McGraw-Hill handbook of English.

Summary: The McGraw-Hill Handbook of English, second edition, is designed to help you discover, develop, and refine the skills you need to meet the speaking and writing demands of a lifetime. Its fundamental objective is to provide training in correct, clear, effective, and appropriate writing and rewriting. To this end, the book describes English as it is employed by careful, accurate speakers and writers - and by others not always either careful or accurate. It states the facts about usage of the English language that educated people should know, whether or not they wish to adopt and follow them in part or in whole. Throughout, the handbook tries to make clear distinctions between grammar and usage between a systematic description of words and their structures, patterns, and relationships in a sentence, and the ways in which Canadians actually use their language in various situations. The handbook takes the position that the writing of students is normally and rightly expected to be different from informal speech, but it also recognizes that the style of one's writing and speech should be appropriate to each occasion and modified as needed by differing purposes.

Record details

ISBN: 9780070928022
ISBN: 0070928029
Physical Description: print
p.598 ; cm.
Edition: 2nd. Canadian ed.
Publisher: Toronto : McGraw-Hill, 1970.

Content descriptions

Formatted Contents Note:

Grammar -- Nouns -- Pronouns -- Verbs and verbals -- Adjectives and adverbs -- Conjunctions -- Prepositions -- Phrases -- Clauses -- Sentences -- Glossary of grammatical terms -- Usage -- Levels of usage -- Subject and verb agreement -- Pronouns and antecedents -- Case of pronouns -- Principal parts of verbs -- Linking and auxiliary verbs -- Tense and tone -- Mood -- Adjectives and adverbs -- Conjunctions -- Punctuation and mechanics -- End stops -- The semicolon -- The colon -- The dash -- The comma -- The apostrophe -- Quotation marks -- The hyphen -- Parentheses -- Brackets -- Italics -- Capitals -- Abbreviations -- Numbers -- Spelling -- Diction -- Levels of diction -- Present use -- National use -- Reputable and appropriate usage -- Vocabulary growth -- Illiteracies -- Improprieties -- Colloquialisms -- Slang -- Technical words -- Idiomatic usage -- Imprecise diction -- Mixed figures of speech -- Triteness (freshness of diction) -- "Fine writing" -- Euphony -- Gobbledygook -- Faulty repetition -- Emphatic diction -- Denotation -- Connotation -- Emotional meanings of words -- Conciseness -- Words often confused -- Glossary of misused words -- The sentence -- Incompleteness -- Comma splice -- Fused (or blended) sentence -- Related idea (unity) -- Misused dependent clauses -- Misplaced modifier -- Dangling modifier -- Split construction -- Faulty coordination -- Faulty subordination -- Faulty parallelism -- Point of view (consistency) -- Choppiness -- Comparisons -- Conciseness -- Emphasis -- Transition -- Variety -- Position and arrangement -- Glossary of sentence errors -- The paragraph -- The topic sentence -- Substance -- Methods of development -- Unity -- Order -- Transition -- Proportion -- Length -- Variety -- Mechanics -- The longer paper -- Choosing a topic -- Analyzing a topic -- Outlining -- Developing a topic -- Choosing a title -- Beginning a theme -- Ending a theme -- Proportion -- Unity -- Consistency -- Coherence and transition -- Report writing -- The research paper -- Revision and proofreading -- Manuscript form -- Special purposes and problems -- Thinking -- Using a dictionary -- Using a library -- Writing letters -- Précis -- Paraphrase -- Diagraming -- Semantics -- Pronunciation -- Reading -- Listening -- Speaking -- Taking tests -- A brief history of the English language -- Linguistics -- Index.