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Nancy Ragno is co-author of the language arts series "World of Language" and its predecessors, "Silver Burdett & Ginn English" and "Silver Burdett English." She earned her M.A. at New York University and is a former teacher, lecturer, and textbook editor. In addition to her textbook series, she has written plays, biographies, and nonfiction for the middle grade and parts of numerous programs in language arts, reading, literature,and speech for major publishers.
Originally from Philadelphia, she currently resides in Knoxville, TN, where you may often find her at Close Encounter Village in The Knoxville Zoo, where she works as a volunteer, explaining bio-facts to visitors and assisting with their "close-up and personal" encounters with birds and small animals. Her interests include organic gardening, wildlife, and playing the bassoon. During her college years, she was first-chair bassoonist of the Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra. She maintains her interest in music and support of local musical organizations.
Visit http://www.TheWordSavvy Site for more information and updates on "Word Savvy" and choosing the right word.
Reviewed by Lori M for Readers' Favorite
I love words. In high school, my favorite class was English when we were learning vocabulary. Sometimes I even open up the dictionary at random to learn a new word and I keep a notepad in my desk drawer of words I have learned and try to find reasons to use them. Yes, I am a geek. So it is no small wonder that I really enjoyed Nancy Ragno’s book, "Word Savvy".
According to the author, a writer’s number one mistake is choosing the wrong word. As a college professor, I see this happen all the time with my students. I like how Ragno arranged the book not only to point out the most commonly confused word pairs and misused words, but also to provide definitions, examples and memory tricks to help the reader keep the words straight in his/her mind, and quizzes. It is one thing to write an explanation of the words, but Ragno went a delightful step further by providing exercises whereby the reader will practice using the words appropriately and correctly. The best way to learn something is through practice and this book is created to allow you to do that and master the words for life.
Next semester, I am going to mention this book to my graduate students as I really think it would help them. Regrettably, one of the problems that is still plaguing graduate students is an inability to write and I think that if they invested enough time to read this book, it would benefit their writing not only by helping them separate the commonly misused word pairs, but by improving their writing as well.
