One of the things I do in my real life is teach scientific writing. As such, I have accumulated a number of books and links related to spelling, grammar, and style. I figure I might as well share them since they may be helpful to you all.

1) The Elements of Style by Strunk and White. A classic for proper usage and sentence construction. There is even an online version available.

2) One of my favourite books on grammatical matters is Woe Is I by Patricia T. O'Conner. It's a funny book with chapter titles such as Comma Sutra: The Joy of Punctuation and Woe is I: Therapy for Pronoun Anxiety. I read it cover to cover, and learned so much about grammar in a way that I was able to digest and retain the information.

3) Dictionaries! The day I discovered the existence of online dictionaries was a great day. My favourite is Merriam-Webster , which I use several times a week, but I also use dictionary.com and thefreedictionary.com from time to time.

4) If you have ever read Tomato Nation, which I used to do assiduously for many years, you've probably heard of the bible of usage, Garner's Modern American Usage. I've yet to buy it, but Sars swears it is her bible on all linguistic dilemmas, and given how much I've learned about grammar and style from reading her columns, I believe her.

5) Two books that may be more relevant for academic rather that creative writing are Style: Toward Clarity and Grace by Joseph M. Williams and The Everyday Writer by Andrea A. Lunsford. Nevertheless, both of those books provide many tips to make your writing much more effective, concise, and precise.

I will continue to dig and pull out other resources, which I shall post later in the week. I hope this is helpful to some MTT members. :)