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• Cover
• Introduction
• About This Book
• Conventions Used in This Book
• Foolish Assumptions
• Icons Used in This Book
• Where to Go from Here
• Chapter 1: Grasping Grammar Nitty-Gritty
• Grammar: What It Is!
• The Big Ideas of Grammar
• Putting Grammar to Work in the Real World
• Chapter 2: Making Peace between Subjects and Verbs
• Getting Reacquainted with Verbs
• Identifying Subjects
• Give Peace a Chance: Making Subjects and Verbs Agree
• Coming to an Agreement with Difficult Subjects
• Chapter 3: Perfecting Your Pronoun Usage
• Playing Matchmaker with Pronouns and Nouns
• Selecting Singular or Plural Pronouns
• Getting Possessive with Your Pronouns
• Keeping Your Pronouns and Antecedents Close
• Pairing Pronouns with Pronoun Antecedents
• Avoiding Sexist Pronouns
• Chapter 4: Constructing a Complete Sentence
• Creating Complete Sentences from Complete Thoughts
• Banning Fragments from Formal Writing
• Enough Is Enough: Avoiding Run-ons
• Attaching Sentences Legally
• Connecting Unequal Ideas
• Combining Sentences with Pronouns
• Don’t Keep Your Audience Hanging: Removing Danglers
• Chapter 5: Drawing Parallels (Without the Lines)
• Seeking Balance
• Striving for Consistency
• Using Conjunction Pairs Correctly
• Constructing Proper Comparisons
• Chapter 6: Adjectives, Adverbs, and Comparisons
• Spotting Adjectives
• Hunting for Adverbs
• Sorting through Some Sticky Choices
• Getting Picky about Word Placement
• Creating Comparisons
• Chapter 7: Polishing Your Punctuation
• More Rules Than the IRS: Using Apostrophes
• Quoting Correctly
• Making Comma Sense
• Mastering Dashes
• Wielding Hyphens with Ease
• Creating a Stopping Point: Colons
• Chapter 8: Capitalizing Correctly
• Covering the Basic Rules
• Capitalizing (Or Not) References to People
• Getting a Geography Lesson: Places, Directions, and More
• Looking at Seasons and Times of Day
• Getting Schooled in Education Terms
• Wrestling with Capitals in Titles
• Writing about Events and Eras
• Capitalizing Abbreviations
• Chapter 9: Choosing the Right Words
• One Word or Two?
• Separating Possessive Pronouns from Contractions
• Using Words That Seem Interchangeable but Aren’t
• A Word and a Phrase to Avoid
• Chapter 10: Tackling Other Troublemakers
• Creating Noun Plurals
• Perfecting Prepositions
• Deleting Double Negatives
• Chapter 11: Improving Your Writing
• Identifying Your Audience
• Cutting Ties with Your Computer Grammar Checker
• Giving Your Writing Punch with Great Verbs
• Deleting All That’s Extra
• Spicing Up Boring Sentences
• Writing for Electronic Media
• Chapter 12: Ten Ways to Improve Your Grammar Every Day
• Pick Up a Good Book
• Read the Newspaper
• Sample Some Magazines
• Delve into Strunk and White
• Surf the Web
• Review Style Manuals
• Watch High-Quality TV Shows
• Peruse the News
• Download Podcasts
• Listen to Authorities
• Index
• About the Author
• Connect with Dummies
• End User License Agreement