Customer Reviews

Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace (9th Edition)

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1 star:		(2)

 

 

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Reviewed by C.J.Singh

Even a brief browsing of Joseph Williams's STYLE: LESSONS IN CLARITY AND GRACE, ninth edition, would persuade most readers that it makes the much touted Strunk & White's "The Elements of Style" look, well, elementary. Simplistic. If the seductively slender "Elements"--easily read in a day, no exercises to do--could deliver its claim, by the end of the day there'd be millions of excellent writers. Besides, Williams shows how Strunk & White flout their own advice to "omit unnecessary words": he edits their 199-word paragraph to just 51 words (Williams, pp. 126-28). Williams shows grace in conceding that "in boiling down that original paragraph to a quarter of its original length, I've bleached out its garrulous charm."

In his preface to the 289-page book, Williams urges the reader to "go slowly" as it's "not an amiable essay to read in a sitting or two.... Do the exercises, edit someone else's writing, then some of your own written a few weeks ago, then something you wrote that day."

I assigned STYLE as the main textbook in Advanced Editorial Workshop, a ten-week course, I taught at the University of California. Each term, students rated the book as excellent. (The prerequisite to the workshop was a review course, with the main textbook "The Harbrace College Handbook." Although STYLE includes a 32-page appendix summarizing grammar and punctuation rules, most readers would be well-advised to review a standard college handbook, such as the Harbrace or Bedford. See my review of Bedford, seventh edition on Amazon.)

To date, Amazon has published 42 reviews of STYLE. The one-star reviews criticize the author's own writing in the book as lacking grace. Let's not forget that this is a text- and work-book -- occasional pedagogic tone is to be expected. On the whole, the author's voice sounds earnest, refreshingly honest: Commenting on what's new in the ninth edition: "Finally, I've also done a lot of line editing. After twenty-five years of revising this book, you'd think by this time I'd have it right, but there always seem to be sentences that make me slap my forehead, wondering how I could have written them."

His expository style is clear. Two examples: Introducing the concepts of cohesion and coherence, Williams writes, "We judge sequences of sentences to be cohesive depending on how each sentence ends and the next begins. We judge a whole passage to be coherent depending on how all the sentences in a passage cumulatively begin. . . . It's easy to confuse the words cohesion and coherence because they sound alike. Think of cohesion as pairs of sentences fitting together the way two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle do. Think of coherence as seeing what all the sentences in a piece of writing add up to, the way all the pieces in a puzzle add up to the picture on the box."

"You can write a long sentence but still avoid sprawl if you change relative clauses to one of three kinds of appositives, resumptive, summative, or free. You have probably never heard of these terms before, but they name stylistic devices you have read many times and so should know how to use.

To create a resumptive modifier, find a key noun just before the tacked-on clause, then pause after it with a comma . . . . Then repeat the noun ... and that repeated word add a relative clause beginning with `that': 'Since mature writers often use restrictive modifers to extend a line of thought, we need a word to name what I am about to do in this sentence, a sentence that I could have ended at that comma, but extended to show you how resumptive modifiers work.'"

"To create a summative modifier, end a grammatically complete segment of a sentence with a comma . . . . Find a term that sums up the substance of the sentence so far . . . . Then continue with a relative clause beginning with `that': 'Economic changes have reduced Russian population growth to less than zero, a demographic event that will have serious social implications.'" And, free modifiers: "Like the other modifiers, a free modifier can appear at the end of a clause, but instead of repeating a key word or summing up what went before, it comments on the subject of the closest verb.

"'Free modifiers resemble resumptive and summative modifiers, letting you (i.e., the free modifier lets you) extend the line of a sentence while avoiding a train of ungainly phrases and clauses.'" In the preceding sentence, Williams simultaneously explains and exemplifies the concept of free modifiers.

In the chapter titled "Elegance," Williams points out that "the device that often appears in elegant prose" is the use of resumptive and summative modifiers. An example from Joyce Carol Oates, using two resumptive modifiers: "Far from being locked inside our own skins, inside the `dungeons' of ourselves . . . our minds belong . . . to a collective `mind,' a mind in which we share . . . the inner and outer experience of existence."

In the final chapter, "The Ethics of Style," Williams takes on academics who "rationalize opacity," with a ". . . claim that their prose style must be difficult because their ideas are new, they are, as a matter of simple fact, more often wrong than right. . . . Whatever can be written can usually be written more clearly, with just a little more effort."

Well-crafted writing emerges only from repeated rewriting. This five-star text- and workbook teaches the exacting--and joyously rewarding--craft of rewriting. Moreover, I wholly agree with the author's observation on writing clearly and cognitive psychology: "The more clearly we write, the more clearly we see and feel and think."

-- C J Singh

Some style guides are highly respected in the writing community, but others are just vanity operations by literary snobs who think they're important enough to tell the rest of us how to write. There's a reason this guide by Williams has made it through nine editions, and that's because he has gained respect while debunking the condescending language snobs. Williams presents fairly standard recommendations on word choice and sentence construction, but the key to this book is its organization. Constructing this guide around the maters of clarity, grace, and ethics leads to a great amount of illumination on the opportunities and responsibilities of writing. Williams is not afraid to cut down style tyrants and academic obfuscators, with bodacious convictions like "it's a language of exclusion that a democracy can't tolerate" and "what is at stake is the ethical foundations of a literate society." But unlike his opponents, Williams can back up such convictions with serious tips for avoiding language that will make you look like an obtuse egghead, a shifty demagogue, or any other villain who talks down to the reader. And while you can get basic style tips anywhere, Williams has the edge in making you realize why you should care about strong style, besides pleasing your instructor. You can also write for yourself and for the people.

(Note: this rather skinny book just barely avoids being docked one star for its excessive retail price. Find a cheap used copy of an older edition, which would not really be "outdated" as you'll only be missing a few minor updates.) [~doomsdayer520~]

Brian,
You certainly have a point; Williams' book is not always elegant. But to suggest that the Elements of Style is a substitute for it is not only dishonest, but wrong. The Elements of Style doesn't even cover the same material as Williams' book. Williams' book concerns itself with writing on a sentence level, almost on a word level (which you might feel as pedantry), yet I find invaluable. Elements won't tell you why readers stress the final words of a sentence, or why readers stumble on complicated information at the beginning. It is just this sort of rhetorical advice that writers need and what I find valuable in the book.

Elements, on the other hand, is merely a well written book of do's and don'ts, with an admixture of flashy writing. Why do I need to know a description of William Shrunk, Jr.? Or more to the point, why does E. B. White need to tell it. Is he ego-tripping, or amusing himself? And furthermore, if Williams himself is prone to the complicated sentence, White certainly isn't immune: "Having recovered from his adventure in prolixity (sixty-three words were a lot of words in the tight world of William Shrunk, Jr.) the professor proceeds to give a few quick lessons in pruning."

Elements of Style is a good book. It advocates to omit needless words, a fine crusade. But it certainly not the only aim in writing. Neither should it be the only aim in rule books. E. B. White admits to that when he confesses that this book does not pretend to survey the whole field of English Grammar. And neither should you. Brain.

The book is widely acclaimed, and I can see why. Many of the issues addressed (or, rather "Williams addresses" :) ) would be familiar to those of us who read a lot of student work. But then I started reading his "corrections" of existing academic work, and got a bit worried.

One of his examples draws from Talcott Parsons, a sociologist celebrated as much for his terse and verbose style as for his role in establishing functional structuralism as the dominant paradigm in the middle of the last century. Williams suggests that there is no need for the complexity. He takes this passage from Parsons:

"Apart from theoretical conceptualization there would appear to be no method of selecting among the indefinite number of varying kinds of factual observation which can be made about a concrete phenomenon or field so that the various descriptive statements about it articulate into a coherent whole, which constitutes an "adequate," a "determinate" description. Adequacy in description is secured in so far as determinate and verifiable answers can be given to all the scientifically important questions involved. What questions are important is largely determined by the logical structure of the generalized conceptual scheme which, implicitly or explicitly, is employed."

and mostly in the context of a discussion of subjects and active/passive verbs, he changes this to the much clearer:

"If scientists have no theory, they have no way to select from among everything they could say about something only that which would fit into a coherent whole, a whole that would be "adequate" or "determinate." Scientists describe something "adequately" only when they can verify answers to questions that they think are important. They decide what questions are important on the basis of the theories that they implicitly or explicitly use."

Now, I am far from an expert on Parons's thought, but this seems to me to be a wholly inaccurate paraphrasing of the original paragraph. Williams has taken "varying kinds of factual observation" and rephrased it as "everything they could say about something." Less jargon? Of course. But it also means two different things. "Kinds of observation" have little to do with "ways of saying." Moreover, Williams collapses "theoretical conceptualization" with "theory." The two, I suspect, were not the same thing for Parsons. Likewise "generalized conceptual scheme" is not the same thing as "theory." In a work of sociological theory, conflating the two is highly suspect.

While we're at it "scientifically important" is not the same is "what they [scientists] think are important." Sure, we could enter into a debate over whether they may be the same (i.e., there is no ideal of "scientific importance" beyond that which is agreed upon by the plurality of scientists), but I doubt this is what Parsons is intending to suggest.

Williams goes on to rephrase it further:

"To describe something so that you can fit it into a whole, you need a theory. When you ask a question, you need a theory to verify your answer. Your theory even determines your question."

This is pablum. If a grad, or even an undergrad, wrote the above in a basic theory class, I'd fail them on the spot. I'll admit, Parsons did not write in a way that was particularly comprehensible. But you don't "fix" that by tossing out the meaning of whole phrases, and "dumbing down" the material. This is precisely why it's frustrating when students read Spark Notes. Williams concludes that

"The simplest version may omit some of the nuances. But Parson's excruciating style must numb all but his most masochistically dedicated readers."

He's right, it does. But at least there is some implication that there is a there there, that Parsons has something to say. No copy editor would keep his job if he suggested changing the first version to the last. This is more than moving away from passive verbs, it's stripping the paragraph of its meaning.

I continue, hoping that this was merely a brief lapse. But no, in the very next section, Williams suggests that a better version of

"Early childhood thought disorder misdiagnosis often occurs as a result of unfamiliarity with recent research literature describing such conditions."

would be

"Physicians are misdiagnosing disordered thought in young children because they are not familiar with the literature on recent research."

The idea here is that noun chains should be broken up. Again, if I read this in a paper from a student, I would assume it was written by a non-native speaker. I am not a doctor, but I suspect that "early childhood thought disorder" is a term of art. It doesn't actually mean "disordered thought," but rather the alternative meaning of disorder: that is, according to OED, "a disruption of normal physical or mental functions." I am shocked that anyone could confuse the meaning so thoroughly. Sure, pull misdiagnosis out of that long phrase, but don't make the sentence incomprehensible to its target audience. Likewise "research literature" is fine. If you have to fix it, remove "research" or "literature" rather than changing it to the awkward "literature on recent research."

I don't think that these errors are enough to condemn the entire book, but they are certainly enough to stop me from continuing to read it.

This little book is well worth the cost. Full of tips it guides the reader in how to write with more skill and style. You need to know some grammar and English composition first so suits an older student, or adult and one who has an interest in writing.

Ever since I discovered the clarity and grace of Strunk and White in high school, it has been the standard by which I measure other writing books. But despite all the usefulness of Strunk and White, there is only so much you can cover in that limited amount of space. Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace (ninth edition) offers a more advanced and in-depth version of Strunk and White. It is not for the novice high school writer, but for the writer who has understood the basic principles explained in Strunk and White and still wants to refine his art further. The writing is obviously clear and graceful, but the examples and exercises provided train the reader in developing such clarity and grace more than just the concise exposition of Strunk and White.

It is a very practical guide on writing, with ample examples comparing the good and the bad. It starts from the writing concise and clear statements, moves on to construction of a paragraph, and touches elegance in writing in the end. You will get not only principles of good writing, but also many useful tips. I think this is better than Elements of Style.

Used the book for an Essay Composition course mirrors the previous editions in a lot of ways, with the exception of the exercises that are designed to allow you to practice what the book tries to teach you. Funny that this innovation was not considered until the 9th edition of the book, because I would've thought it would've been in the first or second. Basic human logic would dictate that if your offering lessons in clarity and grace, one doesn't just spit out the nuts and bolts, but offers the opportunity to practice. That apparently missed the authors of this book for eight editions, overall though solid book on the basics of English grammer and composition.

This book has it all. Easy read, easy to follow, and a wealth of information. This is the first writing book I could not put down and now sits on my coffee table. I really appreciate the samples and exercises because as an ESL student, abstract descriptions and definition not always make sense.

This book is great for SERIOUS writers, be they creative, professional, or student. It goes far beyond comma splices and how to use apostrophes. I consider myself an proficient writer, but this book helped me consider how to to change some of my bad writing habits (yes, even the best of us have them!), and rethink approaches that are "okay" but could be carried out with more "grace," to use Williams' term. I highly recommend it for anyone willing to take the time to understand the science behind how to write clearly and effectively!