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A review by catlandia91
The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr., E.B. White
informative
3.0
It's hard to really rate this book, but I'll stick with 3 stars. There's a lot of helpful advice for writers that is mostly relevant to modern readers. Reading this really reminds me of how lackluster my English education was-- I am unfamiliar with some of the technical grammar terms, so that made some of the guidance hard to understand. I did appreciate the glossary in the back for this exact reason.
While I did not agree with some of the guidance offered by Strunk, I appreciated the brief and snappy format of the rules.
As for my issues-- while some of the examples helped illustrate a point, others were bad. Some of the "bad" examples were convoluted messes that might not help the reader recognize more natural mistakes and errors in their own and others' writing. Other examples would greatly benefit from a breakdown of what's right/wrong or what makes one sentence better than the other sentence.
The evolution of language makes some of this guidance feel obsolete or fussy, but I still learned quite a bit.
White's chapter on style made excellent points, but I think it could have been shorter. Nevertheless, this is a great jumping off point for all writers.
While I did not agree with some of the guidance offered by Strunk, I appreciated the brief and snappy format of the rules.
As for my issues-- while some of the examples helped illustrate a point, others were bad. Some of the "bad" examples were convoluted messes that might not help the reader recognize more natural mistakes and errors in their own and others' writing. Other examples would greatly benefit from a breakdown of what's right/wrong or what makes one sentence better than the other sentence.
The evolution of language makes some of this guidance feel obsolete or fussy, but I still learned quite a bit.
White's chapter on style made excellent points, but I think it could have been shorter. Nevertheless, this is a great jumping off point for all writers.