Useful to both students of Standard English in schools and colleges as well as learners of English as a foreign language. This book explains common mistakes in English and how to correct your use of the language. Useful to both students of Standard English in schools and colleges as well as learners of English as a foreign language. This book explains English in contemporary use.

Through the Mist and toward the Light: Grammar for the First Year College Writer offers a new approach to grammatical concepts to encourage and improve the grammar proficiency and writing skills for beginning writers. Far from a traditional handbook, the text presents innovative, engaging, practical, and accessible approaches to grammar that is often found difficult to first year college students. Section 1 of the text builds on the premise that good sentence structure is based on a student's ability to identify how each word in a sentence is being used. To that end, the section offers an in-depth look at the parts of speech and the many rules surrounding their correct usage. Section 2 fosters writing proficiency through an analysis of the most often misused punctuation symbols in the writing of first year students, offering detailed exercises to promote correct usage. Section 3 walks students through the common inhibitors to sound sentence structure and rhythm, and focuses on concepts often found challenging for multilingual student writers. The final section helps students transition to the next level of writing proficiency by introducing them to the intricacies of structural and transformational diagramming to engage their own sentence structure, build on what they have learned, and continue to develop their mastery of grammar. Through the Mist and toward the Light is an ideal and practical resource for foundational courses in writing and composition. The text can also be used to support freshmen orientation or student success courses or programs.

We all use language in different ways, depending on the situations we find ourselves in. In formal contexts we are usually expected to use a formal level of Standard English-the English codified in grammars, usage guides, and dictionaries. In May I Quote You on That? Stephen Spector offers a new approach to learning Standard English grammar and usage. The product of Spector's forty years of teaching courses on the English language, this book makes the conventions of formal writing and speech easier and more enjoyable to learn than traditional approaches usually do. Each lesson begins with humorous, interesting, or instructive illustrative quotations from writers, celebrities, and historical figures. Mark Twain appears alongside Winston Churchill, Yogi Berra, Woody Allen, Jerry Seinfeld, Stephen Colbert, Oprah, Lady Gaga, and many others. These quotations allow readers to infer the rules and word meanings from context. And if they stick in readers' memory, they can serve as models for the rules they exemplify. The lessons then offer short essays, written in a conversational style, on the history of the rules or the words being discussed. But because English is constantly changing, the essays offer not only the traditional rules of Standard English, but also the current opinions of usage panelists, stylists, and language specialists. When rules are controversial, Spector offers advice about stylistic choices. A companion website features a workbook with practice drills.