That's not really what professional editors do, they work with structure, sequence and ideas - they edit, they don't correct.  And the person who is going to read it first ain't gonna like lots of comma mistakes, so .... pray over this with bell, book and candle.

The Deluxe Transitive Vampire: A Handbook of Grammar for the Innocent, the Eager and the Doomed by Karen Elizabeth Gordon

I think you can even get a pdf version.

She has written a few other books too, and I'd also highly suggest:
The New Well Tempered Sentence: A Punctuation Handbook for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed

They are unlike any grammar books you've ever read.

Awesome thanks for the info!

Will gladly check it out, it's almost embarrassing really because I've been on a college vocabulary level since the fifth grade... but lack the punctuation skills to go along with it.

Somewhat odd I would think, as normally the two should go hand in hand.

I blame it on my trans issue and being depressed, as well as caring more about punk rock shows and drinking instead of my education (was drinking fifths of tequila by 13) Not proud of it... but it's the truth. Most of us in the Joplin, Mo early punk rock scene drank and drank... and depending on age (ranged from 12 or so.. all the way up the 30's) did everything in our power to hide it from our parents!

I still enjoy an occasional well made beer, but my days of over drinking and certainly my days of hard liquor.. especially tequila.. got so sick at the age of 17  or so last time I drank it that I'll never go back are long behind me.

Because of my various issues at the time, just barely graduated high school.. where looking at things objectively had I put my mind on things and actually worked, I could have qualified for nearly any school I wanted... Ivy league notwithstanding, as that might have been a bit much.. but virtually anything else out there.

I possess the intellect. 

Quote from: tekla on February 13, 2011, 10:44:00 PM
That's not really what professional editors do, they work with structure, sequence and ideas - they edit, they don't correct.  And the person who is going to read it first ain't gonna like lots of comma mistakes, so .... pray over this with bell, book and candle.

The Deluxe Transitive Vampire: A Handbook of Grammar for the Innocent, the Eager and the Doomed by Karen Elizabeth Gordon

I think you can even get a pdf version.

She has written a few other books too, and I'd also highly suggest:
The New Well Tempered Sentence: A Punctuation Handbook for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed


Totally agree  and I still stuff up.


The papers that my staff (and I) submit to scientific journals are read out aloud before the lab audience. They are then edited again. My final check is I ask a junior technician to read the draft to a group of people who comprise those who know the work and those that don't. Why? It gives confidence and support to the junior, it allows words to be  mispronounced, and it produces clarity of thought. It also makes us realise we have written crap .

You may also like: Lynne Truss;  Eats Shoots & Leaves (Profile Books, I don't have the IBN) and Don Watson; Death Sentence (ISBN 1 74051 206 5)

And of course Fowler's even if you are in the USA. 


Cindy