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William Strunk Jr.

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The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition 4th Edition

by William Strunk Jr. (Author), E. B. White (Author), Test Editor (Editor),

4.7 8,430 ratings

in Grammar Reference

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You know the authors' names. You recognize the title. You've probably used this book yourself. This is The Elements of Style, the classic style manual, now in a fourth edition. A new Foreword by Roger Angell reminds readers that the advice of Strunk & White is as valuable today as when it was first offered. This book's unique tone, wit and charm have conveyed the principles of English style to millions of readers. Use the fourth edition of "the little book" to make a big impact with writing.

ISBN-10

9780205309023
ISBN-13

978-0205309023
Edition

4th
Publisher

Pearson
Publication date

July 23, 1999
Language

English
Dimensions

7 x 4.5 x 0.3 inches
Print length

105 pages
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"...a marvellous and timeless little book... Here, succinctly, elegantly and without fuss are the essentials of writing clear, correct English."

John Clare, The Telegraph

From the Back Cover

Some acclaim for previous editions:

"Buy it, study it, enjoy it. It's as timeless as a book can be in our age of volubility."
― The New York Times

"No book in shorter space, with fewer words, will help any writer more than this persistent little volume."
― The Boston Globe

"White is one of the best stylists and most lucid minds in this country. What he says and his way of saying it are equally rewarding."
― The Wall Street Journal

"The book remains a nonpareil: direct, correct, and delightful."
― The New Yorker

". . . Should be the daily companion of anyone who writes for a living, and for that matter, anyone who writes at all."
― Greensboro (N.C.) Daily News

"This excellent book, which should go off to college with every freshman, is recognized as the best book of its kind we have."
― St. Paul Dispatch – Pioneer Press

"It's hard to imagine an engineer or a manager who doesn't need to express himself in English prose as part of his job. It's also hard to imagine a writer who will not be improved by a liberal application of The Elements of Style."
― Telephone Engineer & Management

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 020530902X
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Pearson; 4th edition (July 23, 1999)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 105 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780205309023
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0205309023
Reading age ‏ : ‎ 14 years and up
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.76 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7 x 4.5 x 0.3 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,156 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1 in Grammar Reference (Books)
- #2 in Fiction Writing Reference (Books)
- #3 in Writing Skill Reference (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.7 8,430 ratings

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William Strunk Jr.

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William Strunk Jr. (1 July 1869 – 26 September 1946), was a professor of English at Cornell University and author of the The Elements of Style (1918). After revision and enlargement by his former student E. B. White, it became a highly influential guide to English usage during the late 20th century, commonly called Strunk & White.

Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Customer reviews

8,430 global ratings

How customer reviews and ratings work

Customers say

Customers find the writing quality excellent and concise. They say it's a helpful resource for honing résumés and full of good information. Readers describe the book as outstanding, worth the buy, and well worth a look. They appreciate the layout, illustrations, and elegant and artful writing. In addition, they mention it's entertaining and light-hearted enough to be enjoyable.

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Writing quality Use Value for money Style Enjoyment to read Speed of shipping Introductory value Content

483 customers mention "Writing quality"456 positive27 negative

Customers find the writing quality of the book excellent. They say it teaches you how to write simply and clearly. Readers also mention the book is concise enough that most kids will actually use it. They say it's absolutely indispensable to the writer and extremely useful to anyone else wanting to improve the quality of their prose. They also appreciate the author's sharp and witty style of writing.

"Must have! Easy to understand and very helpful" Read more

"...As a bonus, the author has a style of writing that is sharp and witty. This creates a read that is both informative and entertaining...." Read more

"Great for any new writers that want to improve the quality of their prose. Especially helpful for connector usage such as and, but, while etc." Read more

"...the humor and wit of Patricia O’Conner’s Woe is I, it compensated with logical rationale, simplicity, and true insight...." Read more

372 customers mention "Use"372 positive0 negative

Customers find the book helpful for honing their résumés and other professional purposes. They say it's full of good information and works great as a quick reference to clear up any questions. Readers also mention the authors offer practical advice and true insight.

"Must have! Easy to understand and very helpful" Read more

"...It also benefits your reader, who will no longer flounder in the sea of ambiguity...." Read more

"...It has been useful to students, publishers, editors, and other professional writers, and now with lack of literary competency of new generation of..." Read more

"...The authors offer practical advice but acknowledge that writing well is a mysterious process...." Read more

370 customers mention "Value for money"370 positive0 negative

Customers find the book outstanding, worth the buy, and to the point. They say the authors do an excellent job of conveying the main point of the text. Readers also mention the work is timeless and never wasted.

"...There's a reason this book is on every serious writer's shelf. This work is timeless." Read more

"This classic style manuscript is only a few dollars but is worth its weight in gold. Why is that?..." Read more

"great bookgreat book great book, great book, great book, great book great book great book, great book, great book, great book great book great book,..." Read more

"...Frankly, it could suffice as the only. Strunk and White's work is timeless, with nearly every piece of advice and grammatical rule ringing true..." Read more

40 customers mention "Style"40 positive0 negative

Customers find the book excellent for an introduction to style. They appreciate the layout, conciseness, and great illustrations. Readers say it's fantastic at exploring style within writing. They mention it provides both style tips and grammatical rules that should help clean up anyone's writing.

"I just received the book, and on reviewing it liked the layout, the conciseness, and the usefulness of its content. It suits my purposes...." Read more

"...This book can help us find our own style." Read more

"...You will see how elegant and artful writing can be after reading this book, so much so that you will revisit it often...." Read more

"...It is hands down the best style guide I have ever used, plus it's also compact and straightforward, and very easy to find what you want to know...." Read more

38 customers mention "Enjoyment to read"38 positive0 negative

Customers find the book entertaining, amusing, and light-hearted. They say it makes writing fun and provides examples of good and bad sentences.

"...Strunk and White deliver their wisdom with a touch of wit, ensuring that learning writing feels more like a friendly chat than a lecture...." Read more

"...As a bonus, the author has a style of writing that is sharp and witty. This creates a read that is both informative and entertaining...." Read more

"...Reading it is like running up a hill: arduous ... yet rewarding...." Read more

"...Write concisely with a great degree of accuracy and have fun with it...." Read more

26 customers mention "Speed of shipping"26 positive0 negative

Customers are satisfied with the speed of shipping. They mention the book is well-packaged and in great condition.

"...It was suggested by my prof, and I appreciated it! Was shipped easily, clean and quality of the book was great." Read more

"...The price is great, and the delivery was very fast. It is a great little book. I do editing as a big part of my job and I find it very useful...." Read more

"...Still a good price and speedy shipping.Thanks." Read more

"Book packages very well and in great condition" Read more

13 customers mention "Introductory value"10 positive3 negative

Customers find the book provides a great foundation for anyone who needs to write. They say it provides a good set of principles that allow you to convey your meaning. Readers also mention the book is classical in its teaching and message.

"...deliver their lessons with an authority that is both reassuring and inspiring. There's a reason this book is on every serious writer's shelf...." Read more

"...This guide provides a good set of principles that allow you to convey your meaning and sound human...." Read more

"...guides that one can progress to later, but this book provides the perfect foundation. There is no more apt advice than "Omit needless words."" Read more

"...demonstrate the book’s inadequacy as an introductory text of grammar and composition...." Read more

12 customers mention "Content"3 positive9 negative

Customers find the content not comprehensive, limited, and irrelevant. They also say it's very general and doesn't cover all the questions that come up.

"...It doesn't cover all the questions that come up (use of elipses, brackets vs. parentheses, for example), but even if not comprehensive it is still..." Read more

"Great tiny little handbook to keep with you when your writing. It is very general and not field specific, so not everything is applicable...." Read more

"...book offers insight into many aspects of writing and shows the CORRECT way for everything...." Read more

"The book is not that good because it is not very helpful especially for someone who try’s to start writing or someone speaks English as a second..." Read more

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Alejandra S

Essential!

Reviewed in the United States on September 26, 2024

Verified Purchase

Must have! Easy to understand and very helpful

Helpful

Tim Rodgers

The Unpretentious Guide to Polished Prose

Reviewed in the United States on August 9, 2024

Verified Purchase

Toss the stuffy English manuals and grab this book. Strunk and White deliver their wisdom with a touch of wit, ensuring that learning writing feels more like a friendly chat than a lecture. Refrain from letting the authors' casual approach fool you. They deliver their lessons with an authority that is both reassuring and inspiring. There's a reason this book is on every serious writer's shelf. This work is timeless.

4 people found this helpful

Helpful

Dr. C.H.E. Sadaphal

(4.75) Get rescued out of writing trouble. And, learn how to write with vigor and clarity.

Reviewed in the United States on May 17, 2021

Verified Purchase

This classic style manuscript is only a few dollars but is worth its weight in gold. Why is that? Because it teaches you how to use words to form proper sentences. The result is writing that communicates a clear, robust and precise message. Good writing never leaves the reader bewildered. Instead, good writing arouses and holds the reader’s attention; it calls up mental pictures whose size exceeds the writing itself. Accordingly, Elements of Style equips the writer with greater technical skill and is overflowing with best practices. It also benefits your reader, who will no longer flounder in the sea of ambiguity. After reading this book, I now realize how bankrupt modern writing is; this includes my own writing.

Elements has five parts: (I) Elementary Rules of Usage (II) Elementary Principles of Compositions (III) A Few Matters of Form (IV) Misused Words and Expressions (V) An Approach to Style. Parts I-IV deal with the science of writing. Part V deals with the art of writing. It is in parts I and II that you will find the famous “22 Rules.” These commandments provide timeless lessons such as (#16) “Use definite, specific, concrete language” and (#17) “Omit needless words.” Under each heading, the author gives a few examples of sentences that can be improved by application of the rule along with a one-page summary.

As a bonus, the author has a style of writing that is sharp and witty. This creates a read that is both informative and entertaining. Overall, this small book can be finished quickly, but you will likely return to mine nuggets of literary wisdom many times. For any writer, this book is the type that you buy and keep in a permanent spot in your library.

11 people found this helpful

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Olivia

Some helpful guidelines

Reviewed in the United States on August 28, 2024

Verified Purchase

Great for any new writers that want to improve the quality of their prose. Especially helpful for connector usage such as and, but, while etc.

Helpful

samuel vargas

Really good however came super late

Reviewed in the United States on October 6, 2024

Verified Purchase

I ordered the book for school and it said it would come by a month ahead and came a lot later till the point of us not using the book anymore but as a reference to past homework late due.

Helpful

Oxford

Critical Review: Whether it is still valid for today

Reviewed in the United States on April 15, 2013

Verified Purchase

How does one account for authoritative advice on writing style? While styles of writing vary according to each writer's own preference some guidelines are inevitable to enhance writing clearer for readers. William Strunk's The Elements of Styles has been loved and considered to be one of authoritative manual for writers on this regard. Now deceased former English professor of Cornell University, Strunk provided writers eleven rules of usage (chapter one) and eleven principles of composition (chapter two) along with few other tips and reminders in the rest of the book. Thus Strunk's central claim for clarity of writing comes from concision and precision. However since it has been more than fifty years it was first published, should Strunk's assertions considered to be still valid? Has it praised with sacrifice of creativity? Beginning with a brief summary this review will examine several critical issues addressed in the book such as "should passive voice indicative verb be avoided at all cost?"

[Summary]
"Vigorous writing is concise...., but that every word tell" E.B. White who became the coauthor who expanded Strunk's work called this as "master[ly] Strunkian elaboration" (xv). The authors of Element of Style not only obsessed with words but also pleaded writers not to waste any word. Their calling of writers to concise and precise writing has been appealing for half century. They begin Style from specific rules of guidance to broad and thematic traits for composition. Readers learn about how to use commas for listings, how to write dates and common abbreviations, use of restrictive clauses, when to break clauses--and how to break them--, why one should not use `s (apostrophe s) when related to Moses and Jesus but use it in other cases even if the word ends in -s.
Then in the second chapter the authors toned down a little dealing with principles of English composition. Unlike the first chapter, which originally had seven rules but expanded into eleven, this chapter preserved its original eleven principles from Strunk. He suggested principles that many of them now became a kind of norm for most academic writings: begin a paragraph with a topic sentence; use positive language; use definite, specific, and concrete language if available; avoid a successive loose construction; group conjunctions in similar tone; keep related word together, and also keep the same tense throughout if possible; push your emphasis toward the end of a sentence.

In the next three chapters White tried to catch time by supplementing recent and relevant materials to consider for modern writers. Few matters of form (chapter 3) is a culmination of writing tips that can only be found in fragments in various sources. Chapter four "Misused Words and Expressions" so useful that even Grammar Girl often makes reference to some of them. What could have been lacking for a clear writing in 1950s has been supplemented by these last three chapters through White's revision, and even critical readers cannot deny their usefulness to find information in one book.

[Critical Evaluation]
The unseen success of Style motivated many similar works to follow. Probably three more well-known classics followed its success would be John R. Trimble's Writing with Style, William Zinsser's On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction, and Joseph M. Williams' (or Williams's) Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace. Tremble began stressing that writing is a simple conversation between author and his reader. He emphasized, unless Strunk, importance of personal characteristic and creative style of the author which readers appreciate more than rigid style. Giving more authority to readership seemed to continue in the field of giving advice for writing, as if some writers were unhappy with Strunk, with a new book from Zinsser writing is something that cannot be contained in rules and principles but endless craftsmanship. Nevertheless, next two decades from 1980s toward the beginning of the new millennium more students became incompetent in their writing styles and such a tendency called for more strict guidelines. Another huge success of Style by Joseph Williams questions if writing is another discipline to be learned and followed under certain equations like mathematics or it is a privileged realm of some people naturally know how to write well.

Strunk and other authors do not necessarily compete each other to push across their thesis, but writers--who are main readers of their works--still struggle to find clear advice on their writings. It is only a matter of degree whether this confusion would be greater without works like Strunk or even with it. Overall in many ways Strunk's work cannot be avoided or neglected for any serious writer, because he not only proposed a specific way to a better writing. It was a bold--if not audacious--thesis that he brought into discussion in the first place. It has been useful to students, publishers, editors, and other professional writers, and now with lack of literary competency of new generation of students its need seems to be imperative again. With wide spread of Internet usage someone, like Strunk, must tell students "do's and don'ts" for their poor writings for Internet totally substituted personalized jargons with words with concision and precision.

That said, I think that few things suggested in the book should be scrutinized more critically such as use of the first person pronoun (e.g., "I" in this sentence), passive voice indicative verb (e.g., "be scrutinized"), gender-neutral pronouns, and splitting of infinitives. Especially the use of an active voice verb seems imperative in writing for it is preferred and suggested by all writers discussed above. Strunk and White asserted, "The active voice is usually more direct and vigorous than the passive." Their central claim for Style seems to cohere with this point as well. However, if readers seems to deserve more elaborated description about the passive, because these authors are not arguing for all writings but from general perspective. Such as writing for the field of science, legal, politics, history and any disciplines require unbiased and rational fact-report should allow passive voice, if not even prefer it, to be equal option for composition. And (by the way this would be another strike for common rules of writing to begin with a conjunction "and") the Bible has this strong passive called theological passive that whenever the agent is God the Scripture uses passive even omitting the subject. For example, the beatitudes in Matthew 5 are all in this theological passive yet no one ever complains it weaker than active. Readers tend to consider it warranted that Strunk's Style lists absolute rules, but authors do not seem to profess that. Therefore, readers should read Style critically just like any other books they read thus.
Conclusion

"Little book" as Style is first called even through revisions it remains little in size, but its impact and challenge have grown to be undeniable in many excellent writings. The unexpected harmony and partnership of Strunk and White's have fulfilled their central claim successfully, namely clarity of writing still comes from concision and precision. However, it is readers's (or readers') duty to read everything, even Style critically, and henceforth rather than considering their rules and principles as rigid laws they should follow them as accompanying guidelines for their writings. And that is what I do whenever I write something with desire to fully craft for it to be recognized with excellence.

32 people found this helpful

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Great book

Reviewed in Canada on August 25, 2024

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It’s all in here what I need. You gotta get one.

Alfredo Viana

Boa ferramenta para comunicação de negócios

Reviewed in Brazil on December 31, 2021

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O livro tem me ajudado muito na comunicação com as diversas áreas da empresa e nos relatórios que elaboro para a matriz nos EUA. Tem boas dicas de comunicação que servem para qualquer idioma.