Elements of Style, The  (English, Paperback, Strunk William)

Elements Of Style is a highly helpful guide towards American English writing styles and using them in the most effective manner possible.

Summary Of The Book

Elements Of Style is an illuminating guide to American English writing styles and principles. It comprises of eight fundamental rules pertaining to usage and composition’s fundamental principles that are ten in number. There is also a list of almost fifty words and expressions that are usually misused. A fifty-seven word strong list also serves to correct errors in spelling.

Elements Of Style was first written in the year 1918 and published in 1919. The fourth edition does away with masculine pronouns and contains edited version of misused expressions and words. Elements Of Style can be called an elementary resource and guide for students, editors and writers. This book brings together the legendary advice and wisdom of professor Strunk and writer White. The basic principles of punctuation and grammar are itself applicable to provide clarity to any work of prose.

Elements Of Style distills useful nuggets of wisdom and even more. Readers are taught sentence and paragraph constructions, how to bypass mannerisms and mistakes, and context and form based usage of expressions and words. This book can also be a refresher course of sorts for communication experts. The book was ranked among the 100 most influential and best English books by TIME magazine in 2011.

About The Authors

William Strunk, Jr. was a revered English professor at Cornell University. Strunk also published English Metres along with compilations of works like Last of the Mohicans, and Juliana. Strunk was born in Cincinnati, Ohio and obtained his bachelor’s degree from the University of Cincinnati along with a Ph.D at Cornell. He went to the College de France and Sorbonne during 1898-99 and studied philology and morphology. He started out as a mathematics teacher at Rose Polytechnical Institute and later taught at Cornell for forty six years. He was also a literary consultant for 1936 film Romeo and Juliet.

E. B. White was a noted American writer. He is best known for his contributions to The New Yorker and books for children. E. B. White also wrote Stuart Little, Charlotte’s Web, The Trumpet of the Swan, One Man’s Meat, Here Is New York, Is Sex Necessary? Or, Why You Feel the Way You Do, The Points of My Compass, The Second Tree From The Corner, In The Words of E. B. White and Essays of E. B. White.

Born in Mount Vernon, New York, White worked in the army before graduating from Cornell University. He worked for the American Legion News Service, Seattle Times, Frank Seaman advertising agency, United Press and The New Yorker. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1978 along with other honors like the Presidential Medal of Freedom. A short animated film The Family That Dwelt Apart which released in 1973, is based on a short story that he wrote.