Student's Guide to Writing

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Aimed at students wishing to improve their writing skills, this guide deals with the key basics of grammar, punctuation and spelling while also showing students how to construct a sentence, how to build a paragraph and how to structure an essay. This third edition includes an expanded 'Spot the Mistake' section.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• About this book (p. vii)
• Note to the second edition (p. ix)
• Note to the third edition (p. x)
• Part 1 Writing Correctly (p. 1)
• 1 Writing a Sentence (p. 3)
• Producing 'correct' sentences (p. 3)
• How sentences go wrong (p. 10)
• Constructing 'complex' sentences (p. 14)
• Summary (p. 18)
• 2 Punctuation (p. 20)
• Full stops (and question marks) (p. 20)
• Commas (p. 23)
• The six uses of the comma (p. 25)
• The apostrophe (p. 29)
• Summary (p. 34)
• 3 Spelling (p. 36)
• Sound-alike words (p. 37)
• Avoidable errors (p. 42)
• How words end (p. 46)
• Summary (p. 48)
• Part 2 Writing Confidently (p. 51)
• 4 The Well-crafted Sentence (p. 53)
• Avoiding overloaded sentences (p. 54)
• Standard errors, easy solutions (p. 57)
• Paragraph logic (p. 63)
• Summary (p. 65)
• 5 Polished Punctuation (p. 67)
• Reinforcing the rules (p. 68)
• How accurate punctuation can strengthen an essay (p. 73)
• The colon and semicolon (p. 76)
• Summary (p. 80)
• 6 Spelling and Usage (p. 81)
• Syllabilising, and pronouncing slowly (p. 81)
• Plurals (p. 82)
• The words of your subject (p. 83)
• Hyphens (p. 84)
• Frequently misspelt words (p. 86)
• The Top 30' usage tips (p. 87)
• Part 3 Writing with Style (p. 95)
• 7 Writing an Essay (p. 97)
• Constructing an essay (p. 98)
• Constructing a paragraph (p. 105)
• Constructing a sentence (p. 107)
• Summary (p. 109)
• 8 Punctuation and Presentation (p. 110)
• Direct speech (p. 110)
• Presentation conventions (p. 113)
• Quoting from a text (p. 116)
• Summary (p. 121)
• 9 The Right Word (p. 123)
• Addressing the reader (p. 124)
• Tone and vocabulary (p. 126)
• Finding a style (p. 128)
• Conclusion (p. 135)
• Part 4 Writing Rules (p. 137)
• 10 Twenty to Remember (p. 139)
• 11 Spot the Mistake (p. 145)
• The census (p. 145)
• The BBC website weather forecast (p. 146)
• New product news in The Times (p. 147)
• A university's description of one of its courses (p. 147)
• A students' union drink promotion (p. 148)
• A hard spell (p. 148)
• Property details from estate agents (p. 149)
• It is not de rigueur to spell de rigueur de rigeur (p. 150)
• Election manifestoes (p. 151)
• Compliments, or should that be complements, of the season? (p. 153)
• They gave their life (p. 154)
• Does 'to progress' amount to progress? (p. 155)
• Madonna (p. 156)
• Say what you mean, Boris (p. 157)
• Signs of the times (p. 157)
• Renaming (p. 158)
• An 'appauling' spelling mistake (p. 158)
• 'Esquivalience' (p. 159)
• Guidelines for aspiring writers (p. 160)
• A comedy of errors (p. 161)
• 12 A Note on Grammar (p. 163)
• Grammar summary (p. 164)
• Parts of speech (p. 165)
• Index (p. 167)