Designed to support student writers by teaching them to avoid or correct the most common types of usage errors, this manual/workbook is more than simply a descriptive grammar text. Varied exercises help students build mastery and confidence. Concise, clear explanations of principles, engaging examples and appealing humor are generously included throughout. In addition, a battery of exercises assist in preparing for the writing section of the SAT, and covers paragraph revision, error identification and sentence revision.

Table of Contents

1. Apostrophes
2. Subject-Verb Agreement:
a. Linking subject and verb
b. With a compound subject
c. When the subject is an indefinite pronoun
d. With collective nouns, nouns of quantity
3. Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement
4. Punctuation with Quotations

Writer’s Reference: Handling Quotations in Literary Essays

5. Pronoun Case:
a. Personal pronouns
b. Relative pronouns (Who or Whom?)
6. Punctuation with Independent Clauses

Writer’s Reference: Curing the comma-splice error

7. Pronoun Reference
8. Modifying Errors
9. Punctuation with Essential and Nonessential Elements

Writer’s Reference: punctuation with essential/nonessential adverb clauses

10. Verb Forms:
a. Tense
b. Subjunctive Mood
c. Tense of Participles

Writer’s Reference: passive voice

11. Parallelism
12. Comparisons
13. Double negatives

Writer’s Reference: redundancy

Words to Watch Out For

Final Review Exercises

SAT-style Exercises