Plain English
Tags
Summary
Editor's review
Who it's for
A good fit for
- Secondary school and university students who want to improve the clarity of their English writing
- Professionals who often write English emails and reports and want to cut redundant wording
- English teachers who can use it as a reference for writing-course rules and exercises
- Self-learners who prefer clear rules and concrete examples
Not a good fit for
- Professional readers who want a systematic study of linguistic theory or grammatical systems
- People who want the latest contemporary usage norms and editorial style guides
- Learners who only want to practice speaking and lack patience for written expression rules
Reading tips
- Read in the order of “word—sentence—paragraph,” and rewrite a piece of your own old writing after each section.
- Copy the book’s example sentences into a comparison table, mark the differences before and after revision, and appreciate the principle of concision.
- Each week, choose one piece of your own English writing, check it item by item against the book’s checklist, and rewrite it.
- When you encounter a rule that conflicts with contemporary style guides, record the difference and decide based on the actual writing scenario.
About the publisher
Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.
Contents
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FAQ
Can this book be used as a grammar book for systematic study?
Are all the rules in the book still applicable today?
How can I use it most effectively for writing practice?
Comments
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About the author
Marian Wharton is an author about whom little public information is available. Few personal details can be confirmed: her nationality, dates of birth and death, and full English name are not clearly recorded. One work by her is held in the collection, Plain English. Judging from its title and subject, the book centers on clear expression in English, emphasizing accuracy, concision, and practical use, and is addressed to ordinary readers who wish to improve their written and spoken communication. Writing of this kind typically stresses cutting redundancy, clarifying logic, and conveying meaning in plain words, and thus has the character of a language handbook that learners and writers can consult and practice with in daily use. Because biographical material is scarce, the full range of her work, her other writings, and the course of her writing career remain difficult to establish, and this book is for now the main basis for understanding her approach to writing.
