Is it OK to start a sentence off with And?

[sm4him]

Okay, I'm going to be the grumpy professional editor person here: You keep asking these very, very basic editorial questions. I *think* I recall seeing in one of your posts that you are writing a book. Is that correct?
I'm feeling about this like the pro photographers on here feel when people come on and say they just bought a D3100 and they've got their first wedding in a week.

As has been mentioned above, the answer to your question depends on what you are writing. A text message? Sure, use "And" at the beginning. A blog post? Well, those are still pretty informal and you *might* just get away with it and still sound somewhat literate.

"And" is a conjunction, used to connect words of the same part of speech, clauses or sentences that are to be taken jointly. As such, there are very, very, VERY few instances where using "And" at the beginning of a sentence is considered a good editorial practice.

Assuming you are, in fact, writing a book, I *highly* recommend you hire an editor, posthaste.

Yes, it would be nice to have lots of $ to throw at a project. But it all has to be budgeted.

Well, I am a museum quality documentary film photographer that is able to produce excellent quality wet or digital prints...that is it. I am not a digital expert nor a English expert. So I use the forum to help with the rest.

Text is about 15 pages. 75 photos is the main part of the book. 'Producing a photo book' may be a better wording than writing. Book will rest on photos not text.

Book is about 95% done. Had wife look it over. She helped some. But she hates my photography and would like to trash it all when I die. So I'm pretty much on my own.

Ah, okay. Knowing exactly what you are producing does make a difference. For what you are doing, I understand not hiring an editor. However, as Designer mentioned above, you'll likely be addressing quite a literate, well-spoken group, so your language does need to be carefully chosen.

I don't care for either of your sentence choices you've listed above. Neither of them are complete sentences; they're fragments.

Without the context of what you are attempting to convey, I can't really make a recommendation regarding how to construct the sentence more effectively.

If you want to PM me with the entire paragraph, or even the entire section, of the document this relates to, I'll see if I can give you some suggestions. However, it might be Monday, as I'll be heading out of town tomorrow (and should be busy packing tonight, instead of wasting time here on TPF, and drinking this excellent adult beverage).

 

[Compaq]

I would not feel bad if I started a sentence with "And" in any of my scientific reports. And why should I? We must do what we can to get our message across as clearly as possible. Sometimes, this means writing in the first person, other times in the passive voice, and some times we can start sentences with "And". There are few absolutes in style - you may even nominalize your verbs and adjectives if that is the best way to make the reader understand.

The language is an evolving thing. In earlier times, the opposite of the much feared "nominalization" of verbs and adjectives was not common. Today, however, you could get away with terms such as "googling" "e-mailing" in most areas, I suspect. That said, I believe the conjunction "and" could successfully be removed from most sentences where it appears at the beginning, and the sentence would still be rendered grammatically correct. Its appearance still changes the "feel" of the sentence, though.

 

[EIngerson]

And then?

 

[runnah]

Oh crap! I just noticed my "Give O ****" meter is damn near on zero.

 

[Mully]

You should hear grammar in the south .. one of my favorites is "them there"

 

[Designer]

You should hear grammar in the south .. one of my favorites is "them there"

I can listen to poorly-spoken English, and it doesn't bother me much, but when someone is writing, it makes a difference to me.

 

[sm4him]

You should hear grammar in the south .. one of my favorites is "them there"

I am a Southerner, born and bred--not ALL of us talk that way. But, yeah, I've heard supposedly bright, educated people say things like that. The one that really gets under my skin is "done went" or "done gone."

"Hey, is Carla still there?"
"No, she done gone over to her mom's."

But mostly, as Designer said, it's poorly written English that disturbs me. Well, even then, it depends on the circumstances. On a forum (with the exception of forums dedicated to literature, grammar, etc), on FB and other social media sites--I try very hard not to comment on poor grammar, because it's still really so "conversational" in nature. Even I don't really pay much attention to being grammatically correct here. For one thing I use ellipses too much...

But if you're writing for a "professional" blog or website, or writing a cover letter or a book or something of that nature then you want to sound as correct and professional as possible. In this instance, this is going to be the first impression these institutions have of the OP and her work. If she wants a chance at a second impression, this needs to be as polished and "correct" as possible.

 

[manaheim]

What I'm doing in my book (and I've noticed other authors do this, too...) is never do it in YOUR text, but in the speech of the characters, you can cheat like wild. People use all kinds of poor speech in their casual day to day lives.

 

[sm4him]

What I'm doing in my book (and I've noticed other authors do this, too...) is never do it in YOUR text, but in the speech of the characters, you can cheat like wild. People use all kinds of poor speech in their casual day to day lives.

Yours is a work of fiction, though. You can go wild with your characters' voices--they can even "correctly" say "done gone" if your character is that kind of person.
It's a distinct advantage to writing fiction, though to be honest, developing characters and then trying to "keep up with them" wears me out too much. So I tend to stick to nonfiction.

 

[oldhippy]

You should hear grammar in the south .. one of my favorites is "them there"

erar

Nuttin wrong wid my grammar, She's a flat talkin woman

 

[pixmedic]

You should hear grammar in the south .. one of my favorites is "them there"

I believe you mean "dem dere"

 

[manaheim]

Yours is a work of fiction, though. You can go wild with your characters' voices--they can even "correctly" say "done gone" if your character is that kind of person.
It's a distinct advantage to writing fiction, though to be honest, developing characters and then trying to "keep up with them" wears me out too much. So I tend to stick to nonfiction.

True. Good point!

 

[Pukka312]

And I thought there would be 26 comments above mine beginning with the word 'and'.

 

[jake337]

 

[Compaq]

Sounding professional or "scholarly" is not a goal of mine.
"An in-depth investigation was executed on the philosophical approach of ozone depletion in the top layer of the atmosphere, with special focus on the urban, public opinion of ozone depletion and the supposed polar impacts that are of great media attention these days."