Real gem! Advice to live by ( )

Mostly not bad. ( )

An excellent reincarnation of Strunk and White. Anyone who attempts to teach writing, in any subject, should assign this book. Like The Elements of Style, How to Not Write Bad begins with a general essay on the importance of clarity and brevity and then moves into more specific advice. Yagoda's examples of weak writing are perfectly chosen. Reading this will make you even more self-conscious of what your write, as I was when I began this review with a fragment. Yagoda's goal is not to inspire budding geniuses or brownbeat the reader into memorizing rules; instead, his assumption (reflected in his title) is that writing "not bad" is a challenge--nevermind writing like Orwell. The book reminded me of a sign I once saw in a classroom: "Don't try to be different. Just try to be good. Being good is different enough." Writing "not bad" is different enough, too. Recommended. ( )

Twenty years ago my archeology professor informed me to always keep my subject with my verb. This book gave me flashbacks. I read this book as a refresher because I had a feeling my writing style had become lazy. I needed to go back to basics. "How to Not Write Bad" is an excellent overview of general errors with good examples and easily understood fixes. This book provides a firm base upon which a writer can build their own style and hopefully hold attention. Anyone who writes for a living, whether it's a report for your boss or an article for the local newspaper should read this book, or even if you just want to improve your written word.

I almost liked this one, but not quite. The premise is a good one: teaching people to avoid the worst mistakes in their writing and produce competent prose that will serve most purposes. However, the tone felt harsh at times, especially in characterizing the students who produced some of the examples of bad writing, and I couldn't agree with the author's stance against logical punctuation (putting commas and periods outside quotation marks when they are not part of the material being quoted) and the use of "they" as a singular pronoun. I'd rather people use "they" than clunk around with "he/she" all the time. It's how people talk and will be understood. (If I think the audience of the document will object to this use of "they", I will recast the sentence to make the subject plural. Take that!)

This may be a better book to read if you haven't read too many books about writing -- I've read a lot of them and didn't get much new out of this one (except for the interesting tidbit about opening single quotes vs apostrophes). ( )