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

Joseph M. Williams
4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)


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Book Description

December 15, 2006 0321479351 978-0321479358 9th

Engaging and direct, Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace is the guidebook for anyone who wants to write well.



Product Details

  • Paperback: 304 pages
  • Publisher: Pearson/Longman; 9th edition (December 15, 2006)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0321479351
  • ISBN-13: 978-0321479358
  • Product Dimensions: 5.6 x 0.5 x 8.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #466,633 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace, Ninth Edition
Joseph M. Williams

Why have thousands of college writers loved–and learned from–this book? Listen to what Joseph Williams has to say:


“The ninth edition of Style aims at answering the same questions I asked in the earlier ones:

  • What is it in a sentence that makes readers judge it as they do?
  • How do we diagnose our own prose to anticipate their judgments?
  • How do we revise a sentence so that readers will think better of it?
The standard advice about writing ignores those questions. It is mostly truisms like Make a plan, Don’t use the passive, Think of your audience–advice that most of us ignore as we wrestle ideas out onto the page. When I drafted this paragraph, I wasn’t thinking about you; I was struggling to get my own ideas straight. I did know that I would come back to these sentences again and again, and that it would be only then–as I revised–that I could think about you and discover the plan that fit my draft. I also knew that as I did so, there were some principles I could rely on. This book explains them.”


Now even better, Style, Ninth Edition, includes more on:

  • How gifted writers manipulate the language of argument and thereby our responses to its logic and substance, and the ethical implications of that manipulation
  • How to work quotations into the flow of a sentence gracefully
  • Plagiarism–why readers suspect it, and how writers can avoid the mistaken perception of it.

Also new to this edition are “Quick Tips,” short bits of practical advice about how to deal with some common problems.


Product Details

  • Paperback: 304 pages
  • Publisher: Pearson/Longman; 9th edition (December 15, 2006)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0321479351
  • ISBN-13: 978-0321479358
  • Product Dimensions: 5.6 x 0.5 x 8.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #466,633 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Especially good for detangling an overblown style. Virginia Eller  |  7 reviewers made a similar statement
Neither should it be the only aim in rule books. Kevin B. Moses  |  4 reviewers made a similar statement
This is the first writing book I could not put down and now sits on my coffee table. TaxDork  |  1 reviewer made a similar statement
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
16 of 18 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars An Excellent Guide and Workbook August 25, 2007
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
.
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.
... Read more ›
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Write for the People June 20, 2007
Format:Paperback
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~]
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8 of 10 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Toward Strunk and White for poindexters February 6, 2007
Format:Paperback
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.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Great for serious writers! August 8, 2010
Format:Paperback
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!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars Review of Style 10 Lessons in Clarity and Grace 2006
This is a classic text for learning how to change your style, and how to produce a better style. I have used this book since the 2nd edition, and find it fascinating because... Read more
Published 10 months ago by Ray Archee
5.0 out of 5 stars An Advanced Version of Strunk & White
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. Read more
Published 23 months ago by Holy C
5.0 out of 5 stars A practical guide
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... Read more
Published on June 12, 2011 by Da Wang
4.0 out of 5 stars The Nuts and Bolts of Grammer
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... Read more
Published on May 15, 2011 by Michael Griswold
5.0 out of 5 stars Best ever
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. Read more
Published on October 30, 2010 by TaxDork
5.0 out of 5 stars GRAD LEVEL SCIENCE WRITING SKILLS
IF YOU NEED TO BRUSH UP ON GRAD-LEVEL SCIENTIFIC WRITNG,I.E. HYPOTHESIS, THESIS AND JOURNEL CONTEXTS, THIS AUTHOR IDEAS WILL HELP YOU DEVELOP BETTER BODY TEXT FOR DIFFERENT... Read more
Published on February 23, 2010 by Capt Miami
5.0 out of 5 stars A practical guideline for elegent and readable english
Since the first version of this book, until this latest version, everytime I learned the remarkable content more deeply. Read more
Published on February 15, 2010 by Shao Botao
2.0 out of 5 stars Clear, but not Graceful
I will imitate Mr. Williams in this review. We find some good information in this book. Well, we will give it two stars. Read more
Published on January 3, 2010 by stranger2himself
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant
This little book is well worth the cost. Full of tips it guides the reader in how to write with more skill and style. Read more
Published on September 10, 2009 by Mr. Aj Drapper
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book to improve your writing technique!
This book is great. It will teach you many techniques that will help you adavance as a writer, things that a novice like myself never considered. Clear and to the point.
Published on May 24, 2009 by Assaf Sadeh
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