Key Elements of Style :: Compare Contrast Strunk White Grace Essays

Key Elements of Style William Strunk and E.B. White's handbook The Elements of Style, and Joseph Williams's book Style Toward Clarity and Grace, are both full of good tips on how to improve writing style. The Elements of Style has some good information on how to make writing more vigorous and forceful, but it also contains a lot of opinions on word choice that seem frivolous. Although the advice may not be helpful, Strunk and White's strongly worded opinions are part of what makes their book enjoyable to read. Of the two, Williams's book is better at describing how to actually form better sentences and paragraphs. Before reading these books, I was of the opinion that everyone had their own writing style. Strunk, White, and Williams make it apparent however, that there are rules every writer can incorporate into their style to help make their writing more clear and direct. Both books contain helpful guidelines for improving writing style, but as Strunk and White say, "the first piece of advice is this: to achieve style, begin by affecting none (70)." Two lines that sum up what Strunk and White want to get across to their readers are, "Brevity is a by product of vigor (19)," and "omit needless words (23)." These authors are all about writing short, concise sentences. When this is done, they believe the product will be clear, forceful writing. They have some good tips on how to achieve this goal. The first is to omit the phrase "the fact that." They feel it "is an especially debilitating expression. It should be revised out of every sentence in which it occurs (24)." They then proceed to demonstrate how "the fact that" can be revised into shorter, clearer phrases. The above quote demonstrates the tone for much of The Elements of Style. Strunk and White remind me of a stuffy high school English teacher I once had, who used to embarrass students by making similar comments. At first I resented this, but after realizing the authors were no chastising me in front of any class, I grew to find comments like this amusing. Another good tip that is included in both books is to "put statements in positive form. Make definite assertions (Strunk 19)." Said another way, write without using the word "not." Again, Strunk and White provide many good examples on how to look for, and achieve this goal.