This is incredibly thorough and very well organized to boot. Nice job.

I would like to raise one issue with your grammatical guide: the question of third-person singular gender-neutral pronouns.

As addressed in "XI: Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement and Subject-Verb Agreement", (and I realize the comma is outside of the quotation marks -- it's colloquially acceptable) you make the case that agreement of number is more important than agreement of gender. I would contest such a notion. As you mention (albeit obliquely), in the Romantic languages "he" and its derivatives are used as the third-person singular gender-neutral pronoun. However, English is not a Romantic language. Not only is it Teutonic/Germanic, it doesn't pay much heed to the Teutonic/Germanic rules, either.

What I'm trying to get at (and I apologise for the digression) is that English tends to favour "they" as its third-person singular gender-neutral pronoun. Thus, in point of fact, Example 132.1 is grammatically correct, whereas the "solution" which follows it is considered in error. The reason for using "they" is that it cleans up the prose by acknowledging that the subject is not known to be male or female, while still eliminating the ghastly slashes which arise from "he/she" or "s/he".

One last note: "antecedent" actually refers to the first instance of the subject (it means 'that which comes before'). Thus, if we stick with Example 132.1, "the class" is the antecedent, and "everyone" and "their" are the 'anaphors' (or pronouns, to be less technical).

It's still a fine guide, just be sure that you acknowledge "they" as a viable alternative for the third-person singular gender-neutral pronoun.

-Andrew

Updated!

I've realized that the "copy and paste" feature has failed me. Therefore, Section XI is in need of a minor update.

I can't be mean anymore? I feel insulted, even after I took the time out of my life to place that little warning in there. Just kidding. Nah, I really don't care if you find it mean or not because, quite frankly, I'm a mean person by nature. So, that being said, have a nice day and happy writing!

Man, really-- I'm sorry I keep attacking you with stupid stuff, but I really want to give some more advice XD Sorry. I really want to see the best out of this essay-- especially because it's telling us how to write.

Even though it isn't 'wrong' in any way, let's say, but it weakens your essay: the way you, er, attack your readers.

You, um, sometimes... uh, assume the worst in us. You use a lot of second person in your essay, which is okay-- but you occasionally write things that... offend people.

The reason why second person is mostly written for 'choose-your-own' and not for long novels is because the writer is forced into making generalizations (sorry if that was spelled wrong). In 'choose-your-own's, the reader picks their path and the writer writes the rest of the story based of what the reader picked. Making assumptions about people can not only be rude, but wrong.

A writer doesn't want to attack their readers. I did not read the entire essay (I mostly focused on pieces that I thought I could improve in and/or ones that caught my eye), but I have found a couple of attacks:

"Like JK Rowling, but you’re probably not at her storytelling level to be exempt from this by your readers or me." While this may be true, like I've said before, it is not true all the time. Who might be reading your essay? JK Rowling, while I enjoy her writing, is not the only good-quality writer in the world. "Like JK Rowling, but many people are not at her storytelling level to be exempt from this by their readers." would keep this point polite and safe. It's like if you read "Like good writers, but you're probably not good enough to take risks in your writing." This may be true for some people (small children?), but I would personally be very offended if anyone told me that.

"I’m going to show you the error of your ways." (chap 8) is also a some-what attack towards your readers. This reminds me of the essay I read from a novice writer-- the guy kept using "I'm going to show you why you're wrong" and "You are incorrect because...". He was attacking me, even though I, as a writer, had never went against his opinion from the start (it was a persuasive essay).

Again, none of this is grammically incorrect-- just rather mean >.>; I think that the essay would be a lot better if these attacks were removed ^^ (but, it's your essay, so your choice)

I will look through this more (I liked the piece of serial-comma's; I didn't know about the chocolate-chip peanut butter cookie thing before) later, when I have the time.

My fanfiction user is SixFoldDimension (do you have a FFnet account?). I was hoping, perhaps later, we could debate about the "!?" topic? (I took the SAT point seriously >.>-- I'm still in middle school, so I wouldn't know)

Anyways, so far, nicely done!

Sorry. That was a sleep-deprivation-caused typo. I've made many, as I'm sure that's the result of writing this in one night would do, so please keep pointing them out. Thanks! :)

Please, allow me to point out something else:

"The neighbor's wife's dog was hit by a truck."

and

"The dog of the wife's neighbor was hit by a truck."

actually mean two different things. I'll name each character to make it easier to show you:

"Bob's wife's [Jill] dog was hit by a truck." Here, Bob and Jill-- neighbor and his wife-- are both the 'neighbors' to whomever is talking.

"The dog of Jill's neighbor was hit by a truck." This sentence shows that it was someone else's dog who was hit-- not Jill's [neighbor's wife].

I think that this was a typo. It should be "The dog of the neighbor's wife was hit by a truck".

That's all!

(P.S: How come and won't allow a four-dotted eclipes? They make the first '...' bolded, but the last one stands out like a tiny dot. Have you noticed?)

I agree with many points that you mention in this essay, and I think that these pointers are important to any piece of writing-- but I would like to point out a couple of things that I want more clarity in.

Specifically, your "?!" argument.

I have been using "?!" (or "!?", rather), and I see no problem in using so. Your only argument for not using "?!" is that you think it is stupid-- which is not a very strong reason. If you could give me a couple more, valid reasons, I might reconsider "!?". It would mean a lot.

Other than that, I think your essay is nicely done (except for the part when you mentioned that 'I'm probably not at JK Rowling's storytelling level'-- which may be true, but you cannot be sure as to who you're talking to). Keep it up!

Thank you for clarifying the semi-colon and everything else you've put in this guide.
I should have read this before now...