Plain English Handbook:

This is the best grammar book! My copy dates from 1966. I had no idea that it was still published. I wish I had bought my kids this book. It is a great reference. It actually shows how to diagram sentences. We knew what adverbs and adjectives were. This would be a great book for anyone. I am so happy to find that it is still in publication.

Any concept that was in your grade school English text book will be here. That concept will be concentrated into the most concise description possible and an example will be given. There are no exercises to test you. This book is not designed to teach you English from scratch. It is an easy to navigate reference that has everything in it. If you are fluent in English and can read and write alright but want to brush up, then this is the perfect book. The descriptions are short, but they are easy to understand and give enough information. The first half of the book is on grammar. Each grammatical concept gets a few sentences to describe it and an example. The second is on how to write better. Once again each tip gets a short description and an example. Walsh is not trying to teach you how to write by some method. Instead he has points like having a unified theme for the paragraph and tips on how to emphasize a particular point you are making. He also has samples of different types of letters. So even though he is discussing style he is keeping the discussion very objective. This is a very practical and easy to navigate book on grammar. Now I am out of school and trying to navigate the real world, where how I present myself actually matters. In trying to better my grammar and writing this is an excellent tool. (Of course Walsh would be completely revolted by the grammar of this review. I am trying to review what basically amounts to all the grammar in the entire English language here and it is not so simple.) If you want practical, then this is the book for you. School libraries should keep a copy for students to access. Anyone who has to write regularly should be familiar with this reference. (This review is for the 1946 edition, which has only 136 pages.) Chapters on: Sentence Completeness Grammatical Usage Sentence Structure Mechanics The Paragraph The Whole Composition Diction and a good index

Any concept that was in your grade school English text book will be here. That concept will be concentrated into the most concise description possible and an example will be given. There are no exercises to test you. This book is not designed to teach you English from scratch. It is an easy to navigate reference that has everything in it. If you are fluent in English and can read and write alright but want to brush up, then this is the perfect book. The descriptions are short, but they are easy to understand and give enough information. The first half of the book is on grammar. Each grammatical concept gets a few sentences to describe it and an example. The second is on how to write better. Once again each tip gets a short description and an example. Walsh is not trying to teach you how to write by some method. Instead he has points like having a unified theme for the paragraph and tips on how to emphasize a particular point you are making. He also has samples of different types of letters. So even though he is discussing style he is keeping the discussion very objective. This is a very practical and easy to navigate book on grammar. Now I am out of school and trying to navigate the real world, where how I present myself actually matters. In trying to better my grammar and writing this is an excellent tool. (Of course Walsh would be completely revolted by the grammar of this review. I am trying to review what basically amounts to all the grammar in the entire English language here and it is not so simple.) If you want practical, then this is the book for you. School libraries should keep a copy for students to access. Anyone who has to write regularly should be familiar with this reference. (This review is for the 1946 edition, which has only 136 pages.) Chapters on: Sentence Completeness Grammatical Usage Sentence Structure Mechanics The Paragraph The Whole Composition Diction and a good index

According to my 1959 copy, this book was first published in 1939. It is a very handy referrence, to the point, and is well indexed.

Since the seventh grade, the Plain English Handbook (1959 Edition) has been for me an extremely useful guide to the use of English grammar. Over the years, this little handbook has proven its worth through junior and senior high school, college, and in my engineering profession. I have been a practicing engineer for 25 years, and have used it in the office as a writer's guide and at home as a teaching tool for my kids. Two of my kids are now in college, and one is in high school. Nothing I've encountered has equaled the simple-to-understand format used in this handbook. It helps one to find a concise answer quickly. I highly recommend this handbook to anyone who writes English, whether in school or in business. It's that good!