The Gregg Reference Manual by William A. Sabin is pretty much the ultimate in reference manuals for English grammar rules. The book is set up with an extraordinary index that references each item by both page number and paragraph, which makes it useful when you are trying to determine if something is correct or not.

I used The Gregg Reference Manual in an English grammar class I took once and was pleasantly surprised that using the book was actually fun. The instructor was pretty clever in teaching us how to use the book- she gave us a worksheet filled with sentences riddled with grammar mistakes- a dream for any nerdy English major- and had us look up the correct paragraph and page number in the index. After trying the book out, my class partner and I quickly came to the conclusion that The Gregg Reference Manual is where it’s at. Most of the index is fairly intuitive, which makes it easier to use than some other style and reference manuals that I’ve seen and the grammar descriptions are clear and all come with easy to understand examples.

The Gregg Reference Manual covers everything from commas, to abbreviations, to the ever-confusing rules of hyphens and more and the well-thought out index makes it extra-ordinarily simple to use. The 10th Edition of the book includes an electronic index and an online version, which make it well worth the extra cost. I’ve also found the formatting examples in the book extremely useful and believe that they would be useful for anyone needing help with their business or resume formatting and writing.

That said, I should point out that The Gregg Reference Manual is not a style manual- the book covers the basic rules of grammar and not a particular type of style such as the AP format or the style described in the Chicago Manual of Style. The book doesn’t have any specific tips on improving your writing, either.

In addition, because of the size of The Gregg Book of Reference and the number of rules included in the book, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend The Gregg Reference Manual to non-native English speakers studying for the dreaded TOEIC or TOEFL tests; instead, I would suggest that EFL students refer either to a book in their own language or “A Writer’s Reference” to learn the basic grammar rules.