Improve your punctuation

Improve your Punctuation andGrammar

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Improve your Punctuation andGrammarMARION FIELD

Published by How To Content, A division of How To Books Ltd, Spring Hill House, Spring Hill Road, Begbroke, Oxford OX5 1RX, United Kingdom. Tel: (01865) 375794. Fax: (01865) 379162. info@howtobooks.co.uk www.howtobooks.co.uk How To Books greatly reduce the carbon footprint of their books by sourcing their typesetting and printing in the UK. All rights reserved. No part of this workmay be reproduced or stored in an information retrieval system (other than for purposes of review) without the express permission of the publisher in writing. The right of Marion Field to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. © 2009 Marion Field First edition 2000 Reprinted 2000 Second edition 2003 Reprinted2004 Reprinted 2005 Reprinted 2006 (twice) Reprinted 2007 Third edition 2009 First published in electronic form 2009 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 978 1 84803 329 0 Produced for How To Books by Deer Park Productions, Tavistock Typeset by Kestrel Data, Exeter NOTE: The material contained in this book isset out in good faith for general guidance and no liability can be accepted for loss or expense incurred as a result of relying in particular circumstances on statements made in the book. Laws and regulations are complex and liable to change, and readers should check the current position with the relevant authorities before making personal arrangements.

Contents
Preface ix

1

Followinggrammatical guidelines Discovering nouns Knowing the articles Making use of pronouns Finding out about verbs Recognising interjections Checklist Practising what you’ve learnt Learning about sentence construction Analysing the simple sentence Introducing phrases Identifying main clauses Identifying subordinate clauses Checklist Practising what you’ve learnt Varying your sentences Experimenting withsimple sentence Forming compound sentences Checking your commas Forming complex sentences Writing non-sentences Assessing the mood Checklist Practising what you’ve learnt

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vi / I M P R O V E Y O U R P U N C T U A T I O N & G R A M M A R

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Colouring your writing Describing the nouns Comparing adjectivesHelping your verbs Comparing adverbs Dealing with other adverbs Checklist Practising what you’ve learnt Making sense of punctuation Experimenting with the semicolon Using the colon Discovering the dash Looking at brackets Remembering the question mark Avoiding the exclamation mark Checklist Practising what you’ve learnt Handling apostrophes and abbreviations Showing possession Abbreviating words...