Good writing is Grammatically Acceptable. We use the words Grammatically Acceptable to describe the style of English that most educated people use and expect other educated people to use. It’s known as Standard English. It is the kind of English you encounter in books, newspapers, business documents, and commercial and academic web sites. Most of the time, such language conforms to those rules of summary you learned in elementary and high school.

But only most of the time. If you have an alert ear for English usage you’ll notice that many successful and well – educated people don’t always write or speak absolutely correct English. They may confuse lie and lay or among and between, or forget that absolute words like perfect and unique shouldn’t have adverbs before them. But such mistakes are minor so common in everyday conversation that they’re acceptable. They don’t set off negative signals in reader’s minds. But take care to avoid these otherwise common mistakes. Your readers will be confident of your authority over your subject.

The grammatical errors that do sent negative signals to readers are glaring ones like “Me and her went to school together” or “He brung his wife with him”. Such conspicuous lapses will always damage a writer’s image. So the bottom line is that you simply don’t want to make such errors; they cost too much. Chapter 10 on editing, will help you identify some of the more common problems.