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• Cover
• Introduction
• Foolish Assumptions
• Icons Used in This Book
• Beyond the Book
• Where to Go from Here
• Part 1: Building a Firm Foundation: The Parts of the Sentence
• Chapter 1: Using the Right Words at the Right Time
• What This Year’s Sentence Is Wearing: Understanding Grammar and Style
• Distinguishing Between the Three Englishes
• Thumbing Your Way to Better Grammar
• Probing the Limits of Grammar-Checking Software
• What’s Your Problem? Solutions to Your Grammar Gremlins
• Chapter 2: Verbs: The Heart of the Sentence
• Expressing Meaning with Verbs
• Meeting the Families: Linking and Action Verbs
• Calling the Help Line for Verbs
• Pop the Question: Locating the Verb
• Chapter 3: Who’s Doing What? How to Find the Subject
• Who’s Driving the Truck? Why the Subject Is Important
• Pop the Question: Locating the Subject–Verb Pairs
• What’s a Nice Subject Like You Doing in a Place Like This? Unusual Word Order
• Find That Subject! Detecting You-Understood
• Searching for the Subject in Questions
• Don’t Get Faked Out: Avoiding Fake Verbs and Subjects
• Subjects Aren’t Just a Singular Sensation: Forming the Plural of Nouns
• Chapter 4: When All Is Said and Done: Complete Sentences
• Completing Sentences: The Essential Subjects and Verbs
• Complete Thoughts, Complete Sentences
• Joining Forces: Combining Sentences Correctly
• Boss and Employee: Joining Ideas of Unequal Ranks
• Choosing Subordinate Conjunctions
• Using Pronouns to Combine Sentences
• Understanding Fragments
• Reaching the End of the Line: Endmarks
• Chapter 5: Handling Complements
• Getting a Piece of the Action: Complements for Action Verbs
• Completing the Equation: Subject Complements
• Pop the Question: Locating the Complement
• Pop the Question: Finding the Indirect Object
• Pronouns as Objects and Subject Complements
• Part 2: Clearing Up Confusing Grammar Points
• Chapter 6: Relax! Understanding Verb Tense
• Simplifying Matters: The Simple Tenses
• Using the Simple Tenses Correctly
• Not Picture Perfect: Understanding the Perfect Tenses
• Using the Perfect Tenses Correctly
• Reporting Information: Verbs Tell the Story
• The Rebels: Dealing with Irregular Verbs
• Chapter 7: Nodding Your Head: All About Agreement
• Agreeing Not to Disagree
• Making Subjects and Verbs Agree
• Matching Subjects and Verbs in Some Tricky Situations
• Reaching an Agreement with Pronouns
• Agreeing in Tricky Situations
• Dealing Sensitively with Pronoun Gender
• Chapter 8: Pronouns and Their Cases
• Me Like Tarzan: Choosing Subject Pronouns
• Using Pronouns as Direct and Indirect Objects
• Are You Talking to I? Prepositions and Pronouns
• Attaching Objects to Verbals
• Knowing the Difference Between Who and Whom
• Pronouns of Possession: No Exorcist Needed
• Dealing with Pronouns and “-Ing” Nouns
• Chapter 9: Small Words, Big Trouble: Prepositions
• Proposing Relationships: Prepositions
• The Objects of My Affection: Prepositional Phrases and Their Objects
• A Good Part of Speech to End a Sentence With?
• Chapter 10: Two Real Really Good Parts of Speech: Adjectives and Adverbs
• Clarifying Meaning with Descriptions
• Adding Adjectives
• Stalking the Common Adverb
• Choosing Between Adjectives and Adverbs
• Creating Comparisons with Adjectives and Adverbs
• Breaking the Rules: Irregular Comparisons
• Part 3: Conventional Wisdom: Punctuation and Capitalization
• Chapter 11: Punctuation Law That Should Be Repealed: Apostrophes
• The Pen of My Aunt or My Aunt’s Pen? Using Apostrophes to Show Possession
• Possession with Proper Nouns
• Ownership with Hyphenated Words
• Possessive Nouns That End in S
• Common Apostrophe Errors with Pronouns
• Shortened Words for Busy People: Contractions
• You Coulda Made a Contraction Mistake
• Chapter 12: Quotations: More Rules Than the Internal Revenue Service
• And I Quote
• Punctuating Quotations
• Who Said That? Identifying Speaker Changes
• Germ-Free Quotations: Using Sanitizing Quotation Marks
• Punctuating Titles: When to Use Quotation Marks
• Chapter 13: The Pause That Refreshes: Commas
• Distinguishing Items: Commas in Series
• Using “Comma Sense” to Add Information to Your Sentence
• You Talkin’ to Me? Direct Address
• Using Commas in Addresses and Dates
• Getting Started: The Introductory Comma
• Punctuating Independently
• Chapter 14: Useful Little Marks: Dashes, Hyphens, and Colons
• Inserting Information with Dashes
• H-y-p-h-e-n-a-t-i-n-g Made Easy
• Creating a Stopping Point: Colons
• Chapter 15: CAPITAL LETTERS
• Knowing What’s Up with Uppercase
• Capitalizing (or Not) References to People
• Capitalizing Geography: Directions, Places, and Languages
• Marking Seasons and Other Times
• Schooling: Courses, Years, and Subjects
• Writing Capitals in Titles
• Concerning Historic Capitals: Events and Eras
• ?4U: Cn U AbbreV8?
• Chapter 16: Rules of Thumb: Adapting Grammar to Electronic Media
• Thumb Wrestling with Grammar: Texts, Tweets, and Instant Messages
• Emailing Your Way to Good Grammar
• Handling Grammar on the Internet
• PowerPoint to the People
• Part 4: Polishing Without Wax: The Finer Points of Grammar and Style
• Chapter 17: Fine-Tuning Verbs
• Giving Voice to Verbs
• Actively Seeking a Better Voice
• Getting Your Verbs in the Proper Mood
• Adding Meaning with Strong Verbs
• Chapter 18: No Santas but Plenty of Clauses
• Understanding the Basics of Clause and Effect
• Chapter 19: Spicing Up Sentence Patterns
• Getting Verbal
• Choosing the Correct Tense
• Sprucing Up Boring Sentences with Clauses and Verbals
• Mixing It Up: Changing Sentence Patterns
• Chapter 20: Staying on Track: Parallelism
• Constructing Balanced Sentences
• Shifting Grammar into Gear: Avoiding Stalled Sentences
• Seeing Double: Conjunction Pairs
• Avoiding Lopsided Comparisons
• Chapter 21: Meaning What You Say: Clarity
• On Location: Placing Descriptions Correctly
• Finding the Subject When Words Are Missing from the Sentence
• Comparatively Speaking: Incomplete and Illogical Comparisons
• Steering Clear of Vague Pronouns
• Chapter 22: Grammar Devils
• Deleting Double Negatives
• Scoring D Minus
• Distinguishing Between Word Twins and Triplets
• Close, But Not Close Enough: Words That Resemble Each Other
• Roaming Descriptions
• Pairs of Trouble: Complicated Verbs
• Two Not for the Price of One
• Four for the Road: Other Common Errors
• Part 5: The Part of Tens
• Chapter 23: Ten Ways Two to Improve Your Proofreading
• Reread
• Wait a While
• Read It Aloud
• Check the Commas
• Swap with a Friend
• Let the Computer Program Help
• Check the Verbs
• Check the Pronouns
• Know Your Typing Style
• The Usual Suspects
• Chapter 24: Relax Already! Grammar Rules You Can Stop Worrying About
• To Not Split an Infinitive
• A Good Part of Speech to End a Sentence With
• What Can or May I Do?
• Formal Greetings in Emails and Texts
• Addresses and Dates in Electronic Communication
• Periods and Commas in Some Electronic Messages
• The Jury Are Out on This Rule
• That? Who?
• Who/Whom Is Correct?
• Hopefully This Rule Has Faded
• About the Author
• Advertisement Page
• Connect with Dummies
• End User License Agreement