Introduction 1 Foolish Assumptions 2 Icons Used in This Book 2 Beyond the Book 3 Where to Go from Here 3 Part 1: Building A Firm Foundation: Grammar Basics 5 Chapter 1: Tailoring Language to Suit Your Audience and Purpose 7 Climbing the Ladder of Language Formality 8 Matching Message to Situation 10 Answers to "Tailoring Language to Suit Your Audience and Purpose" 13 Chapter 2: Identifying the Major Elements of a Sentence 15 Going to the Heart of the Matter: The Verb 15 Treasure hunt: Finding the verb 16 Choosing the correct verb for negative expressions 17 Questioning with verbs 18 Aiding and abetting: Helping verbs 19 Zeroing in on the Subject 20 When one isn''t enough: Forming noun plurals 21 Adding Meaning: Objects and Complements 23 Answers to Questions about Major Elements of a Sentence 25 Chapter 3: Having It All: Writing Complete Sentences 29 Finding Subjects and Verbs that Match 30 Checking for Complete Thoughts 31 Improving Flow with Properly Joined Sentences 33 Setting the Tone with Endmarks 36 Proper Sentence or Not? That Is the Question 37 Calling All Overachievers: Extra Practice with Complete Sentences 39 Answers to Complete Sentence Problems 40 Part 2: Clearing Up Confusing Grammar Points 45 Chapter 4: Finding the Right Verb at the Right Time 47 Using Past, Present, and Future Tense at the Right Times 47 Putting Perfect Tenses in the Spotlight 49 Speaking of the Past and Things That Never Change 51 Romeo Lives! Writing about Literature and Art in Present Tense 53 Hitting Curveballs: Irregular Forms 54 Getting a Handle on Common Irregulars: Be and Have 56 Calling All Overachievers: Extra Practice with Verbs 58 Answers to Problems on Verbs and Verb Tenses 59 Chapter 5: Agreement: Choosing Singular or Plural Verbs and Pronouns 67 Meeting Their Match: Pairing Subjects and Verbs 67 Boning up on the basics 68 Taming the tough guys: Difficult subjects 70 Dealing with tricksters 72 Matching Pronouns and Antecedents 73 Calling All Overachievers: Extra Practice with Hitching Subjects and Verbs 77 Answers to Subject, Verb, and Pronoun Pairing Problems 78 Chapter 6: Solving Pronoun Case 85 Meeting the Subject at Hand and the Object of My Affection 85 To "Who" or To "Whom"? That Is the Question 87 You Talkin'' to Me, or I? Pronouns as Objects of Prepositions 89 Matching Possessive Pronouns to "-ing" Nouns 90 Missing in Action: Choosing Pronouns for Implied Comparisons 91 Calling All Overachievers: Extra Practice with Pronoun Case 92 Answers to Advanced Pronoun Problems 93 Chapter 7: Little Words Packing a Lot of Power: Prepositions and Interjections 99 Pinning Down Prepositions 100 Interjections Are Simple! 102 Calling All Overachievers: Extra Practice with Prepositions and Interjections 103 Answers to Questions About Prepositions and Interjections 104 Chapter 8: Writing Good or Well: Adjectives and Adverbs 107 Identifying Adjectives and Adverbs 107 The Right Place at the Right Time: Placing Adjectives and Adverbs 109 How''s It Going? Choosing Between Good/Well and Bad/Badly 111 Mastering the Art of Articles 112 For Better or Worse: Forming Comparisons 113 Visiting the -ER (and the -EST): One- or two-word comparisons 113 Going from bad to worse (and good to better): Irregular comparisons 116 Calling All Overachievers: Extra Practice with Descriptors 117 Answers to Adjective and Adverb Problems 118 Part 3: Mastering Mechanics 125 Chapter 9: A Hook That Can Catch You: Apostrophes 127 Showing Who Owns What: Possessives 128 Tightening Up Text: Contractions 129 Calling All Overachievers: Extra Practice with Apostrophes 132 Answers to Apostrophe Problems 133 Chapter 10: "Can I Quote You on That?" Quotation Marks 137 Quoting and Paraphrasing: What''s the Difference? 137 Giving Voice to Direct Quotations 139 Punctuating Titles 140 Calling All Overachievers: Extra Practice with Quotation Marks 142 Answers to Quotation Problems 143 Chapter 11: Pausing to Consider the Comma 147 Keeping Lists in Order with Commas and Semicolons 148 Directly Addressing the Listener or Reader 150 Punctuating Dates and Addresses 150 Placing Commas in Combined Sentences 152 Inserting Extras with Commas: Introductions and Interruptions 154 Setting Descriptions Apart 155 Calling All Overachievers: Extra Practice with Commas 157 Answers to Comma Problems 158 Chapter 12: Handling Dashes, Hyphens, and Colons 165 Dashing Off 165 Helping Yourself to Hyphens 167 Coming to a Stop: Colons 168 Calling All Overachievers: Extra Practice with Dashes, Hyphens, and Colons 170 Answers to Problems on Dashes, Hyphens, and Colons 171 Chapter 13: Hitting the Big Time: Capital Letters 175 Paying Respect to People''s Names and Titles 176 Capitalizing the Right Time and Place 177 Working with Business and School Terms 178 Capitalizing Titles of Literary and Media Works 180 Managing Capital Letters in Abbreviations 181 Calling All Overachievers: Extra Practice with Capital Letters 182 Answers to Capitalization Problems 183 Chapter 14: Writing for Electronic Media 187 Knowing Your Audience: The Right Writing for the Right Situation 187 Shortening Your Message 190 Powering Up Your Presentation Slides 192 Calling All Overachievers: Extra Practice with Electronic Media 195 Answers to Electronic Media Problems 196 Part 4: Going Above and Beyond: The Finer Points of Grammar and Style 199 Chapter 15: Going for the Gold: The Finer Points of Verb Usage 201 Voicing an Opinion: Active and Passive Verbs 201 In the Mood: Selecting the Right Verb for All Sorts of Sentences 203 Indicating facts: Indicative mood 204 Issuing commands: Imperative mood 204 Telling lies: Subjunctive mood 205 Spicing Up Sentences by Adding Interesting Verbs 207 Calling All Overachievers: Extra Practice with Voice and Mood 208 Answers to Voice and Mood Problems 210 Chapter 16: Identifying Clauses and Their Effects 215 Locating Clauses 215 Sorting Independent and Subordinate Clauses 217 Making Clauses Work Together 218 Answers to Clause Problems 221 Chapter 17: Adding Style to Sentences 225 Speaking Verbally 225 Identifying verbals 226 Telling time with verbals 227 Playing with Sentence Patterns 228 Introductory elements 228 Combining ideas and changing word order 231 Calling All Overachievers: Extra Practice Honing Your Sentences 233 Answers to Sentence Improvement Problems 234 Chapter 18: Staying on Track: Parallel Writing 239 Geometry Meets English: Making Sentences Parallel 239 Staying in Gear: Avoiding Unnecessary Shifts 242 Following Special Rules for VIPs: Very Important Pairs 245 Drawing Parallel Comparisons 247 Calling All Overachievers: Extra Practice with Parallels 248 Answers to Parallelism Problems 249 Chapter 19: Steering Clear of Confusion: Clarity 255 Putting Descriptive Words in Their Proper Place 255 Inserting single-word descriptions 256 Relocating longer descriptions 257 Dangling descriptions 259 Getting caught in the middle: Vague descriptions 262 Avoiding Illogical Comparisons 263 Completing half-finished comparisons 263 Being smarter than yourself: Illogical comparisons 265 Making Sure Your Pronouns Are Meaningful 267 Calling All Overachievers: Extra Practice in Writing Clear Sentences 269 Answers to Clarity Problems 270 Chapter 20: Dealing with Grammar Demons 277 Dropping Double Negatives 277 Telling Word-Twins Apart 279 Distinguishing Between Commonly Confused Words 280 Counting and Measuring Grammatically 281 Taming Tricky Verbs 282 Banishing Bogus Expressions 283 Calling All Overachievers: Extra Practice with Tricky Words 287 Answers to Grammar Demon Problems 288 Appendix: Grabbing Grammar Goofs 293 Index 313.