Customer Reviews

Style: Toward Clarity and Grace (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing)

5 star:		(24)
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3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

Most books on how to write better English are pretty near to useless. Many of them scare you into worrying that you might use "which" when you should use "that" (never mind that an extra "which" never caused any reader the smallest bit of confusion). Others demand that you strive for "clarity" or "brevity" or "coherence"--but then somehow never provide any useful advice on just how, exactly, to do so.

Joseph Williams's Style: Toward Clarity and Grace is an exception. It is the only truly useful book on English prose style that I have ever found. Even Strunk and White cannot compete with the quality of the advice that Williams gives. Perhaps more important, the advice that Williams gives can be used. As Williams puts it, his aim is to go "beyond platitudes." Advice like "'Be clear' is like telling me to 'Hit the ball squarely.' I know that. What I don't know is how to do it." Williams tells us how to do it.

Williams's advice is particularly useful because it is reader based. Most books on style are rule-based: follow these rules and you will be a good writer. Williams recognizes that clear writing is writing that makes the reader feel clear about what he or she is reading. This difference in orientation makes Williams's advice much more profound: he has a theory of why the rules are what they are (and what to do when the rules conflict) that books that focus on rules alone lack.

His advice starts at the level of the sentence. Williams believes that readers find sentences easy to read and understand when the logic of the thought follows the logic of the sentence: the subjects of sentences should be the actors, and the verbs of the sentence should be the crucial actions. The beginning of a sentence should look back and connect the reader with the ideas that have been mentioned before. The end of the sentence should look forward, and is the place to put new ideas and new information.

His advice continues at the level of the paragraph. The sentences that make up a paragraph should have consistent topics. New topics and new themes should be found at the end of a paragraph's introductory sentence (or sentences). Readers will find a paragraph to be coherent if it has one single articulate summary sentence, which is almost always found either at the end of the paragraph or as the last of the paragraph's introductory sentences.

His advice concludes with four chapters on being concise, on figuring out the appropriate length, on being elegant, and on using constructions that do not jar the reader. I think that these last four chapters are less successful than the other chapters of the book. They contain much sound advice. But the argument of the book becomes more diffuse. The first six chapters present and illustrate overarching organizing principles for achieving clarity, coherence, and cohesion. The last four chapters present long lists of things to try to do. (However, the fangs-bared attack on "pop grammarians" found in the last chapter is fun to read.)

So, gentle reader, if you want to become a better writer of English, go buy and work through this book. I, at least, have never found a better.

By itself, this book is helpful. But its not nearly as helpful as Williams other book "Style - Ten Lessons Towards Clarity & Grace," which is also available through Amazon.com. This version of Style simply presents Williams' theories about writing, but it does not provide the reader with the "workbook" drills that are contained in "Ten Lessons." A reader will only understand the value of Williams' techniques after he's had a chance to apply them. I recommend this book without reservation, but believe that most readers will benefit more from the "Ten Lessons" version.

I'm an economics professor who started teaching writing courses as a spare time activity when I discovered that our English faculty was doing such a poor job of it.

My writing class is directed at college undergrads and grad students. I tried a number of books, but settled on Williams and have been using it since the 2nd edition. I find that students can make an enormous improvement in their writing in just ten weeks.

If your goal is to learn the kind of writing that will help you explain a process, change someone's mind, or write the winning proposal, Williams is your man. Don't read it all in one session, and you must actually do the exercises.

Try a chapter a week. It works.

Charles Lave, University of California, Irvine

This is, by far, the best book on writing that I have ever read. I stumbled upon this book while taking a free writing seminar at Pepperdine University. I must say that I have never had such a wondrous, wholly unexpected discovery and experience as this. In the book Williams explains why writing may be clear, or unclear, and by relating narrative prose to composition. He states that when we can identify characters, i.e. people or things, with subjects, and actions with verbs, then we tend to think the writing is clear. He gives example upon example to buttress his point. Later he describes how to write coherent paragraphs and papers - not by concatenating one unrelated sentence to another but by making sure the topics of the sentences are related to each other, forming a cohesive unity. The book ends by examining ways to increase elegance in your writing - a fitting finish to a systematic, rational approach to writing. I must admit that another reason I enjoyed the book so much was that, being an engineer working in academia and doing research, I have read so many abstruse, incoherent papers that unless you are careful you begin to write in a similar manner. This book gives cogent, principled explanations about how to change these incoherent, murky writings into clear and concise papers. As I hope to have people read my works and not become frustrated this book was the perfect antidote.

If you are like me, you have long known you had an aptitude for writing but been amazed at the range of your experiences as a writer. At times you've been told you write with amazing force and clarity, while at others you've been told your writing is verbose and even "chatty." Why the disparity?

You'll understand why when you read this book. More than any other work I've seen, this book provides insight into how the mind operates during reading and applies this insight to the process of writing. Williams makes explicit the many subtle and not so subtle patterns and principles that govern how the mind comprehends writing. If you've had the experience of writing well--and not so well--but not realized why, this book will help you by revealing the principles of clarity that you've been applying intuitively for years--and those you haven't. This is a demanding but very rewarding book that would be of enormous value not only to writers, but to editors and even casual readers who want to deepen their appreciation of what makes lucid writing what it is. I can't recommend it highly enough.

Joseph Williams' book, "Style: Toward Clarity and Grace" is the best book on writing I have ever read, by far. Williams himself describes the emphasis of the book on page one: "Telling me to 'Be clear' is like telling me to 'Hit the ball squarely.' I know that. What I don't know is how to do it." But Williams does know how to write well, and his explanations are precise and concrete.

This book takes a sort of linguistic, almost scientific approach to improving your writing style. I first learned of Williams' work in "The Language Instinct," by the Stephen Pinker, the acclaimed professor of linguistics from MIT.

Unlike every other writing book, this one is more than a laundry list of grammatical shoulds and shouldn'ts. This book is about HOW-- how to write to suit the human brain's innate method of processing information.

I am a professional writer, and I have a whole book case filled with grammar books. But this book is worth more than all the others combined. If you're a writer, this is the book you've been looking for.

Go to any bookstore (cyber or otherwise) - see writing books arrayed row upon row. Now, take down a copy of "Style" by Joseph Williams, and leave Zinsser and Strunk & White collecting dust on the shelf, because William's is the only one you'll ever need. Williams describes the actual writing process better than anyone, and presents a method which an aspiring writer may employ to accomplish his or her writing goals - whatever they are! And he does it without recourse to the usual grammatical rules and "mechanics of writing" approach. That approach [resumptive modifier!] never helped anyone become a better writer - and it sure discouraged a lot of us!

Make no mistake! This is not beach reading, as Williams himself would tell you. Williams develops an entire system of writing over the course of the book, adding to it chapter by chapter. If you're not used to sustained intellectual effort, or if you have a short attention span, this book will definitely be a stretch. It requires prolonged concentration. But if you put forth the effort, it will be rewarded! I've read this book through at least eight times cover to cover, and while I'm not a great writer, I've improved immeasurably.

My compliments to Professor Williams - a great book!

Of the many books on style that I have read, this is the first that draws on research in cognitive psychology to buttress its recommendations. Perhaps it should have been called: "A Scientific Approach Toward Clarity and Grace." For that is what it is. And for that reason, it is one of the most valuable books of its genre.

I found this an extremely helpful book, but definitely not for the beginning writer. Williams meticulously guides you through the vagaries of the English language, and shows you how to solve various problems with your writing (although solving one problem often creates another). Williams is very good at pinpointing what exactly doesn't work about certain writing. He is also very good at demonstrating how writing is ultimately too vast, elusive, and personal a subject to ever be easily codified. This last element of the book, while correct, is not for the novice writer, who is apt to give up, feeling it's all relative in the end. But for those of us who have to write a lot and don't always find it easy, this book is invaluable.

For people who are serious about improving their writing skills, this is an excellent how-to book. Prof. Williams does not dispense facile advice ("use the active voice") or mindless rules of usage and grammar ("don't split infinitives"). Instead, he teaches you, step by step, how to construct sentences and paragraphs that are clear, concise, coherent, even elegant. He explains in great detail the principles and techniques involved in achieving clarity, grace, and other attributes of good writing. And he illustrates these principles and techniques with many specific, telling examples. "Style" is not a quick read, but it is definitely worth the effort.