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Name: The Best Punctuation Book, Period: A Comprehensive Guide for Every Writer, Editor, Student, and Businessperson: Casagrande, June: 9781607744931: Amazon.com: Books
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The Best Punctuation Book, Period: A Comprehensive Guide for Every Writer, Editor, Student, and Businessperson Paperback – April 15, 2014

by June Casagrande (Author)

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This all-in-one reference is a quick and easy way for book, magazine, online, academic, and business writers to look up sticky punctuation questions for all styles including AP (Associated Press), MLA (Modern Language Association), APA (American Psychological Association), and Chicago Manual of Style.

Punctuate with Confidence—No Matter the Style

Confused about punctuation? There’s a reason. Everywhere you turn, publications seem to follow different rules on everything from possessive apostrophes to hyphens to serial commas. Then there are all the gray areas of punctuation—situations the rule books gloss over or never mention at all. At last, help has arrived.

This complete reference guide from grammar columnist June Casagrande covers the basic rules of punctuation plus the finer points not addressed anywhere else, offering clear answers to perplexing questions about semicolons, quotation marks, periods, apostrophes, and more. Better yet, this is the only guide that uses handy icons to show how punctuation rules differ for book, news, academic, and science styles—so you can boldly switch between essays, online newsletters, reports, fiction, and magazine and news articles.

This handbook also features rulings from an expert “Punctuation Panel” so you can see how working pros approach sticky situations. And the second half of the book features an alphabetical master list of commonly punctuated terms worth its weight in gold, combining rulings from the major style guides and showing exactly where they differ. With The Best Punctuation Book, Period, you’ll be able to handle any punctuation predicament in a flash—and with aplomb.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Ridiculously useful. The best book on punctuation I’ve ever seen.”
—Mignon Fogarty, author of Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing

“Invaluable reference work for professional proofreaders, editors, and writers because it is the only book that presents Chicago, AP, APA, and MLA conventions side by side. (Acronym-free translation: for each use of each punctuation mark, this book clearly explains and illustrates the practices used by book publishers, the news media, social science publications, and nonscientific academic papers and journal articles.)”
—Amy Einsohn, author of The Copyeditor’s Handbook

About the Author

JUNE CASAGRANDE is the author of the weekly syndicated “A Word, Please” grammar column and a copy editor for the custom publishing department of the Los Angeles Times. She has worked as a reporter, features writer, city editor, proofreader, and copyediting instructor for UC San Diego Extension. She is the author of Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies, Mortal Syntax, and It Was the Best of Sentences, It Was the Worst of Sentences. She lives in Pasadena, California, with her husband. Visit www.junecasagrande.com.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction: Punctuation Is Easy, Except When It’s Not
Punctuate this:
In general the writer who did well in college earning As and Bs knows that a young aspiring middle grade novelist has an equally good reason to join the writers group because what it is is a line up of super creative people who for conscience sake treat it like a sub group of their audience to gauge the readers sensibilities and practice copy editing something they started in the 1960s and 70s because it was in the founders words far out

Did you put a comma after in general? Did you put commas after writer, college, Bs, and group? Did you put apostrophes in A’s, B’s, writers’, conscience’, readers’, ’70s, and founder’s? Did you put hyphens in middle-grade, super-creative, and sub-group? Did you put a dash before something? Did you put quotation marks around far out but insert a period between the word out and the closing quotation mark?

If so, your passage probably looks a lot like this:
In general, the writer, who did well in college, earning A’s and B’s, knows that a young aspiring middle-grade novelist has an equally good reason to join the writers’ group, because what it is is a line up of super-creative people who for conscience’ sake treat it like a sub-group of their audience to gauge the readers’ sensibilities and practice copy editing—something they started
in the 1960s and ’70s because it was, in the founder’s words,
“far out.”

And you might think your polished, carefully punctuated passage is perfect. But you’d be wrong.
The Los Angeles Times would disagree with your apostrophes in A’s and B’s. Per that newspaper, it should be A’s and Bs. The Chicago Manual of Style would disagree on different grounds: in that style, it should be As and Bs. Any book editor would swiftly change your copy editing to copyediting. Then there’s your punctuation of “far out.” Most editors outside the United States would swap the places of your period and closing quotation mark.

It gets worse: your punctuation marks could even be creating factual errors. The writer, who did well in college refers to someone different than does the writer who did well in college. That comma changes the identity of the subject and even the number of people it represents because the writer who did well in college can refer to every student who did well in college.

Are you really sure that just one founder called it far out? Or could those be the founders’ words? How sure are you that you’re talking about the readers’ sensibilities and not the reader’s sensibilities? Are you certain you want to leave line up as two unhyphenated words? Are you confident that an em dash is a better choice for setting off that final thought than parentheses or a colon? How would you explain your choice to leave a comma out of what it is is?

How would you feel if, after leaving a comma out of young aspiring middle-grade novelist, you saw a highly respected publication use the same phrase except with a comma after young?

On the surface, punctuation is simple stuff: a system of clear, well-documented rules we all learned in school. But when you sit down to write an article or a story or a business email or a blog post, suddenly it’s not so simple. One after another, situations arise in which the basic rules you thought you knew are no help at all. If you start looking for answers, it can get even more confusing. One of the most well-respected and influential style guides in the country will tell you to put just one comma in red, white and blue. But if you take that as gospel, you’ll be lost when you notice that nearly every book you pick up prefers to throw in another comma before the and, writing it red, white, and blue.
And heaven help you if you start paying attention to how professional editors use hyphens. The truth is, punctuation can be very difficult. Professional writers don’t know it all. Even professional editors look things up, debate them with colleagues, and are sometimes still left guessing.

No one knows everything there is to know about every punctuation mark, and no one is expected to. But that leaves any amateur or professional writer to ask: So what am I expected to know? Will I look stupid if I put a comma here or an apostrophe there? Or do even professional editors share my confusion on this matter?
A lot of people assume that there’s a single correct answer for every punctuation conundrum. Either a comma belongs in a certain spot or it doesn’t. Either the possessive of James is formed by adding an apostrophe plus an s, or it’s formed by adding the apostrophe alone.

The good news here is also the bad news: often there’s more than one right answer. Whether to use a certain punctuation mark can be a matter of choice—the writer’s way of emphasizing his meaning, creating rhythm, or making the words more pleasing to the eye. Other times these questions boil down to a matter of style—the kind with a capital S that’s laid down by one of the publishing world’s official playbooks. Still other times, there is only one correct choice, and if you fail to choose it, you can inadvertently change your meaning.

The goal of this book is let you punctuate every sentence, even those that fall into the gray areas of punctuation rules or style differences, with complete confidence.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 1607744937
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Ten Speed Press; First Edition (April 15, 2014)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 256 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9781607744931
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1607744931
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.67 x 8.2 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #39,771 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #21 in Etymology (Books)
- #33 in Grammar Reference (Books)
- #46 in Words, Language & Grammar Reference

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June Casagrande

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June Casagrande is author of the weekly syndicated "A Word, Please" grammar column that runs in newspapers in Southern California, Florida, and Texas. She runs the GrammarUnderground.com grammar tips website. She has worked for the Los Angeles Times' community news division as a reporter, features writer, copy editor, and city editor. She currently copy edits Special Sections of the Los Angeles Times and teaches copy editing online for UC San Diego Extension.

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Chobotnica

Very useful

Reviewed in the United States on February 18, 2024

Verified Purchase

My work requires precise grammar and punctuation. When I have questions this book makes it easy to quickly find answers. I love it!

2 people found this helpful

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One Degree Life

Excellent for journalists/students/writers

Reviewed in the United States on April 27, 2020

Verified Purchase

I purchased this book as well as "Grammar 101" (hardcover) from Amazon. While I prefer the print quality and simplicity of the "101" book better for quick references, this is an indispensable tool, and if you write across various styles, it's the better of the two for sure.

This book breaks down grammatical and punctuation references and if there are variations in preference between styles, say AP and MLA or Chicago, it offers a handy quick-reference tool to illustrate those differences.

I've been a sports and humanitarian photojournalist for nearly two decades and frequently use AP and MLA styles. In addition, I've begun dabbling in novel writing and the book styles are becoming increasingly helpful.

If you just want a quick writing reference, I recommend "101" for it's simplicity and elegant layout. If you need to dig deeper into writing variations, grab this one. Better yet, get both!

17 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

Excellent and easy to follow reference!

Reviewed in the United States on February 9, 2024

Verified Purchase

Still working on reading through it completely, but so far it's been easy to read and comprehend as a whole, and is well-organized for those who want to just flip through to your needed section.

Helpful

imo_tameka

Great quick and easy resource!

Reviewed in the United States on July 30, 2020

Verified Purchase

This is a great book if you want something for a quick answer. I am a writer and although I have the Chicago Manual of Style, it is a large book with a wealth of knowledge: that doesn't mean I want to use that hefty book every time I am unsure about something. So this is a convenient companion to that Bible for writers. Casagrande's rules and recommendations are based on: The Chicago Manual of Style, Associated Press Stylebook, Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, and Webster's New World College Dictionary.
She defines punctuation marks, tells you how to use them, then gives examples for how they are used in book editing, news media and business writing, science, and academic styles.
There is a useful Appendix with great definitions and examples covering parts of speech: clauses, phrases, sentences, and sentence fragments. A Punctuation A-Z chapter which is like an index or cheat sheet for further usage examples.
Also, in case you need more evidence of how invaluable this book is, she used the help of a panel of experts. They are professional editors, copyeditors, and agents.
This is a great book to add to your home library. If it had exercises at the end of each chapter, I would have given it 5stars.

31 people found this helpful

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Beverly C

It is very good!!!

Reviewed in the United States on March 22, 2024

Verified Purchase

It puts punctuation in an American English language that most can understand without having to find a dictionary. They're also helpful in explaining some of the English words that sound alike but are spelled differently and mean an entirely different thing for people trying to learn English. In teaching myself General Proofreading skills as opposed to Legal proofing it has been a real God-send.

One person found this helpful

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Deb

Sometimes, you need a quick answer

Reviewed in the United States on August 26, 2019

Verified Purchase

. . . or is it "sometimes you need a quick answer"? According to this book, it can be both. And that is fine with me. You need to know the rules of proper punctuation in order to keep (or break) them. In the preceding sentence, I could have used dashes to set off my parenthetical insertion instead of parentheses. Or, commas, but - according to this book - parentheses are perfectly acceptable. This book gives you choices.
Why buy this book? It's easy to navigate, especially with Kindle's search function. Need a quick refresher on hyphenating compound adjectives? This is an extra helpful book. Or, it can be thought of as extra-helpful or even extrahelpful (depending on the following noun). As I said, you have choices.
Since one of the longest years of my life was spent teaching English grammar (try spending an entire week on verbs), I buy very few grammar books. This one is easy to use and fun to read. It's an excellent choice.

3 people found this helpful

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Jennifer

Great reference book

Reviewed in the United States on June 17, 2019

Verified Purchase

I love that this book starts by asking you to add punctuation to an unpunctuated paragraph. This is a great example of how a comma here, an apostrophe there, isn’t necessarily right or wrong depending on the style guide you use.

Each punctuation mark has its own chapter. The rules that pertain to that punctuation mark are broken down by the four major style guides: book (CMOS), news (AP), scientific (APA), and academic (MLA). I like this format because it allows you to see the different styles in juxtaposition. You’ll find examples of correct and incorrect ways to punctuate a sentence, and a panel of editors were consulted for their punctuation preference on the more ambiguous rules.

The second section is an alphabetized list of commonly confused words and is incredibly helpful when it comes to understanding whether to hyphenate, open, or close a compound word.

The Best Punctuation Book is well organized, well thought out, and easy to use. Anyone who wants to improve their punctuation skills will want to add this book to their library.

3 people found this helpful

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