Table of Contents
Introduction - THE PROBLEM WITH OUR ENGLISH
Chapter 1 English When It Fizzles
Chapter 2 Why We Can’t Write Better English
Chapter 3 Writing to Get That Job
Chapter 4 A More Focused Way to Improve Our English
Chapter 5 Developing Our Power Over Language
Part I - BUILDING THE ENGLISH SENTENCE
Section 1 - Looking More Closely at the English Sentence
Chapter 6 Making the Best Use of Simple Sentences
Chapter 7 Combining Ideas into Compound Sentences
Chapter 8 Using Complex Sentences to Texture Ideas
Chapter 9 The Upper Limits of Sentence Construction
Chapter 10 Varying Structure to Enrich Sentences
Section 2 - Combining and Linking Our Ideas
Chapter 11 Establishing Meaning with Connectives
Chapter 12 How the Coordinating Conjunctions Work
Chapter 13 How the Conjunctive Adverbs Work
Chapter 14 How the Subordinating Conjunctions Work
Section 3 - Establishing the Logic of Our Ideas
Chapter 15 The Six Basic Logical Relationships
Chapter 16 Establishing the Additive Relationship
Chapter 17 Establishing the Comparative and Time Relationship
Chapter 18 Establishing the Causal or Reason-Result Relationship
Chapter 19 Establishing the Conditional and Example Relationship
Section 4 - Establishing Relationships Within Clauses
Chapter 20 The Things That Prepositions Do
Chapter 21 The Prepositions of Space and Time
Chapter 22 The Prepositions of Motion and Direction
Chapter 23 The Prepositions for Establishing Time Relationships
Chapter 24 The Prepositions as Logical Connectives
Section 5 - Harnessing the Various Grammar Structures
Chapter 25 Getting to Know the Noun Phrase Better
Chapter 26 The Behavior of Noun Clauses
Chapter 27 The Seven Uses of Noun Clauses
Chapter 28 How Gerunds and Infinitives Work
Chapter 29 Choosing Between Gerunds and Infinitives
Chapter 30 How Infinitive Phrases Work
Chapter 31 How Gerund Phrases Work
Chapter 32 The Uses of Participles and Participial Phrases
Chapter 33 The Flexible Positions of Participial Phrases
Chapter 34 The Baffling Thing About Absolute Phrases
Chapter 35 The Subtle Job That Absolute Phrases Do
Chapter 36 The Four Forms that Absolute Phrases Take
Section 6 - Managing Our Pronouns Better
Chapter 37 A Closer Look at the English Pronouns
Chapter 38 Complications When Using Personal Pronouns
Chapter 39 Using Pronouns and Nouns in Combination
Chapter 40 Problematic Uses of Personal Pronouns
Chapter 41 Other Problematic Pronoun Constructions
Chapter 42 The Seven Other Kinds of Pronouns
Chapter 43 The Grammar of the Indefinite Pronouns
Chapter 44 Handling Pronouns with Unclear Antecedents
Section 7 - Mastering the English Tenses
Chapter 45 Clarifying Tense with the Adverbs of Time
Chapter 46 Tense in Cases of Clause Dependency
Chapter 47 The Arranged Futures
Chapter 48 The Predicted Futures and Timetable Futures
Chapter 49 The Described Futures
Chapter 50 The Uncertain Futures
Chapter 51 The Historical, Literary, and Eternal Present
Chapter 52 How Verbs Behave in Exceptional Sequence
Chapter 53 Dealing Better with the Past Imperfect
Part II - GIVING ZEST TO OUR SENTENCES
Section 1 - Crafting More Readable Sentences
Chapter 54 Using Noun Omission to Avoid Repetition
Chapter 55 Using Repeated Action and Sequence Words
Chapter 56 Using Demonstrative Reference Words
Chapter 57 Using Broader Meaning and Summary Words
Chapter 58 Using Synonyms to Enliven Prose
Chapter 59 Using Relative Pronouns as Reference Words
Chapter 60 The Usefulness of Resumptive Modifiers
Chapter 61 The Magic That Resumptive Modifiers Can Do
Chapter 62 The Usefulness of Summative Modifiers
Chapter 63 Crafting More Elegant Prose with Free Modifiers
Chapter 64 Making Good Use of Free Relative Clauses
Chapter 65 Three Semantic Brides All in a Row
Section 2 - Varying Sentence Patterns for Emphasis
Chapter 66 In Defense of the Passive Voice
Chapter 67 When Even the Passive Voice Isn’t Enough
Chapter 68 Crafting Our Sentences to Their Context
Chapter 69 Using Extraposition for Emphasis
Chapter 70 The Virtue of Elliptical Constructions
Chapter 71 Using Inversion for Smooth Transitions
Chapter 72 Some Pragmatic Uses for Inverted Sentences
Chapter 73 Even More Pragmatic Uses of Inversion
Chapter 74 Using Inversion for Stronger Emphasis
Chapter 75 Some Baffling Aspects of Inverted Sentences
Chapter 76 Better Ways of Handling Equative Constructions
Chapter 77 The Mood and Attitude of Verbs
Chapter 78 The Subjunctive and Its Functions
Chapter 79 Simpler Alternatives for the Subjunctive
Chapter 80 Playing Boldly with Sentences
Chapter 81 The Periodic Sentence and Its Virtues
Section 3 - Aiming for Parallelism
Chapter 82 Parallelism as a Mark of Good Writing
Chapter 83 Setting Our Thoughts in Parallel
Chapter 84 Sustaining Parallel Patterns All the Way
Chapter 85 Specific Applications of the Parallelism Rules
Chapter 86 Harnessing Parallelism for Structural Balance
Chapter 87 Pursuing Parallelism Beyond the Sentence Level
Part III - MAKING EFFECTIVE PARAGRAPH TRANSITIONS
Chapter 88 Making Effective Paragraph Transitions
Chapter 89 Extrinsic and Intrinsic Paragraph Transitions
Chapter 90 ‘It’, ‘Such’, and ‘There’ as Paragraph Transitions
Chapter 91 Using Deep-Hook Paragraph Transitions
Part IV - MATTERS OF SEMANTICS
Chapter 92 When Notion and Grammar Disagree
Chapter 93 More Subject-Verb Agreement Quandaries
Chapter 94 Dealing with Various Levels of Intransitivity
Chapter 95 How Causative and Factitive Verbs Work
Chapter 96 Helping Intransitives Surmount their Handicap
Chapter 97 When the Object is the Doer Itself
Chapter 98 Making Nominalization Work for Our Prose
Chapter 99 The Noun-to-Verb Conversion Syndrome
Chapter 100 Reducing Adjective Clauses for Conciseness
Chapter 101 Reducing Adverb Clauses for Brevity
Chapter 102 Hyphenating for Clarity
Chapter 103 The Perils of Using Back-Formations
Chapter 104 Using Comparison to Clarify Things
Part V - MATTERS OF USAGE
Chapter 105 ‘That’ and Its Many Grammatical Uses
Chapter 106 The Misuses of ‘That’, “Which’, and ‘Who’
Chapter 107 Using “That” Solely as a Subordinator
Chapter 108 When ‘That’ Assumes the Role of ‘Who’
Chapter 109 The Proper Ways of Using ‘However’
Chapter 110 Dysfunctional Placements of ‘However’
Chapter 111 Choosing ‘Between’ and ‘Among’
Chapter 112 ‘Used to’ and Other Grammar Puzzlers
Chapter 113 The Grammar of Indirect Questions
Chapter 114 Saying Our Tag Questions Right
Chapter 115 Departures from the Tag-Question Rules
Chapter 116 Forming Negative Sentences Correctly
Chapter 117 Excessive Negation and Its Dangers
Chapter 118 When ‘Only’ Goes Haywire
Chapter 119 Choosing the Correct Modifiers
Chapter 120 Reining in Those Footloose Modifiers
Chapter 121 Quick Quiz on Wayward Modifiers
Part VI - MATTERS OF STYLE
Section 1 - Euphony, Tone, and Voice
Chapter 122 Aiming for Euphony in Our Prose
Chapter 123 The Wonderful Thing Called Voice
Chapter 124 Giving a Touch of Authority to Our Prose
Chapter 125 Giving Ourselves the Power of Certitude
Chapter 126 When Saying It Once Isn’t Enough
Section 2 - Style Guide for the Printed Page
Chapter 127 A Style Guide for Writing in English
Chapter 128 Dealing with Quotations and Attributions
Chapter 129 The Grammar of Numbers and Time
Part VII - MATTERS OF LANGUAGE
Chapter 130 Looking More Closely at Our Dictionaries
Chapter 131 The Need to Know the English Idioms
Chapter 132 The Five Categories of English Idioms
Chapter 133 The Language of Science
Chapter 134 Language as Alphabet Soup
Chapter 135 Using Nondiscriminatory Language
Chapter 136 The Perils of Sweeping Generalizations
Part VIII - THE NEED FOR SELF-EDITING
Chapter 137 Editing Oneself
Chapter 138 Keeping English Prose Trim and Slim
Chapter 139 More Ways to Get Rid of Clutter
Chapter 140 The Age of Imprecision
Part IX - CONVERSATIONS
Chapter 141 Do Kingfishers Eat Butter?
Chapter 142 When Educators Befuddle
Chapter 143 A Serious Bad-Grammar Syndrome
Chapter 144 The Importance of Grammar-Perfect English
Chapter 145 The Real Score About Valentine’s Day
Part X - REFLECTIONS
Chapter 146 The Days of Our Lives
Chapter 147 Teaching Our Children to Think Logically
Chapter 148 The Evil that Ignorance and Incompetence Can Do
Chapter 149 Intelligence as a Quality of the Mind
Chapter 150 Too Many Good Books to Read
Chapter 151 The Strength of Materials and People’s Folly
Chapter 152 At a Loss for Words
Chapter 153 Where in the World Has Filipino Gone
Chapter 154 The World in 854 Words
Chapter 155 The Wealth of Our Vocabulary
BACK TO TOP | RETURN TO BOOKSHOP |