Grammar References

Since this is my first post on grammar, I thought it would be good to mention where I get my info when it comes to the rules I’ll be laying down. I’m not a PHD. What I put down on paper isn’t always technically right. That’s why I refer to a variety of sources for my reference. The sources that I go to when consulting how to correctly edit are text-books, dictionaries, and online references. Here they are:

The textbooks I most often use are,

+ Rhetorical Grammar: Grammatical Choices, Rhetorical Effects. By Martha Kolln and Loretta Gray (I use this book for questions I have concerning punctuation and grammar in general)

+ The Brief Wadsworth Handbook, Fifth Edition. By Kirszner Mandell (I use this when looking up deep grammar principles as well as when I have questions about formatting and style: MLA, APA, Essay or other academic forms)

+ The Elements of Business Writing: The Essential Guide to Writing Clear, Concise Letters, Memos, Reports, Proposals, and Other Business Documents. By Gary Blake and Robert W. Bly (Great resource I use in my business editing but is also helpful for punctuation, abbreviation, capitalization, and spelling rules)

There are more, but those are the ones I frequent the most.

As far as Dictionaries that I use,

+ Oxford American Dictionary, Heald Colleges Edition

+The Oxford: American Desk Dictionary and Thesaurus

Those are the hardcopy dictionaries I keep on hand. I also use a few online dictionaries.

The online reference that I use most is,

+ The Purdue Online Writing Lab (This is the source that I used when I was a writing lab tutor in college)

Those are most of the sources I use on a daily basis. Being an editor forces me to jump around to a great number of places every day in search for the best way to word or punctuate any given sentence. If you need a place to start with learning correct grammar, any source from the list above would be a great beginning.