Customer Reviews

An essential resource for making every word count - By: C. Holden, 25 Sep 2007
I am midway through an Open University degree course & have found 'Line by Line' to be an absolutely indespensible resource. Whenever an academic essay is required I find remaining within strict word limits to be one of the most taxing requirements. Using the simple, but effective, techniquesin the book I am able to literally cut an essay word lengthin half without losing valuable content. Trust me, if you are about to embark - or are already engagedin - any type of scholarship, this is the book for you!

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Good but a bit old-fashioned - By: Richard A. Kirk, 27 Jun 2007
I was lured into buying this book by the five-start reviews. It is thorough. It does the job. But I have read better.

Being 'old-fashioned' is not necessarily bad, but the parsing & anatomizing of each sentance feels laboured. I have a small Edwardian guide to grammar, sadly long out of print, that is beautifully clear without ever saying 'appositive', 'verbal' (a noun), 'copula', or words like that. These words are all explainedin the book, but it does not make for easy reading.

For instance...

"I read the book" has a subject, predicate, & object. The subject of "The book was read by me?" is "the book". To newcomers, this might seem illogical - the subject is the thing that is , innit? Not with passive verbs, though. The rules for determining the subject are explainedin the book. Once you understand them, they are unambiguous. However, even terms like subject, predicate, & object cannot be used unless you are sure your reader understands them. If they understand them perfectly, then they probably do not need the book.

In some cases, I find the terminology a bit suspect. She says the noun 'horse' has an 'adjectival form'in terms such as 'horse race'. maybe. How would you parse modern agglutinative horrors such as 'image stack operator syntax hierarchy'. We stuff nouns togetherin bunches to make different nouns. There aren't any clear rules; 'horse race' & 'human race' are not similar things. I remember having to parse some six-noun pile-up a bit like my invention above for a Japanese translator, who could speak engish beautifully, but could not pick apart stuff like this.

There is a bitin the introduction that suggests that computer programs may be able to check syntax. This dates the book to about 1985. I remember using an early style checking program from about then that was a great help. Style checkers still can convert a perfectly good sentance into rubbish by mindlessly applying rules, but they have a worthwhile contribution. I found the most helpful feature was something that highlighted any sentence over 24 words. I found any sentance that long can be broken into two shorter sentences, & shorter sentences have fewer ways of going wrong. If you find your longer sentence works, then you can always leave it alone. The passive voice is usually avoidable, um, you can usually avoid the passive voice, & the more familiar did to