Is this your first time to visit Writing the Cyber Highway? Be sure to subscribe to my Feed or by e-mail. In the next couple of posts, I’ll be sharing photos and details about my visit to an old-fashioned festival where I dressed up as a pioneer woman (bonnet and all!) and also had the amazing opportunity to meet an Editor and an Editor-In-Chief. Eeek! (It’s coming, I promise!)

The Contest Has Ended

What an awesome contest! Thanks so much for all the wonderful entries. I truly wish I had enough copies of Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing to send each and every one of you a copy–but I don’t.

I know you’re all super excited to find out who won, so I’ll get right to it. I used Random.org to randomly select the winners. Speaking of which…

And the Winners Are

Winner #1 is comment #26, which is Rebecca Laffar-Smith!

Here’s what Rebecca said in her comment:

26.  Rebecca Laffar-Smith Says:

June 4th, 2009 at 1:45 am

“Grammar! It’s a frightful word to be honest. I’ve fudged my way through the ins and outs but don’t really know the ‘rules’. Thankfully, very few people do know all the rules so it’s not so hard to get by in day to day writing but when we’re submitting to the harsh eye of an editor every grammar goof is a glaring admittance of ignorance. Have you tried learning from style guides? I am brain dead in ten seconds. It would be nice to have a resource that makes learning Grammar light, easy, and fun.”

Winner #2 is comment #1, which is Lori from Green Gigs!

Here’s what Lori said in her comment:

1. Lori Says:

June 3rd, 2009 at 10:23 pm edit

“Two words: science major – that is why I could use this book! I love the passive voice, “quick” and “light-hearted” are my type of tips!”

Lucky ladies, contact me with your mailing addresses and I’ll get Mignon Fogarty’s fun words of wisdom in the mail to you!

Thank you to everyone who entered, and especially to Richard Rhorer and Mignon Fogarty for making this contest possible!!

First, I’d like to send out a special thank you to Richard Rhorer and Mignon Fogarty for sponsoring this contest.

Is this your first time to visit Writing the Cyber Highway? Be sure to subscribe to my Feed or by e-mail. In the next couple of posts, I’ll be sharing photos and details about my visit to an old-fashioned festival where I dressed up as a pioneer woman (bonnet and all!) and also had the amazing opportunity to meet an Editor and an Editor-In-Chief. Eeek!

“My philosophy is that learning about language should be fun. I’m not in this for the thrill of running a metaphorical red pen through e-mail messages or blog posts. Although writing badly is like dressing in lime skorts and an orange plaid sweater-people notice-publicly correcting a stranger’s writing is as rude as asking someone with a fashion problem “Did you think that looked good when you got dressed this morning?” I would do neither. Instead, I hope to raise the waters of good writing by distributing quick and dirty tips as widely as possible.”-Mignon Fogarty, aka Grammar Girl

And she’s definitely accomplishing that!

I love the fun way Mignon Fogarty explains difficult English grammar and usage rules. The cartoon examples are fun, too! You don’t have to be a writer to want to improve your grammar. Maybe you’re in college or high school, or maybe you just want to write perfect e-mails to your co-workers or persnickety friends and family. Whatever reason you have for wanting to learn the ins and outs of English, now’s your chance to do just that! I’m excited to offer a contest with Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing as the prize. Wait, not only does one reader get the chance to win-two of you are going to have the opportunity to win this awesome book!

No, you aren’t seeing double!

Two of you will each win a copy of Grammar Girl’s book!

Mignon Fogarty shares her knowledge of the English language in a light-hearted, down-to-earth way all of us can learn from.

From the bright, cheerful cover to the fun and easy-to-understand grammar and usage tips to the oh-so-cute cartoons of Squiggly and Aardvark, Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing is a book that should be on everyone’s bookshelf-even if you aren’t a writer or blogger!

A peek inside:

Learning from Aardvark…

You may find it odd that an adult English grammar reference book has cartoon illustrations sprinkled throughout its pages, but you’ll understand once Fogarty explains:  “I get flashes of crazy memory tricks, funny phrases, and cartoons where Aardvark (a blue aardvark) and Squiggly (a yellow snail) go on grammar adventures, and I love to share them all with you.” (Isn’t it so nice of her to share with us?!)

Keep up with Grammar Girl

Grammar Girl speeds the cyber highway sharing grammar and usage tips and can be found at the following locations:

• On Twitter: @GrammarGirl
• Subscribe to her daily tip newsletter.
• Visit Grammar Girl’s site and listen to the podcast!

I love the cover design!

I have an endless thirst for knowledge. I love learning, and as a writer and blogger, I especially love honing my craft. I adore writing reference books. Some of you may remember last year I won a contest myself: a $100 Amazon Gift Certificate. You better believe I used every last penny of it on reference books to enhance my writing career. And this is one reason I’m so excited for you, my readers, to have the opportunity to expand your own reference library!

Have a Kindle? You can get a Kindle version of Grammar Girl, too!

Oh, and did I mention Mignon Fogarty is only Oprah’s favorite grammar gal?!

Contest Rules

You’re allowed FIVE entries for this contest:

Note: Please leave a comment for each thing you do (tweet, plurk, etc.) because each comment will be counted as a number when I enter the total number of comments at Random.org once the contest ends. Thanks!

1. Leave a comment sharing why you’d benefit from owning a copy of Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing. (DO NOT just say “thanks for the contest” or something like that-I do not publish those type of comments because they seem like spam and aren’t fair to the other contestants who leave a thoughtful, genuine answer.)
2. Do you use Twitter? Tweet about this contest and then leave a comment with your Twitter name.
3. Share this contest on your blog, linking back to this post. (The pingback will be counted as your third entry.) If you don’t see your pingback, just contact me and let me know. It may have gone to spam for some reason.
4. Add Writing the Cyber Highway to your favorites on Technoratori. Comment to let me know, with a link to your technoratori profile to show you added us.
5. Do you Plurk? Share this contest on Plurk and then leave the Plurk page URL in the comments. That will count as your fifth (and last) entry.

NOTE: ANYONE can enter this contest. You DO NOT have to be in the United States. Oh, and I’ll be using Random.org to choose the winners.

Contest ends Saturday, June 13th, at 9 p.m. (Central Time) so you have 10 days to get all your entries in. Have fun trying to win!