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Clean, Well-Lighted Sentences: A Writer's Guide to Avoiding the Most Common Errors in Grammar and Punctuation | 
 enlarge | Author: Janis Bell
Publisher: W. W. Norton
Category: Book
List Price: $21.95
Buy New: $14.93
You Save: $7.02 (32%)
New (33) Used (6) from $12.74
Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 12653
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 128
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.6 x 0.8
ISBN: 0393067718
Dewey Decimal Number: 428.2
EAN: 9780393067712
ASIN: 0393067718
Publication Date: September 2, 2008
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Product Description
Long overdue: a clear, good-humored discussion targeting only the most common errors in American sentences—nothing more.
This is a focused, respectful, entertaining guide to getting our sentences into good shape. After thirty-five years of teaching writing, Janis Bell knows which sentences those are and precisely what ails them. She describes grammar and usage problems in ways that make immediate sense. She explains precisely what our punctuation marks do and won't do. She also answers the very questions that readers are likely to have. Besides being extremely readable and relevant, each chapter offers a challenging quiz followed by answers that leave no doubt. This small, engaging book is for people who know what they want to write and who know English—all they need to hear is what Bell has to say about the gaffes that have crept into their sentences. Equally useful to a ninth-grader and a senior-level manager, Clean, Well-Lighted Sentences is a sweet and timely find.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 6 more reviews...
 The ultimate reference for good writers! August 15, 2008
D. Browdy (Foster City, CA United States)
26 out of 29 found this review helpful
I took Janis' class at Golden Gate University and own a copy of this book in its pre-published form. I went into the class not expecting much as I consider myself a pretty good writer. However, this book hit on all the little niggling points that get you. Who or whom? Who's or whose? Affect or effect? Little questions like that are made perfectly clear without all the tediousness you get in traditional reference books. Everything is written with a sense of humor so it's readable too.
If this book can help good writers, I think it should be a great help for average or worse writers too. Good stuff.
Do you find some details of English confusing? September 17, 2008
Stephenie Frederick
12 out of 12 found this review helpful
If you care even a tiny bit about communicating with others of your species, or at least impressing them, GET THIS BOOK! Clean, Well-lighted Sentences is an easy-to-use look-up source that takes only a few seconds per error to use. In fact, I just used it to move "only" to the right of "takes," where it belongs. Look up your mistakes (the index is fantastic), read the lovely, funny explanations, make the corrections - and you're good to go without feeling like an idiot. I can't recommend the book highly enough - and because of its delightful tone, it actually makes a good Christmas or birthday gift.
Very good and an easy read October 30, 2008
John Gary (San Jose, CA)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
This is a nice book, pleasure reading and learning something that I can use on almost a daily basis. I haven't been in an English class for A LONG TIME but I need to write for work every day. This book has truly helped me to write more clearly and stop making some of the common mistakes a lot of us make and don't even realize we're making. I'm glad I bought it, it has become my desk reference also.
 A "lighted" sentence? November 15, 2008
T. A. Trueman (Vancouver, BC Canada)
3 out of 14 found this review helpful
The past tense of "to light" is "lit", otherwise it jars the ear as much as "bringed" or "bited" would do. Has American English really declined to that level? "I lighted the fire" sounds like English was not the speaker's mother tongue.
And when I see the author's devotees writing sentences like "I took Janis' class", using a mangled pseudo-possessive form which makes no logical sense at all, I think something has gone horribly wrong. Janis'? How are you supposed to pronounce that?
By the way, for anyone who read what I just wrote and who thinks the commas after "lit" and "class" should have been tucked INSIDE the quotation marks, ask yourself if it really makes sense for the punctuation for the sentence to be treated as part of a quote when it is NOT.
Great, better than most. October 10, 2008
Elinor Craig (SF)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Humor always adds something to that is as dry as punctuation.
Yet any writer needs a bit of help now and again.
I personally can't remember everything.
Good book.
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