Getting the Point: A Panic-Free Guide to English Punctuation for Adults

by Jenny Haddon, Elizabeth Hawksley

Here is a user-friendly guide to punctuation that provides step-by-step explanations in clear, readable English. The authors cover all the basics, including sentences and full stops, commas, apostrophes, colons and semicolons, brackets, hyphens, question marks, inverted commas, and paragraphs.

Genres: Nonfiction

176 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Jenny Haddon also write under the names of Sophie Weston and Sophie Page.

Jenny Haddon was born in London, England, where she always returns after the travels that she loves. When she was small, her mother couldn't bear reading aloud, so her mother taught her to read at an appallingly precocious age. She wrote her first book with her own illustrations at the age of four but was in her 20s before she produced her first romance as Sophie Weston.

She studied English Language and Literature at university. Choosing a career was a major problem. It was not so much that she didn't know what she wanted to do, as that she wanted to do everything. So she filed and photocopied and experimented. She worked as consultant at the Bank of England and all the time she drew on her experiences to create her Mills & Boon books. She edited press releases for a Latin American embassy in London (The Latin Afffair); lectured in the Arabian Gulf (The Sheikh's Bride); waitressed in Paris (Midnight Wedding); and made herself hated by getting under people's feet asking stupid questions under the grand title of consultant all over the world (The Millionaire's Daughter). She also is an active member of the UK's Romantic Novelists' Association's Committee, and was its twenty-three Chairman (2005-2007).

Jenny has one house, three cats, and about a million books. She writes compulsively, Scottish dances poorly, grows more plants than she has room for, and makes a mean meringue.

Reviews

[Teresa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really useful book. For any serious writer who can't always remember the rules of punctuation, this should be on your bookshelf or close to hand at all times.

I recommend when reading a chapter of this book, to have a pencil and rubber (eraser) to hand. Some of the chapters have quizzes, which should actually be attempted. It really does help with your learning. Especially the subjects you are weaker on. (Commas were mine!)

Throughout are some useful tips. It's aimed at all writers really, from novelists to business reports and articles.

Some I did find easy, and some I did really learn from, and some I knew what to do but this book explained why.

I tended to read this a chapter a night, to take it all in. But it's something you won't want to lend out and will want to keep on your bookshelf as a reference.

The last chapter gives a brief guide to grammar, and also some extra help - the terrible twos, with examples, principle/principal. I am always using the wrong word! And the last part is manuscript presentation. Very important for us wannabe-novelists.

Hopefully from now on my punctuation should be spot on, or close (I am only human).

[Courtney · Rating 4 out of 5]

A useful guide for punctuation. I'm taking away one star, though, because with the quizzes, it isn't a straight reference book and it is geared more towards a British audience, with American English in smaller boxes. Overall, because of those features, it was a little difficult to find what I needed and I ended up googling to confirm the answers.

[Carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really useful book, I have it by my desk and refer to it constantly. (Sometimes in the excitement of getting a story pinned on paper, grammar and punctuation fly out of the window!) I wish I'd got a copy years ago.