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

by Jane Straus (Author), Mignon Fogarty (Foreword)
Key Phrases: Words Quiz, Answ Hyphens, Whomever Quiz (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation is filled with easy-to-understand rules,real-world examples, dozens of reproducible exercises, and pre- and post-tests.

This handy workbook is ideal for teachers, students in middle school through college, ESL students, homeschoolers, and professionals. Valuable for anyone who takes tests or writes reports, letters, Web pages, e-mails, or blogs, The Blue Book offers instant answers to everyday English usage questions.

From the Back Cover
The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation, Tenth Edition

"Designed to answer the most pressing grammar, punctuation, capitalization, and usage questions . . . In this revised and updated tenth edition of her best-selling book, Jane Straus adds a new section on Confusing Words and Homonyms with hundreds of the trickiest words defined and explained. Hailed as 'a masterpiece of clarity and usefulness.'"
—From the Foreword by Mignon Fogarty, creator of the Grammar Girl podcast

The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation is filled with easy-to-understand rules,real-world examples, dozens of reproducible exercises, and pre- and post-tests.

This handy workbook is ideal for teachers, students in middle school through college, ESL students, homeschoolers, and professionals. Valuable for anyone who takes tests or writes reports, letters, Web pages, e-mails, or blogs, The Blue Book offers instant answers to everyday English usage questions.

Praise for Jane Straus and The Blue Book

"Clearly presented so that you can easily find the informationyou're looking for. This is great for students or for anyone who has troubleremembering the rules of grammar and punctuation."
—Kate Russell, BBC World/ClickOnline

"Never has there been such a well-arranged, easily navigatedguidebook as this. It is perfect for the homeschool family. One of the mostpractical, useable, beneficial resources, it doubles both as a quick referenceguide and student workbook (with answers in the back)!"
—The Old Schoolhouse Magazine

"Grammarians and citizens, I invite you to raise a glass to Jane Straus. The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation is one-stop shopping for comprehensive grammar and style rules and is as charming as it is useful. I can't imagine one person whose writing wouldn't benefit enormously from reading this book."
—Kate McCulley, The Grammar Vandal, www.thegrammarvandal.com

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Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass; 10 edition (December 14, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0470222689
• ISBN-13: 978-0470222683
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,156 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Grammar Book!!!!, December 25, 2007

By	A. Jorge "LaLocaLibby" (DR, Santo Domingo) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I found this book searching a grammar rule in Google and entered to the author's site (a very good site). This book is really useful, has many grammar rules and punctuations. At the end of the book, it has a series of quizzes of each chapter and its answers. I really appreciate to have found this book!!!!!!!!

148 of 176 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Full of errors and omissions, January 7, 2008

By	Concerned - See all my reviews

I have been an English professor for fifteen years, and my advice is that people interested in improving their grammar find a better book than this one. It is full of errors. I care very much about getting students to write and speak properly (for many it's a key to success), and that's why I am so disappointed in this book. (By the way, I have not written any book that competes with this one for your dollars.) Better material is available free of charge on the internet.

I will list some errors below, all found in the very first section of the book, and you will note that in all the canned testimonials that appear on this site, not one of my statements will be refuted. Instead, you will hear about how this book "answered all of my questions" or "helped me land my dream job" or "turned my company around," etc. Nonsense.

ERROR 1: On page 2 we are told, "A subject will come before a phrase beginning with 'of'." This is simply not a rule; subjects often follow "of". Consider this sentence: "Hoping to win the respect of her employer, Sandra learned to speak fluent English." The subject, Sandra, comes after a phrase beginning with "of" ("of her employer"), not before one. Someone who followed the rule in the book might falsely conclude that "respect" is the subject, as it comes before "of".

ERROR 2: There are grammar and punctuation errors in the writing itself. On page 1 we read, "Being able to identify the subject and verb correctly will also help you with commas and semicolons as you will see later." It is certainly odd that a sentence about proper punctuation should itself include a punctuation error; a mandatory comma has been omitted between "semicolons" and "as."

ERROR 3: On page 2 we are told, most unhelpfully, "To find the subject and verb, always find the verb first." (This is like a recipe that says, "To bake a cake and make frosting for it, first bake the cake," and leaves its instructions on cake-baking at that.) Once you find the verb, the book continues, "Then ask who or what performed the verb." This sloppy wording is almost bound to cause confusion. Consider this sentence: "In spite of the bad instructions, the error was found by the student." The verb is "was found," and the student did the finding. It would be natural to suppose, then, that the student "performed the verb" and thus is the subject. The subject, however, is "the error," not "the student".

All of these problems (and others I have not mentioned) are found on the first two pages of the book.

Please note that no one promoting this book will defend the idea that subjects must precede phrases beginning with "of," or that finding "who performed the verb" gives students enough to go on to determine the subject, or that the author makes no punctuation errors of her own in the book. They as good as admit that some of the rules in the book are wrong, that the explanations are inadequate, and that the author makes punctuation errors. So one wonders what might motivate these people to endorse the book. As for my motive, it is this: concern for students who will be (and have been) misled by this faulty product.

The previous edition used crucial terms that it did not bother to define--like "direct object," "object of the preposition," and even "preposition" itself.

Imagine a grammar book that leaves students in the dark about the meaning of the word "preposition," and you have some idea of what this book is like.

As for crucial grammatical elements like transitive verbs, the subjunctive, linking verbs, helping verbs--they were not even mentioned. Will anyone step forward and say, "In this edition, 'preposition' is defined and transitive verbs are discussed"? Of course not.

This book omits even very basic material, and, what is worse, much of what it does say is misleadingly phrased or just plain wrong. You can do better.

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Thumbs up from the parents AND the kids!, February 2, 2008

By	D. Jennings "greeneking" (upstate NY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

A couple of weeks ago I was reading a book of short stories while waiting for car repairs. The book was written by a successful, respected author and the stories were quite enjoyable. However, there were so many grammatical errors that it eventually became distracting. Yes, I took out my pencil and started correcting the errors. (my favorite was the mention of someone who had elaborately QUAFFED hair!) How was it, I wondered, that neither the famous writer nor her editor had a grammar book handy when they were getting the book ready for publication?

THIS is the book they could have used. No, it is not a textbook, and it won't teach you everything there is to know about the English language. But it's good for a quick reference, the list of homophones is extensive and very useful, and it will make you a better writer. The book covers topics from the very basic ("a" vs. "an") to more advanced writing skills (hyphens, en dashes and em dashes,)to very subtle differences which are common sources of errors ("that" vs. "which"). If you read it all the way through, you won't remember everything, but you WILL learn things. I consider myself a good writer, but I learned quite a few things from this book.

I have two children, one in middle school and one in high school, and both enjoyed taking the quizzes in the back of the book. Call us a whole family of grammar nerds, but we thought it was fun!

Yes, there are some mistakes in this book, and I would suggest a more thorough editing for the eleventh edition. I'm not terribly busy, by the way, if they're looking for volunteers.