ISBN-13: 9780984235858
Publisher: Synergy Books
Published: September 2010
135 pgs
Source: Publicist
(Advance Reading Copy)


When I was contacted by a publicist if I wanted to review The Big Ten of Grammar by William B. Bradshaw, I jumped at the chance because what better way to improve my writing than to read more about grammar and identify the errors which I might have made over the years?

Even with less than 150 pages, this book covered almost everything from the basic right down to identifying and fixing the most frequent grammatical errors we may have made unknowingly (e.g. How to use "I" or "me"; what's the difference between "who" and "whom", etc). But that is not all, this book also covered punctuation such as how should we use commas; do they go before or after the quotation marks, and many more. I also liked it that there are examples to show us both the incorrect and correct usages of grammar as well as stating some simple rules to remember.

I don't find it at all dry and boring while reading this book and in fact, I quite enjoyed the simple explanations offered by the author and wondered how easy it would be for my learning back during my old school days to have our textbooks written like that. However, it is never too late to learn, especially in these days when we mostly communicate via online more than the traditional letter writing method and very often the words are cut short for the sake of convenience as well as speed and in the long run, this would badly affect our grammar.

All in all, I think everyone would benefit from reading this handbook. Because the size of the book is light and easy to carry around, I can always put it in my handbag and refer to it whenever necessary.