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THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE (UPDATED 2011 EDITION) The All-Time Bestselling Book on Writing English Newly Edited (Special Kindle Edition) BY WILLIAM STRUNK, JUNIOR The Elements of Style OVER 10 MILLION COPIES SOLD! (Kindle Edition) Revised and Updated for 2011 by Chris Hong, Formerly of Harvard University OVERVIEW This book is intended for use in English courses in which the practice of composition is combined with the study of literature. It aims to give in brief space the principal requirements of plain English style. It aims to lighten the task of instructor and student by concentrating attention (in Chapters II and III) on a few essentials, the rules of usage and principles of composition most commonly violated. The numbers of the sections may be used as references in correcting manuscript. The book covers only a small portion of the field of English style, but the experience of its writer has been that once past the essentials, students profit most by individual instruction based on the problems of their own work, and that each instructor has his own body of theory, which he prefers to that offered by any textbook. It is an old observation that the best writers sometimes disregard the rules of rhetoric. When they do so, however, the reader will usually find in the sentence some compensating merit, attained at the cost of the violation. Unless he is certain of doing as well, he will probably do best to follow the rules. After he has learned, by their guidance, to write plain English adequate for everyday uses, let him look, for the secrets of style, to the study of the masters of literature. Newly Revised and Edited by Chris Hong, Former Editor, Harvard UniversityThis book is intended for use in English courses in which the practice of composition is combined with the study of literature. It aims to give in brief space the principal requirements of plain English style. It aims to lighten the task of instructor and student by concentrating attention (in Chapters II and III) on a few essentials, the rules of usage and principles of composition most commonly violated. The numbers of the sections may be used as references in correcting manuscript.The book covers only a small portion of the field of English style, but the experience of its writer has been that once past the essentials, students profit most by individual instruction based on the problems of their own work, and that each instructor has his own body of theory, which he prefers to that offered by any textbook.It is an old observation that the best writers sometimes disregard the rules of rhetoric. When they do so, however, the reader will usually find in the sentence some compensating merit, attained at the cost of the violation. Unless he is certain of doing as well, he will probably do best to follow the rules. After he has learned, by their guidance, to write plain English adequate for everyday uses, let him look, for the secrets of style, to the study of the masters of literature. I. INTRODUCTORY 7 II. ELEMENTARY RULES OF USAGE 10 1. Form the possessive singular of nouns with 's. 10 2. In a series of three or more terms with a single conjunction, use a comma after each term except the last. 11 3. Enclose parenthetic expressions between commas. 12 4. Place a comma before and or but introducing an independent clause. 15 5. Do not join independent clauses by a comma. 17 6. Do not break sentences in two. 19 7. A participial phrase at the beginning of a sentence must refer to the grammatical subject. 20 8. Divide words at line-ends, in accordance with their formation and pronunciation. 22 III. ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES OF COMPOSITION 26 9. Make the paragraph the unit of composition: one paragraph to each topic. 26 10. As a rule, begin each paragraph with a topic sentence; end it in conformity with the beginning. 29 11. Use the active voice. 34 12. Put statements in positive form. 38 13. Omit needless words. 40 14. Avoid a succession of loose sentences. 43 15. Express co-ordinate ideas in similar form. 45 16. Keep related words together. 48 17. In summaries, keep to one tense. 51 18. Place the emphatic words of a sentence at the end. 53 IV. A FEW MATTERS OF FORM 56 V. WORDS AND EXPRESSIONS COMMONLY MISUSED 61 VI. WORDS OFTEN MISSPELLED 75