Writely or Wrongly: An Unstuffy Guide to the Stuff of Language

An essential guide for anyone with cause to communicate in written form (most of us), a passing interest in doing it better (some of us), and a disinterest in a book on said subject that is humourlessly preoccupied with rules (almost all of us).

Author Joanne Anderson has expanded on the popular tips she shares weekly with writers at Nine mastheads so that readers everywhere can benefit from her entertaining and incisive observations.

Writely or Wrongly considers:

• Why English needs conventions for clarity but also why some things many of us believe are correct or important ain’t necessarily so
• Cool things punctuation marks do
• Things that mangle sentences
• Uncool things jargon does
• Common pitfalls
• And much more!

Joanne Anderson has worked as a journalist on major publications in Australia and Hong Kong. She joined The Age’s subediting team in 2004, eventually becoming chief desk editor, a role in which she herds thousands of words each day and adjudicates on tricky language questions. She has worked on in-house style guides and written a weekly newsletter on English use for staff at The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and their sister publications. Joanne lives in Melbourne but does not like Aussie rules.