The Routledge Student Guide to English Usage

"This book will appeal to students around the world, both to non-native speakers, who increasingly use English as a medium of academic communication, as well as to native speakers. It will constitute an invaluable guide in the choice of appropriate vocabulary and in the conventions of academic writing." Roger Berry, author of From Words to Grammar: Discovering English Usage (Routledge, 2015). Gerard Sharpling, Centre for Applied linguistics, Warwick Uni, UK Was very enthusiastic, calling it timely, very useful and fulfilling a clear need (see full report in folder): I believe this will be a very useful book for students in all academic departments at university...I have been looking for this very type of book to use with the students, particularly material on commonly confused words. ..I also think this could be a very useful book for professional writers to use as a troubleshooting device, both at the composition and proofreading/editing stages.. I would be happy to recommend this text for students following academic writing programmes at the University. I note that the book is not intended to be a writing course as such, but writing tutors could easily devise exercises around the content and design tasks that require use of the book. The book will be useful to both undergraduate and postgraduate students, and is the sort of thing, for example, that I would like the university book shop to stock and sell. .. I think this is a very useful and timely proposal. Everyone is becoming more interested in the use of language at university these days, and indeed, it has become something of a political hot potato... I believe the contents of the book are deceptively simple, and this straightforwardness belies a lot of research behind the scenes and considerable experience on the part of the authors. He only asked for more info on pronunciation which GP is working on already. Howard Medland, Volda University College, Norway was also very positive: Essential English Usage would appear to meet the growing demand for an easily accessible, readable EAP reference work in a handy format that would bridge the gap between the heavier, more traditional works like Fowlers and the wide selection of more popular literature on the subject of good/bad English... He thinks it will be used: Certainly as a core text on EAP courses. As a supplementary text on all other general English courses, but in particular courses in any academic discipline in which the working language is English, where students need to improve their productive, written skills... And likes: The distinctive and distinguishing feature of Essential English Usage is its comparative approach.. This gives the book a dimension that distinguishes it from most dictionaries, whereby the student reader may immediately find other words and expressions which may cause confusion and misunderstanding, without having to leaf through many pages alphabetically. This is an important feature in facilitating the accessibility and use of the book as a work of reference, and which is invaluable in attracting student readers to the book. Bruce Morrison, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, was less positive, saying that it was interesting and had a niche market as a supp text, but ultimately needed a radical rethink due to the competition from free online resources, see authors response to this above. This is a fascinating collection of terms which are almost interchangeable but which have subtle differences. It has elements of a thesaurus but with the added value of tight and distinguishing denitions. It will be of use and interest to anyone who wishes to improve the precision of their writing. Val Hamilton, Freelance Reviewer, Nethy Bridge, UK

Graham Pointon, Stewart Clark

Introduction How to use this book? Guide to pronunciation Main text A-Z Reference material Academic writing skills Grammar tips Word formation Numbers and how to use them Bibliography Index