Scholastic Guide: Checking Your Grammar

by Terban, Marvin; Spacek, Peter

• ISBN13: 9780590494557
• ISBN10: 0590494554
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1994-07-01
• Publisher: Scholastic Reference

Summary

The best-selling grammar guide gets a fresh, new cover design for Fall 2002. This easy-to-use reference book helps you edit your writing before someone else reads it. Parts of speech * Irregular nouns and verbs The 100 Most Commonly Confused and Misused Words What Makes a Good Sentence Capitalization * Contractions * Compound Words * Idioms Abbreviations * Punctuation * Spelling * Acronyms

Author Biography

Marvin Terban is a bestselling, award-winning author of more than 30 books for children, most of them about the English language. Called a "master of wordplay" by the American Library Association's Booklist and "Mr. English for Kids" by the Children's Book-of-the-Month Club, Marvin is truly an expert on teaching the art of language. For over 40 years, Marvin has taught English, Latin, Public Speaking, Theater, and other subjects at Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School in New York City.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Twenty Common Grammatical Errors and How to Fix Them
Building Sentences
Section Table of Contents	p. 9
A Crash Course in Sentence-building	p. 10
More About Subjects and Predicates	p. 11
Four Kinds of Sentences and What They Do	p. 14
Three Ways to Build a Sentence	p. 16
When a Group of Words is Not a Sentence	p. 18
Making Nouns and Verbs Work Together: Subject-Verb Agreement	p. 20
Parts of Speech
Section Table of Contents	p. 25
Nouns
What is a noun?	p. 27
Kinds of Nouns	p. 28
Eight Uses of Nouns	p. 34
Pronouns
What is a pronoun?	p. 41
Personal Pronouns	p. 41
Five Other Kinds of Pronouns	p. 49
Verbs
What is a verb?	p. 53
Main Verbs and Helping Verbs	p. 54
Verb Tenses	p. 55
The Three Principal Parts of Verbs	p. 56
The Verb "To Be" and Other Linking Verbs	p. 60
Adjectives
What is an adjective?	p. 64
Three Kinds of Adjectives	p. 64
Comparison of Adjectives	p. 66
Where an Adjective Goes in a Sentence	p. 68
Adverbs
What is an adverb?	p. 69
When Adverbs Describe Verbs	p. 69
When Adverbs Describe Adjectives	p. 71
When Adverbs Describe Other Adverbs	p. 72
Comparison of Adverbs	p. 73
Prepositions
What is a preposition?	p. 74
Four Things Prepositions Tell	p. 74
Compound Prepositions	p. 76
Prepositional Phrases	p. 77
Conjunctions
What is a conjunction?	p. 78
Kinds of Conjunctions	p. 78
Interjections
What is an interjection?	p. 81
Style and Usage
Section Table of Contents	p. 83
Punctuation Rules Everybody Needs	p. 84
When and Why to CAPITALIZE a Word	p. 98
Good Spelling Rules to Use Every Day	p. 102
Preventing Double Negatives	p. 111
Avoiding Sexist Language	p. 113
Homonyms: Words That Sound Alike but Are Spelled Differently	p. 115
100 Easily Confused and Misused Words	p. 120
Contractions: Shrinking Words	p. 126
Building Compound Words	p. 129
Idioms: When Words Mean More Than They Say	p. 131
Initials, Acronyms, and Abbreviations	p. 133
Index	p. 140
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