers. It will appeal equally to lovers of words, to the business community and to students of English whether as a first or second language. As well as being a source of reference whenever there is doubt as to the correct usage in a particular case this book can also be used as a training manual and as an interesting fount for browsing in at random.

Contents

Foreword

Preface

PART I: THE CRAFT OF WRITING

 1 INTRODUCTION - THE ART OF COMMUNICATION

 2 ASPECTS OF STYLE

 3 INTERNAL CONSISTENCY

 4 AMERICANISMS

 5 NEOLOGISMS

 6 BUSINESS CORRESPONDENCE

 7 INTERNET CONSIDERATIONS

 8 SOME TROUBLESOME CONCEPTS

PART II: GRAMMAR AND STYLE

 9 CONCORD

10 OTHER COMMON GRAMMATICAL ERRORS

11 AUXILIARY AND MODAL VERBS

12 WORDS AND PHRASES FREQUENTLY MISUSED

13 PLURALS

14 NUMBERS

PART III: PUNCTUATION

15 THE ROLE OF PUNCTUATION

16 APOSTROPHES AND THE POSSESSIVE

17 HYPHENS AND COMPOUND WORDS

18 CAPITAL LETTERS

19 QUOTATION MARKS

20 COMMON PUNCTUATION ERRORS

PART IV: TOOLS OF THE TRADE

21 TOWARDS A HOUSE STYLE MANUAL

22 AUTOMATIC SPELLCHECKERS

23 EDITING AND PROOFREADING

24 INDEXING

Solutions to Proofreading Exercises

APPENDICES:

A  COMMONLY MISUSED WORDS

B  PARTS OF SPEECH AND SYNTAX

C  THE SUBJUNCTIVE MOOD

D  TAUTOLOGY

E  UNITS OF MEASUREMENT

F  ROMAN NUMERALS

G  COMMON LATIN PHRASES

H  USEFUL INTERNET LINKS

Bibliography

Index

• ISBN: 1740310802
• ISBN-13: 9781740310802
• Author : Nick Renton
• Format:  Book - Search for other formats
• Publisher Imprint: John Wiley
• Price ($AUD): $29.95


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