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Subject:How to Improve Your Own Writing From:"Wayne J. Douglass" <wayned -at- VERITY -dot- COM> Date:Mon, 2 Jun 1997 16:35:32 -0700
Always on the lookout for style guides and the like, I recently acquired
_Line by Line: How to Improve Your Own Writing_ by Claire Kehrwald Cook at a
garage sale (there you have it, total candor). I haven't read all of it, but
it shows great promise. I especially like the author's explanation of her
approach:
"It focuses on eliminating the stylistic faults that most often impede
reading and obscure meaning. These errors fall into five categories,
corresponding to the chapters of this book: (1) needless words, (2) words in
wrong order, (3) equivalent but inbalanced sentence elements, (4) imprecise
relations between subjects and verbs and between pronouns and antecedents,
and (5) inappropriate punctuation."
Lots of examples showing how to tweak sentences. From, God help us, the
Modern Language Association and, mirabile dictu, still available if you
believe believe the following info from Amazon.com:
Line by Line : How to Improve Your Own Writing
by Claire Kehrwald Cook
Paperback, 219 pages
List: $8.95 -- Amazon.com Price: $7.16 -- You Save:
$1.79(20%)
Published by Houghton Mifflin Co (Pap)
Publication date: July 1,1986
Dimensions (in inches): 9.22 x 6.33 x .50
ISBN: 0395393914
--Wayne Douglass
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