Essentials of English Grammar

Rating:
Summary: Very helpful book for beginners in English writing
Review: As a beginner in the subject I found this book to be very helpful giving nice tips about grammar, usage, and style for the English language.

Rating:
Summary: Practical and inexpensive
Review: I found the book very useful for my kids, they were having a lot of trouble with grammar at school and this book gave them a new and plenty of fun way to learn.

Rating:
Summary: Good Refernce but Flawed
Review: Overall I recommend the book but it does contain several glaring problems.

The first is trying to be politically correct by substituting "his or her" for "his." English is based in large part on the Romance languages, which are quite comforatble with applying gender to nouns. In English, the "generic noun" is masculine and so "his" should be used, not "his or hers." I do not propose that language should not evolve but not all advancements are necessarily progress.

The second is that in many examples, "I think" is substituted for "I believe". "To think" is to go through the process of reasoning. "To believe" is to have a specific conviction. If the context is that of dissenting with another's opinion, one does not think that someone is wrong, he believes that person is wrong.

Last is the incorret use of qualifiers. It is not "Chicago has a population of over 7.5 million;" it is "Chicago has a population of more than 7.5 million." "Over" is used to define a spatial location, as are "below", "beside", etc. "More" is used to define the relative status of one quantity versus another.

Again, this is a good reference but be aware it is does have problems of which you should be aware.

Rating:
Summary: Good Refernce but Flawed
Review: Overall I recommend the book but it does contain several glaring problems.

The first is trying to be politically correct by substituting "his or her" for "his." English is based in large part on the Romance languages, which are quite comforatble with applying gender to nouns. In English, the "generic noun" is masculine and so "his" should be used, not "his or hers." I do not propose that language should not evolve but not all advancements are necessarily progress.

The second is that in many examples, "I think" is substituted for "I believe". "To think" is to go through the process of reasoning. "To believe" is to have a specific conviction. If the context is that of dissenting with another's opinion, one does not think that someone is wrong, he believes that person is wrong.

Last is the incorret use of qualifiers. It is not "Chicago has a population of over 7.5 million;" it is "Chicago has a population of more than 7.5 million." "Over" is used to define a spatial location, as are "below", "beside", etc. "More" is used to define the relative status of one quantity versus another.

Again, this is a good reference but be aware it is does have problems of which you should be aware.