What Everyone Should Know About Grammar and Style

By Mary Carbone

In this accessible guide to grammar, award-winning academic writer Mary Carbone provides a new method for anyone to learn writing and communication skills. With authority and wit, she provides a book that delivers easy rules for remembering grammar, an accessible approach to writing mechanics, and a funny manual for writing style all in one.

Based on her intensive historical research into rhetorical rules and grammar, Carbone has devised a five C method promoting clearness, correctness, conciseness, courtesy, and critical thinking to produce the most forceful and effective writing for any situation. Beginning with a thorough but clear explanation of grammar rules, which includes a helpful glossary of parts of speech, she progresses to a section on style for everything from business emails to research papers. Every unit is reinforced with practical exercises and a concise summary.

Meant for students, teachers, parents, home schoolers, and the business community, this book can help everyone become a better writer, thinker, and collaborator.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mary Carbone
• Release date: Sep 27, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005303082

Book preview

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© 2021 by Mary T. Carbone, EdD

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Contents at a Glance

Preface

Part 1: Grammar and Usage

1. Eight Grammar Rules

2. Five Comma and Semicolon Rules

3. More Punctuation

4. Apostrophes

5. Capitalization

6. Spelling

Part 2: Style

7. Clear and Correct Words

8. Clear and Correct Sentences

9. Concise and Forceful Sentences

10. The Paragraph and Related Paragraphs

11. Directions for Writing in a Good Style

12. The Essay and the Research Paper

13. Business Letters and Email

14. Writing for Clarity

Part 3: Sentence Basics

15. The Sentence

Glossary of Terms

Appendix: Dictation, the Shortcut to Correctness

Acknowledgments

Contents

Preface

Part 1: Grammar and Usage

LESSON 1

Eight Grammar Rules

1. Match the verb to its subject.

2. Choose the right pronoun.

3. Match the pronoun to the noun or pronoun to which it refers.

4. Use was if something is a fact; if not, use were.

5. Use the correct forms of certain verbs.

6. Use the possessive form before certain words ending with –ing.

7. Use correct adjectives and adverbs.

8. Choose the correct preposition.

Summary

Exercises

LESSON 2

Five Comma and Semicolon Rules

1. Use commas and semicolons correctly in compound sentences.

2. Use commas between all items in a series.

3. Use commas to set off introductory phrases and clauses.

4. Use commas to set off interrupters.

5. Use commas correctly in a variety of other circumstances.

Summary

Exercises

LESSON 3

More Punctuation

1. The period

2. The question mark

3. The exclamation point

4. The em dash

5. Parentheses and brackets

6. The colon

7. Quotation marks

8. Italics

9. The hyphen

10. Numbers

11. Abbreviations

Summary

Exercises

LESSON 4

Apostrophes

1. Form the possessive singular of most nouns by adding an apostrophe and s.

2. Form the possessive plural of most nouns by adding the apostrophe alone.

3. Form the possessive of nouns whose plurals do not end in s by adding an apostrophe and s.

4. Use apostrophes in a variety of other circumstances.

Summary

Exercises

LESSON 5

Capitalization

Capitalize:

1. The first word of every sentence.

2. Proper nouns.

3. The first, last, and important words in titles of literary and artistic works.

4. The pronoun I.

5. Courtesy and professional titles before a name.

6. The salutation and the first word of the complimentary close in a letter.

Do not capitalize:

7. Common nouns.

8. Words indicating directions or general locality.

9. The names of the seasons.

10. The names of academic subject areas except for proper nouns.

Summary

Exercises

LESSON 6

Spelling

Spell commonly misspelled words correctly.

Summary

Exercises

Part 2: Style

LESSON 7

Clear and Correct Words

1. Use simple words.

2. Use specific words.

3. Avoid outdated expressions.

4. Avoid negative and offensive words.

5. Use technical terms and foreign words with caution.

6. Differentiate between misused similar words.

Summary

Exercises

LESSON 8

Clear and Correct Sentences

Clearness of the Sentence through Unity

1. Write only complete sentences.

2. Use only related ideas in one sentence.

3. Keep to one point of view.

4. Include necessary words.

5. Avoid run-on sentences.

Correctness of the Sentence through Coherence

6. Avoid illogical order.

7. Use correct pronoun reference.

8. Use parallel structure.

9. Avoid dangling modifiers.

Summary

Exercises

LESSON 9

Concise and Forceful Sentences

1. Be concise.

2. Condense elements.

3. Avoid choppiness.

4. Place important words in important places.

5. Place unimportant words in unimportant places.

6. Use active verbs most of the time.

7. Provide variety.

Summary

Exercises

LESSON 10

The Paragraph and Related Paragraphs

1. Make an outline.

2. Use the opening sentence to indicate the topic of a paragraph.

3. Arrange the sentences of a paragraph and of related paragraphs in a logical order.

4. Use transitional expressions or connectives.

5. For emphasis, place important thoughts at the beginning and/or end of the paragraph.

6. Give proportionate attention to main and to subordinate ideas.

The Four Kinds of Paragraphs

Summary

Exercises

LESSON 11

Directions for Writing in a Good Style

1. Plan your writing.

2. Compose slowly and with care.

3. Revise.

4. Be yourself.

5. Be courteous.

6. Think critically.

Summary

Exercises

LESSON 12

The Essay and the Research Paper

The Essay

The Research Paper

Summary

Exercises

LESSON 13

Business Letters and Email

Business Letters

Personal Letters and Notes for Business and Social Occasions

Business Email

Summary

Exercises

LESSON 14

Writing for Clarity

1. Format your documents for clarity and visual appeal.

2. Revise.

3. Proofread.

Summary

Exercises

Part 3: Sentence Basics

LESSON 15

The Sentence

The Parts of Speech

The Sentence

Phrases and Clauses

Fragments—Parts of Sentences

Sentences Classified by Structure

Sentences Classified by Use

Summary

Exercises

Glossary of Terms

Appendix: Dictation, the Shortcut to Correctness

Acknowledgments

Preface

Here is a new and different kind of book to help you improve your writing easily and enjoyably in just a few short weeks. With the 5 C’s method, you quickly can learn how to speak and write correctly, express yourself in a good style, and gain knowledge of the two skills most prized in the workplace: getting along with others and thinking critically.

No other book provides special exercises for those who might have limited knowledge of the parts of speech, which are difficult to learn later on. In the Appendix Dictation, the Shortcut to Correctness, however, writers will discover a shortcut for learning the parts of speech.

Whether you are a student preparing for a career, a person seeking employment, or a professional looking for greater success, you will find this new and innovative work invaluable. Classroom and homeschooling teachers will also find it of great benefit in their efforts to help students improve their writing.

My qualifications for writing this book began with my study of rhetorical principles. Between 1776 and 1828, modern rhetoricians Hugh Blair (in 1783), George Campbell, (in 1776 / n.d.) and Richard Whately (in 1828) set forth the fundamentals of writing, all three leaders emphasizing clearness, with Blair calling it the fundamental quality of style.¹

In his Lectures, Blair advocated clearness, unity, and strength, and in his Elements of Rhetoric, Whately emphasized clearness, force, and elegance.

Along the way, I learned that in 1916, George Burton Hotchkiss, the college professor considered most responsible for establishing the modern teaching of business writing in American colleges and universities, came full circle regarding the qualities of clearness, correctness, conciseness, and force. He explained how the you attitude (courtesy) was the backbone of his book, defining it as taking the reader’s point of view.

I also discovered that Sherman Cody, one of the first business English authors, is remembered for the longest-running advertisement of all time: Do You Make These Mistakes in English? By 1918, Cody had written 120 books and was considered the country’s leading business communication authority.

Cody’s greatest contribution, however, may have been his claim that force was what most readers wished to find out about. He cited the various ways for attaining force such as using words that are themselves expressive, placing the words in emphatic positions, varying the length and form of successive sentences, and making words suggest ten times as much as they say.

The C’s, then, originated in the works of Blair and Whately. In Grammar and Style, they are championed as clearness, correctness, conciseness, courtesy, critical thinking, and force.

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1 Hugh Blair, Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, (New York, sixth American edition, 1814), 102.

PART 1

Grammar and Usage

Grammar teaches us how to express our thoughts correctly.

Lesson 1: Eight Grammar Rules

Lesson 2: Five Comma and Semicolon Rules

Lesson 3: More Punctuation

Lesson 4: Apostrophes

Lesson 5: Capitalization

Lesson 6: Spelling

Lesson 1

Eight Grammar Rules

Correctness is a necessary aid to clearness.

Objectives

In this lesson, you will learn to do the following:

1. Match the verb to its subject. A wide range of choices is available.

2. Choose the right pronoun. Between you and me, you are late.

3. Match the pronoun to the noun or pronoun to which it refers. Each of the books has sold.

4. Use was if something is a fact; if not, use were. If I were you, I would not go.

5. Use the correct forms of certain verbs. The patient was urged to lie down.

6. Use the possessive form before certain words ending with –ing. I had not heard of your being ill.

7. Use correct adjectives and adverbs. She felt bad about the situation.

8. Choose the correct preposition. Janet became angry with (not at) the members.

Eight basic grammar rules account for the errors most frequently made in spoken and written English.

1. Match the verb to its subject.

A frequent, distracting error of writing is