The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition

Rating:
Summary: A masterwork.
Review: Strunk and White brilliantly advise: brevity pays

Rating:
Summary: A short book every writer should read once a year.
Review: Many books about writing are huge, but "The Elements of Style," the best of them, is extremely short: 92 pages, including index. Read them all. Briefly and vigorously, Strunk and White will tell you, for example, when to use (and not to use) commas, which words to avoid, how to divide paragraphs, and generally how to pare your writing down to essentials. Many professional writers advise reading Strunk and White cover-to-cover once a year. If you do any regular writing, of letters or anything else, then follow that advice.

Rating:
Summary: Useful book for writers and editors
Review: For writers and those who work in publishing this little book contains a lot of matters worthy of consideration. It's not the most useful book I have on the subject (that honour goes to "Style Book" by Derek Wallace and Janet Hughes published in 1995) and I don't agree with everything the authors have to say, but it does contain a lot of useful tips, pointers and ways of polishing your text. You can't go wrong by giving it a careful read.

Rating:
Summary: The Fundamentals of Clear and Effective Prose
Review: "The Elements of Style", written by Professor William Strunk Jr. in the 1910's and revised and augmented by E.B. White, his former student, in the 1950's, is still the most helpful guide to writing English prose in the smallest package. The book comprises sections on: Rules of Usage, Principals of Composition, Matters of Form, Words and Expressions Commonly Misused, and a section entitled "An Approach to Style" in which Mr. White offers some excellent advice on style in the broader sense of writing that reflects the author's personality or tastes. There is also a glossary of grammar and usage terms in the back of the book. The section on English usage is useful but not comprehensive. And I believe a couple of the rules are outdated, even though this 4th edition was published in the year 2000. The rest of the book is truly dedicated to "the elements of style", meaning a writing style's most essential considerations. The authors explain, with good humor and language that is easy to understand, the " do's and don'ts" for writing clear and effective prose. These rules and recommendations can probably be summarized by saying, "Be direct and concise." But "The Elements of Style" tells the reader how to accomplish this goal. This book doesn't address how to structure a paragraph or organize an essay, so writers seeking advice on these topics will need some additional text. "The Elements of Style" is dedicated to constructing sentences in the most effective style. Middle school, high school, and college students -and anyone who would like to refresh his or her writing skills- will find "The Elements of Style" helpful, especially in writing academic prose. Messrs. Strunk and White have extracted the most essential points of writing good English, recognized the most common mistakes, and put them into this small, inexpensive and easily absorbed little book.

Rating:
Summary: Still Good, but the 3rd Edition is the Best
Review: I agree with several other reviewers here that the third edition is a little better than this new one. The 3rd is the last to be edited by E. B. White himself. The 4th has been "updated" with some new examples and advice, in a misguided attempt to remove nonexistent "sexist" language, which the anonymous new editor foolishly imagines has ruined previous editions. Most of the new examples, however, are inferior and some of the new advice too PC for my taste. (That wonderful passage from Jean Stafford's short story is gone, now replaced by an insipid contemporary piece that won't risk offending Irish alcoholics.)

This is still a great book, overall, but I prefer the older version, so I will hang on to my tattered, trustworthy old copy of the 3rd edition. When it finally falls apart, I will look for another copy in a secondhand shop.

Rating:
Summary: Useful tool for clearing deadwood
Review: There's a faction (which includes some very good writers) that thinks "Elements of Style" promotes drab, utilitarian prose. And no doubt there are some rigid, talentless people who make a fetish out of its advice. Maybe the peremptory tone adopted in the first section (largely written by Will Strunk Jr) encourages such a mindset, but most of the book, especially the parts written by E. B. White, contains intelligent advice presented with good humor. Practicing what they preach about the virtues of brevity, the authors cram a lot of useful advice into a few pages. And most of that advice is sorely needed. I don't know how many undergrad papers I've read in which the writer just couldn't make his point clear. That's why I assign this book to my freshman English Comp students. It's a tonic. After several weeks of doing exercises derived from "Elements" (and from Joseph M. Williams's "Style"), my students show remarkable improvement: the deadwood disappears from their prose, and clarity emerges from what used to be a confused jumble.

"Elements" isn't a panacea, of course. It needs to be supplemented with books on grammar, logic, and rhetoric. And it certainly won't turn your average student into another Annie Dillard. But I'm continually impressed with how effective the "little book" is.

Rating:
Summary: Ageless Advice
Review: Anyone who thinks Strunk & White are championing mere functionality over artistic merit clearly hasn't read "The Elements of Style" very carefully. Nowhere do the authors dissuade the would-be writer from trying to write literary prose; indeed, they single out for special praise such prolix and idiosyncratic writers as Faulkner and Updike. Their purpose, rather, is to get the novice writer to pay attention to what he is doing, to avoid vagueness and cliche. True, the book is pitched mostly at undergraduates who haven't yet learned how to construct intelligible sentences and coherent paragraphs; but nothing in it militates against an elegant literary style. Those wishing to write in such a style should certainly go beyond Strunk & White and seek out more detailed treatises on rhetoric and ornamentation--but not before mastering the basics contained in this extremely useful and sensible little book.

Rating:
Summary: Gentle Humor Makes the Lessons Go Down Easily
Review: The gentle humor that one finds in this book makes learning grammar painless, even enjoyable. It was the "Eats, Shoots, and Leaves" of its day, but is broader in the elements of grammar and style that it covers. I recommend it to all my grant writing classes as an essential.

Rating:
Summary: A Rotten Little Book
Review: I suppose that this book might be of some use as an antidote for semi-literate Americans who've read one too many articles by William F. Buckley and decided that they'd like to posess his "eloquence." But for anyone who thinks that written English should aspire to beauty rather than mere functionality, it's about 100 pages of the worst imaginable sanctimonius claptrap, pressed between two glossy little covers.

Rating:
Summary: THE BEST PRESENTS COME IN THE SMALLEST PACKAGES...
Review: The Elements of Style is a small book. It is short and to the point, packing enough heat to put a writer through the refining fire every time one picks it up. As Adler and Van Doren are to the critical reader: rambling on about the riches to be found in the considered word, Strunk and White are to writers: Dutch uncles taking us all to the woodshed and then placing us back on our feet to be about our dour business.

If you want to be a better writer, pick up this book. Read a few pages. Put it into practice.

Send yourself through the fire. Temper the blade of your pen. Remove the impurities from your work.

Omit needless words.

In that spirit, this book needs no further recommendation from me.