Painless Grammar (Barron's Painless Series)

- What's New?

Painless Grammar (Barron's Painless Series)
by Rebecca Elliott

About Painless Grammar (Barron's Painless Series)

Excerpt

Buy it at IndieBound or Amazon

About Painless Grammar (Barron's Painless Series)

Titles in Barron's extensive Painless Series cover a wide range of subjects as they are taught on middle school and high school levels. These books are written for students who find the subjects unusually difficult and confusing--or in many cases, just plain boring.

In Barron's Painless Grammar, the author strives to clear up students' confusion and perk up their interest by emphasizing the intriguing and often exciting ways in which they can put grammar to practical use. The book takes a light-hearted approach, often employing humor, and always presenting fun-learning exercises that include puzzles, games, and challenging "Brain Tickler" problems to solve.

Painless Grammar combines instruction in sentence structure with examination of amusing expressions, and gives tips on e-mail communication, editing a school paper, and more. In reading the book, you will:

Learn correct ways to construct sentences by applying rules of grammar to funny statements
See how using correct grammar makes sending e-mails to your friends faster and easier
Discover how to use your knowledge of grammar for fun school activities, such as editing the school paper
Test your learning progress with fun quizzes and "Brain Ticklers"

Excerpt - read below or on separate pages

Split Infinitives by Rebecca Elliott

Read

An infinitive is a verb with the word to in front of it. Splitting an infinitive means putting one or more words between to and the verb.

     Infinitive       Non-split infinitive           Split infinitive
      to run             to run quickly                   to quickly run
     to swim           to swim eagerly               to eagerly swim
     to jump           to jump determinedly       to determinedly jump

WEAK:
It is usually better to not split infinitives.

BETTER:
It is usually better not to split infinitives.

It is okay to split an infinitive when you want to emphasize the word or words in between.

RIGHT:
I want you to study the material for the test.

MORE EMPHASIS:
I want you to thoroughly study the material for the test.

When you split an infinitive, be careful not to put too many words between to and the verb.

CONFUSING:
I want you to thoroughly and deliberately, without cutting any corners or making any excuses, study for the test.

BETTER:
I want you to thoroughly and deliberately study for the test without cutting any corners or making any excuses.

Is your voice active or passive?
Most writers and editors dislike the passive voice. They say it’s too blah.

PASSIVE VOICE:
The ball was hit. (By whom? The passive voice hides the doer of the action.)

ACTIVE VOICE:
Zhen hit the ball.

PASSIVE VOICE:
Cigarette taxes will be raised. (By whom?)

ACTIVE VOICE:
Congress will raise taxes on cigarettes.

PASSIVE VOICE:
My nose was punched by you. (At least we know who did it, but nobody talks this way.)

ACTIVE VOICE:
You punched me in the nose!

You can see from these examples that the passive voice is less dynamic than the active voice because it ignores or downplays the doer of the action. Imagine you are a sportswriter for your school paper. Which voice do you think your readers would find more interesting?

-----------------------------------------