The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation: An Easy-to-Use Guide with Clear Rules, Real-World Examples, and Reproducible Quizzes

Used for review and extra practice with individual 8th grade student. Clarifies somewhat abstract grammar concepts with clear explanations, good examples, and lots of short practices. Mastery tests can be taken when student feels ready to do well on them. This reinforces the student’s feeling of success. Many students just need more review and practice than classroom group instruction can provide. This book would be great for teens and adults. Straightforward and clear.

This book is super helpful. It explains grammar and punctuation rules in a really easy way, and it even points out common mistakes and how to fix them. I like that there are practice problems after each section because they really help me understand. The tips and examples are clear, and everything is well-organized, so it’s not hard to follow. I learned a lot from it!

Being a writer, this came in handy, BIG TIME! I never paid too much attention in school (with the acception of a few creative writing classes and history), but I've always loved writing. I just never really focused on the structural portion of it. When I started really focusing on writing, this was one of the first books I bought. It's great to read over then great to keep to reference later on. Sure you can google many things, but often, when I googled a question about grammatical issues, or punctuation problems, a link would send me to a reference from THIS book. Its worth the money, buy it if you need it now or think you'll need a book to reference for composition purposes down the line!

Speaking here a Writing Instructor at a Community College, I find the "BLUE BOOK" to be an invaluable tool for both assessing the level of basic skills a student has mastered, AND as a tool for bringing up to speed and then testing to verify that improvement is occurring with those students who do not demonstrate college level skills coming in. Furthermore, the limited instruction that they provide is clear, unambiguous and easily accessible to the student learner - no confusing English/linguistic jargon. Just straight instruction and examples on the right way and the wrong way to handle grammar, punctuation, et. al. My only beef with the book is that the tests questions are open ended rather than multiple choice which means that they must be completely "hand graded" which is very time consuming, especially for a writing instructor who must already do an inordinate volume of individual reading, editing and advising on essays on a broad variety of topics. UECKER

THE BLUE BOOK OF GRAMMAR AND PUNCTUATION is an essential handbook of English grammar and punctuation. I like it because the authors give specific instructions to understand each topic. The book also helps me to verify what I already know. It discusses a number of important topics. I'd love to see a chapter on CONJUNCTIONS on a future edition of the BLUE BOOK as many other recognized books do not provide such precise information on a topic as THE BLUE BOOK does. For example, the Oxford Learner's Dictionaries list the phrase 'as well as' under Idioms whereas Merriam-Webster dictionary puts them under two parts of speech: conjunction and preposition. Collins English Dictionary simply gives some sample sentences wherein 'as well as' is used. As their descriptions are insufficient, it is very time-consuming for a teacher to convince a pupil the function of 'as well as' in certain sentences: Example: 'David loves Anne as well as Jane.' Can we say 'as well as' in the said sentence functions as a preposition or a conjunction? You could simply say 'It could be either.' As such, I feel that an excellent book like THE BLUE BOOK could do better in a similar situation. Moreover, as an English Language teacher with twenty-seven years of experience, I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves to be consistent in writing. The authors of the book have researched leading reference books on American English grammar and punctuation including The Chicago Manual of Style, The Associated Press Stylebook, Fowler's Modern English Usage, and many others. The authors give useful notes when the authorities differ. Thank you. Sumedha Manabarana Dictionary links: http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/well_1#well_1__83 http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/as%20well%20as http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english

Why in the world would any American need this? Simple. Dialects, years of not studying, years of becoming comfortable writing in our own style. I like to study English. I was diagnosed with Dyslexia in the 4th grade (mid-80s). It was a point of time that few knew much about Dyslexia. I have since earned two PhDs and a MBA. And I still struggle at times with my grammar. I find that people seem to like to joke about it at my expense. "I can't believe a PhD has to study grammar". Well, I can't believe you made the same mistake 184 times and just did it again but hey, we're human. We can't be perfect and we can't be a master of every subject. Jane Straus' writing style is enjoyable to read and her explanations are very clear. The fun part for me is knowing those who like to pick on the PhD don't realize they're studying from books I had a part in researching. Education and learning is a wonderful thing that we should never believe we have mastered or "learned enough" about. Maybe hard to believe but I have read more of this book and returned to it more times than any book in my Kindle library (over 1,000). That's money well spent and for the author, it's kind of funny to write a review about a grammar book knowing all the mistakes I'm making in the review!

Some grammar rules are explained well and are clear; however, there are some gray areas, and I'm not sure whether or not this grammar book is correct about a few rules, but just a few that may differ in other grammar books. Good quiz materials, but I did not care for the tone is some areas. For example, when explaining who vs. whom, the writer indicates to "use [the] he/ him method to decide whether who or whom is correct" (12). NICELY PUT! But, the author goes on to make the following comments: "Note: This rule is compromised by an odd infatuation people have with whom -- and not for good reasons. At its worst, the use of whom becomes a form of one-upmanship some employ to appear sophisticated. The following is an example of the pseudo-sophistiacted whom ... A word to the wise: Whomever is even more of a vogue word than whom. Many use it indiscriminately to sound cultured, figuring that no one will know any better" (12-14). Great chapter about "Confusing Words and Homonyms" at the end, but some of the comments about who and whom could have been left out Superstar. Note: I would have given this book 4 stars if whoever "knew any better." (14).

Unless you are advanced literature warm you won't need anything grammar beyond this book on any level of normal school path to greatness. It explain the rules of grammar in the very clear way, it has lots of great examples and it has tons of pages where you can test your newly gained or old knowledge. FABULOUS reference book as well. GET IT! Worth it!

Easy to read. Written in bite size grammar chunks!

La gramatica es muy importante para la redaccion y este libro te ayuda y es muy completo.

Es una guía muy práctica y útil. Ojalá lo hubiese tenido antes !!! Lo recomiendo para todos los niveles de inglés !!

I bought it to look up rules that I had forgotten while I taught grammar to my HS students. It has helped me a whole lot to recall rules that i have forgotten myself. I use the quizzes in class and I have seen improvement in writing. Good book.

Wish this had been my first grammar and punctuation book. It provides you with easy to understand rules and guidelines with examples. There are also quizzes with answers that will test your knowledge. This will give you more confidence in your writing. I highly recommended this excellent book.