CONTENTS

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Grammar

Agreement G.1 Fewer vs. Less (aka Count Nouns vs. Mass Nouns) G.2 Number vs. Amount (aka Count Nouns vs. Mass Nouns) G.3 A Great Deal of (aka Count Nouns vs. Mass Nouns) G.4 Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement G.5 Plural Subject, Plural Objects G.6 Subject-Verb Agreement

Pronouns
G.7 I or Me, Which Is It?
G.8 Myself/Yourself/Herself/Ourselves/Yourselves/Themselves
G.9 That/Which/Who/Whom G.10 Who/Whom/Whoever/Whomever

Sentences G.11 Sentence Fragments (Something to avoid) G.12 Whereas/Although/Though and As Far As

Verbs G.13 -ing Forms G.14 Had vs Would Have and If Clauses G. 15 Might vs May G.16 To Lie (To Recline) vs To Lay (To Place) G. 17 Present Subjunctive and Were vs. Was with If Clauses

Other Common Errors G.18 Between-Among G.19 Confusing Prepositional Phrases: Singulars and Plurals G. 20 Consistent Use of Plural G.21 Than

Punctuation

Apostrophes P.1 Apostrophe Pitfalls P.2 Contraction P.3 Possession P.4 Plural Forms of Years and Other Perfectly Respectable Nouns

Colons P.5 Colons in Complicated Sentences P.6 Colons in Simple Lists

Commas P.7 Comma Splices (Something To Avoid) P.8 Introductory Phrases and Clauses P.9 Commas with Coordinating Conjunctions P.10 Apposition P.11 Commas in a List

Periods P.12 Periods

Quotation Marks P.13 When Do You Use Quotation Marks? P.14 Where Does the End Punctuation Go?

Semicolons P.15 Semicolons in a Complex List P.16 Semicolons Where You COULD Use Periods

Spelling

Capitalization S.1 Proper Nouns S.2 Common Nouns S.3 Adjectives That Need To Be Capitalized

Other Common Errors S.4 Accustom/Accustomed S.5 Advice/Advise S.6 Affect/Effect S.7 Aisle/Isle S.8 Allusion/Illusion S.9 A lot/Allot/ A Lot S.10 Alright/All Right S.11 Altogether/All Together S.12 Anymore/Any More S.13 A Part/Apart S.14 Asterik/Asterisk S.15 Awhile/ A while S.16 Bare/Bear/Bear S.17 Being that/Since (or Because) S.18 Bias/Biased S.19 Can not/Cannot S.20 Chose/Choose S.21 Coarse/ourse S.22 Defiant/Definate/Definite S.23 Do to/ Due to S.24 Dominant/Dominate S.25 Ect./Etc. S.26 Every Day/Everyday S.27 Except/Accept S.28 Heighth/Height S.29 It's/Its S.30 Lead/Lead/Led S.31 Loose/Lose S.32 Momento/Memento S.33 Moral/Morale S.34 Nonetheless/None the Less/Nevertheless/Never the Less S.35 Noticable/Noticeable S.36 Occurrance/Occurrence S.37 Onetime/ One Time; Sometime/ Some Time S.38 Past/Passed S.39 Populous/Populace S.40 Preform/Perform S.41 Prejudice/Prejudiced S.42 Principal/Principle S.43 Recent/Resent S.44 Recieve/Receive S.45 Recue/Reoccur S.46 Scientist/Scientists S.47 Sight/Site/Cite S.48 Tenant/Tenet S.49 Their/There/They're S.50 Then/Than S.51 Through out/Throughout S.52 Through/Thru/Threw S.53 To/Too/Two S.54 Use To/Used To S.55 Vain, Vein, Vane S.56 Verses/Versus S.57 Where/Were S.58 Who's/Whose S.59 With regards to/With regard to S.60 Woman/Women S.61 Would of/Would Have

Usage U.1 Errors and Choices U.2 False Elegance: Pronouns U.3 False Elegance: Empty Expressions U.4 False Elegance: Unnecessarily Fancy Words U.5 Execessively Casual Tone: Terms of Address vs. Terms of Reference U.6 Nouns Used as Other Parts of Speech U.7 Sentences Ending in Prepositions U.8 Split Infinitives U.9 Bring/Take U.10 Enormity/Enormousness: Mistaken Synonyms U.11 Nouns ending in -ee U.12 Different Than/Different From U.13 Disinterested Than/Different From U.14 Infer/Imply U.15 Suppose/Supposed U.16 To try and/To try to U.17 Weird Plurals

A Final Word

Paragraphing

Index

"What you have in your hand is not a style manual nor a grammar book, both of which deal comprehensively with the mechanics of language and writing. Instead, it is a collection of common errors made by students, along with explanations in most cases of why they ARE errors, and examples of ways to correct them. [...]

So, this book is both a reference (for you to use when you have a question about some particular problem) and a guide (for you to use to correct errors that your instructor has noted in your writing), and it is very easy to use. It is divided into five main parts: Grammar, Punctuation, Spelling, Usage, and A Final Word. Within those parts, we have divided the contents further into other easily identified parts. Under the main heading Grammar, for instance, we have included significant sub-headings, such as Agreement, Pronouns, Verbs, et. And finally, we have arranged all the errors by name alphabetically and have assigned them numbers, so that under the sub-heading Agreement, the question of using fewer vs. less is labeled as G1, etc." (Preface, pp. ix-xi)

CONTENTS