Grammar Girl is now on Stitcher Premium

Grammar Girl is now on Stitcher Premium

Grammar Girl provides short, friendly tips to improve your writing, covering the grammar rules, word choices, and questions that can confound even the best writers. And now, Grammar Girl is in even more places she’s joined the Stitcher Premium family! When you sign up for the podcast using code GRAMMAR on Stitcher Premium, here’s what Know More » […]

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RSVP now for Grammar Girl’s AP Style Webinar

RSVP now for Grammar Girl’s AP Style Webinar

Looking to brush up on your Associated Press style? RSVP now for Grammar Girl’s “Guide to AP Style” webinar on Wednesday, May 24, 2017 at 1 p.m. Central. Mignon Fogarty will help clarify the most challenging style rules and exceptions, and give an overview of important new updates for 2017 in this clear and easy Know More » […]

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Grammar Girl: a Hall of Fame Podcaster!

Grammar Girl: a Hall of Fame Podcaster!

Today is a huge day for Grammar Girl—Mignon Fogarty is being inducted into the Academy of Podcasters Hall of Fame! It’s well-deserved, considering she’s aired more than 500 Grammar Girl episodes over the past ten years, simultaneously educating and entertaining her listeners. She even appeared on the “Today Show” with Hoda and Kathie Lee earlier Know More » […]

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Happy National Grammar Day!

Happy National Grammar Day!

It’s one of our favorite holidays, National Grammar Day! To celebrate, Grammar Girl (Mignon Fogarty) appeared on the “Today Show” earlier this week to offer her expertise as Hoda and Kathie Lee quizzed some teachers in the audience. […]

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Grammar Girl Celebrates Her 500th Podcast!

Grammar Girl Celebrates Her 500th Podcast!

We’re psyched to start the weekend with some great news: Mignon Fogarty just posted her 500th(!) Grammar Girl podcast on Quick and Dirty Tips! You can listen to this landmark episode on the QDT website, iTunes or Stitcher. Plus, word nerds can listen to Grammar Girl’s top ten most heard stories. Everyone wants to know Know More » […]

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Grammar Girl Says: Everything is All Right!

Grammar Girl Says: Everything is All Right!

grammar girlGrammar Girl is here to help us understand a surprisingly tricky little word: "all."

On the Quick and Dirty Tips site she posted a podcast in which she explains when to use "all together" instead of "altogether," "all ready" instead of "already," and "all right" instead of "alright" and you might be startled by what she has to say.

For example, I hope you're all ready for this altogether mind-blowing fact:

"Alright" isn't a real word!

I KNOW. Click the big image below to read more about how to use each of these tricky words and phrases on the Quick and Dirty Tips site now.

If you're a fan of "alright," don't fret! In the podcast Grammar Girl says, "Regular listeners of this show know that language is always in flux, so perhaps 'alright' as one word is gaining a small footing."

opens in a new windowGrammar Girl Pic

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Tuesday Fun Day! (9/4/2012 Edition)

Tuesday Fun Day! (9/4/2012 Edition)

Happy Tuesday, librarian cats! I hope your long weekend involved many adventures and much napping in the sun!

We have some winners to congratulate this week, so let's get on with the applause:

The big news from the weekend is that AMONG OTHERS by Jo Walton (a title that I just won't shut up about) won the 2012 Hugo Award for Best Novel! Huzzah! Earlier this year it won the 2011 Nebula Award for Best Novel.

See the full list of Hugo Award-winners here

And now on to our recent contest winners:

The winner of the final Grammar Girl signed-books giveaway is: 

Betty H. Lee
Adult and Young Adult Librarian
Rockville Memorial Library

The winner of the A MEMORY OF LIGHT stuffed backpack giveaway celebrating our new SF/F blog, Uncharted Pages, is:

Brianna Glenn
Library Director 
De Soto Public Library 

Congratulations, Betty and Brianna! Your prizes are in the mail.

And finally, the winner for Best App Ever according to us: CatWang!! Major thanks to Peter from Academic for the recommendation. Here's CatTalia holding a balloon in her office and CatAli holding AMONG OTHERS while wearing wings:

opens in a new windowCatWang Collage

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Monday Fun Day! (8/27/2012 Edition)

Monday Fun Day! (8/27/2012 Edition)

Come one, come all, to a brand new week!

- Did you see today's Maximum Shelf? If not, take a look. It's entirely dedicated to Per Petterson's 1992 novel, IT'S FINE BY ME.

"[R]eaders who love deep examinations of character will find themselves caught in Audun's voice like a ray of light in a prism, their emotions filtering through in a spectrum of compassion, commiseration and admiration. [...]

"Petterson's prose is brisk and unornamented, perfect for evoking the austere beauty of the Norwegian landscape and yet packed with emotions both powerful and subtle."

The issue also includes an interview with Fiona McCrae, publisher and director of Graywolf Press, on working with translations. 

teens' top ten- Don't forget to direct your teen patrons to YALSA's Teens' Top Ten poll: http://www.SurveyMonkey.com/s/TeensTopTen12.

- Our overstuffed A MEMORY OF LIGHT backpack giveaway is still open for those of you interested in taking a peek at Uncharted Pages, our new SF/F recommendation blog hosted by EarlyWord! Contest details here

- And finally... 

MONDAY! MONDAY! MONDAY! The EPIC SHOWDOWN you've all been waiting for: Parrot vs. Kitten! Winner gets the back of the couch.

opens in a new windowparrot v kitty vid

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Monday Fun Day! (8/20/2012 Edition)

Monday Fun Day! (8/20/2012 Edition)

Happy Monday, librarians! Here are a couple fun things to get your week started:

- Grammar Girl is here to help you help your patrons get work! She wrote up a few very handy hints for résumé building here on the blog. Oh, and there's a signed books giveaway, too!

- Our giveaway is still open for those of you interested in taking a look at Uncharted Pages, our new Science Fiction and Fantasy site hosted by EarlyWord

- In a readers' edition of Shelf Awareness last week there was a great review for Sabina Berman's debut, ME, WHO DOVE INTO THE HEART OF THE WORLD

"Karen Nieto is a remarkable character, and Mexican playwright/poet Sabina Berman's rendering of her unusual voice and personality in ME, WHO DOVE INTO THE HEART OF THE WORLD is equally remarkable. [...] 

"A beautifully written, emotionally affecting debut featuring a protagonist whose 'different abilities' include surprising and charming the reader."

- And finally, A LADY CYCLIST'S GUIDE TO KASHGAR may have come out back in May, but it's still bicycle season, so we're still thinking about it!

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Macmillan Library Presents: Tips from Grammar Girl #3

Macmillan Library Presents: Tips from Grammar Girl #3

grammar girl cartoonGrandmaster grammar wrangler Mignon Fogarty (a.k.a. Grammar Girl) has agreed to teach us the proper way to talk to librarians about the books and genres we love. We'll be posting her monthly tips here on the blog. Take it away, Grammar Girl!

How to Write a Better Résumé

Talia and Ali tell me that librarians are helping almost as many people find jobs as they are helping find books. One important thing to check for on a résumé is that the bullets match. Not in that fashionable-detective way in which a lady’s bullets match her shoes, but in a slightly less delightful grammatical way: It’s called parallel construction, and this is how it looks:

Activities and Accomplishments

Hungered for deeper meaning

Longed for a raise

Resisted throwing myself out a window

Although that may not be the most appealing list of activities and accomplishments to a potential employer, your candidate won’t be rejected for grammar errors. Note how each bullet point is a sentence fragment that starts with a verb in the past tense. Using a fragment is OK in a bulleted list, and the parallelism of the verbs is pleasing to the eye. 

Note how the following list, although more respectable, seems jumbled and wrong because of the lack of parallelism.

Activities and Accomplishments

Shelving goal of 5,000 books per day met

Convinced 30 volunteers to work for nothing but doughnuts

I single-handedly reroofed the library. 

Want to help job candidates avoid other errors on their résumés? Check out GRAMMAR GIRL PRESENTS 101 TROUBLESOME WORDS YOU’LL MASTER IN NO TIME and visit Grammar Girl at Grammar.QuickandDirtyTips.com.

We're running our third and final giveaway of one full set of her latest Quick and Dirty Tips books (this set includes four signed(!) books and one unsigned audiobook).

giveaway

UPDATE: This contest has ended. Congratulations to our winner: Betty H. Lee, Adult and Young Adult Librarian at Rockville Memorial Library!

Enter to win these signed books by sending your name, your library, and your full mailing address to Library-at-MacmillanUSA.com (subject: Grammar Girl) by Friday, August 24th.

This sweepstakes is open to librarians in the United States. More eligibility details below.

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