Announcing the publication of William Murdick's latest novel,
The English Major: A Bawdy Satire of Academia
For more info or to purchase, click here
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Click here to purchase 140 Writing Mistakes [Purchase] for 99 cents
Readers of William Murdick's e-book…
140 Writing Mistakes You Should Never Make
…will feel good about themselves!
Why? Because they will realize that no matter how uncertain they are about some of the intricacies of Standard English, they are no worse off than our last two presidents—
“What better way to get the last laugh than make George and I say nice things about him before a national audience.” --Barack Obama
"Nobody knows more about walls than me." --Donald Trump
Yes, Barack should have said “…make George and me…," and Donald should have said “…than I do.”
But most of us aren't English teachers, and we can get confused about such things. Even our presidents muddle the language on occasion. But you really don't want to do that in important texts you produce at work. If you are a composition student, you don’t want to have your grade lowered because of avoidable mistakes. If you are a white collar employee, you don’t want to make a bad impression on your boss and your colleagues, and on clients and customers.
140 Writing Mistakes You Should Never Make discusses grammatical issues like those illustrated above, but it also addresses the misuse of common words, audience complexities, weak beginnings and endings, rhetorical dangers such as admitting fault when it could result in a law suit, difficulties in writing about scientific subjects, style issues like over-embedding and excessive left-branching, inappropriate and appropriate uses of the passive voice, and ethical standards for good writers.
That last category includes an extensive discussion of the discriminatory thinking and biased phrasing embedded in our language from both its Germanic and Latinate sources. For example, there’s a reason we have lots of words for promiscuous females, like harlot, slut, whore, floozy, and tramp, but not even one comparable term for men. And it's no accident that the word man appears in the word woman.
Yes, 140 is a lot of mistakes to contemplate, but take your time. They are numbered for easy reference. Of the thousands of errors imaginable, Dr. Murdick discusses only those that he has encountered in his own reading and interactions with college students and with professionals in the workplace. They are real world mistakes, in other words, not theoretical ones.
The content is grounded in the author’s decades of experience teaching writing and his substantial scholarly background in language study. The style is clear and concise. Among other things, Dr. Murdick is a professional technical writer well practiced in explaining complex matters to a general audience. So relax and enjoy. Learning is rarely this easy. Or this affordable: 99 cents.
Click here to purchase [Purchase] for 99 cents
Recommended for students: the PDF version.