Ben Yagoda鈥檚 new book How Not to Write Bad is a short guide to grammar, punctuation, syntax, and word flow. If you鈥檙e a writer, you鈥檝e probably mastered most of what it contains already. But I got most of my formal grammar and punctuation training in elementary school, which I finished more than 20 years ago. And there are at least a couple of recent changes I hadn鈥檛 noticed yet. This quick primer is a perfect refresher and update on writing acceptable copy.
And that鈥檚 not all. The book鈥檚 primary audience is college students. Since most writers supplement their incomes by teaching, they run into many of the same student errors over and over again. If I were teaching right now, I鈥檇 ask my students to purchase this book 鈥� and refer to it as needed to improve their writing.
