Rating: 
Summary: The Writer's Bible
Review: This little book is a must have for writers at all levels. It is especially good for those moments when you read through your own work and feel that what you wrote does not sufficiently express what it is you really wanted to say. This book will help with those situations and many more.Buy this book if you are a writer or aspiring to be one!
Rating:
Summary: focus, clarity, simplicity
Review: This book hammers home the point that, to learn to write, one must focus on the clarity and simplicity of the words with which one writes. Certainly there is a time and a place to write complexly; however, Strunk and White are interested in providing the framework of how to write well. In order to use a framework, you need to start somewhere, and their focus on clarity and simplicity is a good one. Why try to aspire to the obtuse and the impenetrable if you haven't the basics of cogent writing? Interested in being a sedulous writer, and not an earnest one? Well, in order to use such sophisticated words well, one could hardly do better than to suggest that you master the basic elements of effective writing first. This is where Strunk and White excel.
Rating:
Summary: Keep this book within arms reach for better writing
Review: Admittedly I don't have the greatest grammar, but it's getting better each day. I've heard about the "Elements of Style" and feared it would give me nightmarish flash-backs of elementary school English class. As a management consultant, I deal with abstract terms, jargon, and other things that kill ease of reading. With "Elements of Style" I'm able to cut through the confusion and better convey key strategies to my clients. While my grammar isn't perfect (yet), at least now I have a handy reference that gives me guidance without getting rapped on the knuckles for not paying attention in class. This short guidebook is so easy to use, I've read it twice, and references it whenever I write.
Rating:
Summary: Consise and valuable
Review: When I first learned about this book I was slightly wary. After all, how much information could there be in such a slim book? A smart friend of mine told me that it was a good book that elucidates the technique of writing. I decided to start reading this pithy book and finished reading it in one sitting. The book is easy to read and gives writers many excellent suggestions. It explains some commone grammar mistakes. It shows how a writer should use the active voice. It explains many commonly misused words like effect, lay, nature, and character. Every part of the book was useful, and I enjoyed reading it. If there was one book that a writer should read it would definitely be The Elements of Style.
Rating:
Summary: For anyone writing a book this is compulsary reading!
Review: For authors like me, this book is compulsary reading - and not just for full-time writers but students, high schoolers, businesspeople wanting to write persuasive and literate letters - you've got it, there is virtually no category in today's modern world who does not need this book. Christopher Catherwood, author of CHRISTIANS, MUSLIMS AND ISLAMIC RAGE (Zondervan, 2003)
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book
Review: Great resource book. Useful references. No-nonsense.
Straight forward and to the point. "The Elements Of
Style" is a great book for serious writers. Good
advice written within this book. Diana: Author of: "You Hold The Key To Riches
And Happiness"; "Inspirational Wisdom For Love,
Beauty, And Richness"; (and) "Sure Fire Ways
To Make More Money And Get A Better Job".
Rating:
Summary: Surprisingly Funny
Review: This book, which, while not sacrosanct, surely deserves its reputation. I found it surprisingly funny. E.B. White in the Introduction tells us that his old professor William Strunk once seriously advocated introducing the word "studentry" in place of the phrase "student body," which he found horrid. Now studentry is worse, and we can all be glad it was never adopted. But Strunk, despite his observations on fiction writing in the last chapter (including, surprisingly, the old saw that any rule can be broken in capable hands), is primarily a teacher not a writer. The most famous single bit of advice he gives is "Omit needless words," which Stephen King recycles in his On Writing book. (Stephen King seems to recycle other things-I just noticed that Theodore Sturgeon, the real life model for Vonnegut's science fiction writer Kilgore Trout-made his name with a story called "It." Oh well-Shakespeare did it: talented artists borrow, great ones steal.) This, of course, is sound advice-although pretty much completely ignored by all politicians, scientists and philosophers. Hemingway took the advice and look what happened to him. I digress. One of the funny bits for me was Strunk's analysis of roadside signs and their effect on linguistic evolution. The correct adjective for being capable of catching fire is "inflammable," Strunk reminds us-but it had to be shortened (as did Throughway into Thruway) in order to fit on those sloshing trucks full of toxic liquids. It also, Strunk happily sneers, appears to illiterates to be negated by the prefix, which might make idiots to think something was fireproof rather than the opposite. (Something somewhat similar happened in one of Dr. Ruth's books, when the word "conception" and "contraception" somehow switched places; the book had to be "recalled.") Strunk is very good on giving us shortcuts to distinguish between "which" and "that," in analyzing and correcting common mistakes and showing how they both reflect, and perpetuate, a sloppiness of thinking. Some of his pet peeves, however, such as "enormous"-a word, he tells us, which should always contain a connotation of the hideous, and not be used simply to mean "very big"-have been superceded (as in fairness he suspected they might) by the continuing evolution (devolution?) of the language. Some people considered to be good writers flagrantly flout Strunk's elements (elements?) of style. Umberto Eco, for example, routinely interpolates foreign phrases (which for him would be non-Italian ones) into his prose. Stephen Jay Gould is guilty both of foreign phrase insertion and the putting of quotes-to distance himself from them-around idiomatic phrases (which he nonetheless apparently feels compelled to use). I recently heard on the radio an executive editor at Miriam-Webster say that, because of the internet and global communications, new words make it to the dictionary in twice the time they used to-in five years on average rather than ten. Other words, like "microrecorder" (used to read microfiche, a pre-computer technology) have been removed from the dictionary. I received a form letter from a well-respected Southern lawyer yesterday that would have struck out with Strunk because of its adverb "hopefully"-which is almost always means more than you want it to. Hopefully I will end this review. (Hoping referring to my mood, that I will, say, rise in the Amazon reviewer ranks? Or do I hope I will end the review?) Sloppy language is rampant: among the biggest blah-blah phrases are: "the fact that," "it is interesting to note," and "as evidenced by." Strunk busts pretentious writing wide open. And yet he is acutely aware of the limits of his analysis. This book, a labor of love by a lover of language, is great to read if you want to communicate (and think) more clearly.
Rating:
Summary: This Little Thing?
Review: It's under a hundred pages. The bulk of the text is nearly seventy years old. But after all this time, it's still a priceless, must-have reference. If you're a writer of any kind - student, novelist, journalist, poet, technical writer, graffiti artist, you name it - You need a copy of Strunk and White. No book this small (and not many larger) cover as much ground as well as this little volume does. Usage, form, misused words and expressions, style...it's all here. But if you think this is some stuffy textbook written by a couple of old coots sitting in an ivory tower, you couldn't be more wrong. The rules and examples are clear and easy to understand. I don't know of a more practical book that can be used by everyone from grade school students to PhD's. The book has instructed AND entertained for nearly seventy years. May it last for another seventy and beyond. 92 pages
Rating:
Summary: The classic and still the best reference for form and style
Review: Every serious writer--at any experience level--should have a copy of this classic, immensely useful reference book. Compact, yet filled with information, Strunk & White's ELEMENTS OF STYLE is one writer's reference tool that will never go out of fashion. (For a list of additional must-have writing books, visit the Resources page at WriteWayPro's website.)
Rating: 
Summary: Get the 3rd Edition
Review: The second edition of this classic work improved on the first edition, and the third was the best of all. It was perfection. The fourth, posthumous edition slips a little bit. It's still better than any other style guide, but a hint of Political Correctness has crept into some of its advice and examples. Why did the publishers feel the need to tinker with perfection? If you already have the third edition, don't bother getting the new one. If you don't have any copies of this great book, check the used bookstores for the previous edition.
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