Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents ix
3. Introduction 1
4. PART ONE Credibility
5. Introduction 15
6. 1 Sentence-Level Issues: Fragments 25
7. 2 Sentence-Level Issues: Run-ons and Subject-Verb Agreement 48
8. PART TWO Communicativeness
9. Introduction 63
10. 3 Verbs 65
11. 4 Nouns and Pronouns 86
12. PART THREE Complexity
13. Introduction 111
14. 5 Modifiers: Adjectives 113
15. 6 Modifiers: Adverbs 125
16. PART FOUR Confidence
17. Introduction 135
18. 7 Predeterminers, Central Determiners, and Postdeterminers 137
19. 8 Varieties of Definiteness, or More Essentials of The and A/An 155
20. PART FIVE Clarity
21. Introduction 171
22. 9 Semicolons, Hyphens, and Other Baffling Punctuation Marks 173
23. 10 A Special Case: Commas 196
24. PART SIX Comprehensibility
25. Introduction 211
26. 11 Creating Understandable Sentences: Metaphoric Language, Parallelism, Jargon, Slang, and Clichés 213
27. 12 Word-Level Issues 223
28. PART SEVEN Consequentiality
29. Introduction 245
30. Epilogue 249
31. Appendix. For Further Reading: Ten Indispensable Resources 257
32. Acknowledgments 259
33. Works Cited 263
34. Index 267