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    The Elements of Style
    The Elements of Style
    The Elements of Style

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    The Elements of Style

    By William Strunk

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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateNov 27, 2013
    Author

    William Strunk

    William Strunk Jr. was an American professor of English at Cornell University and the author of The Elements of Style. After revision and enlargement by his former student E. B. White, it became a highly influential English usage and composition guide during the late twentieth century.  

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      I haven't read a more informative and concise english writing book.

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    The Elements of Style - William Strunk

    The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Elements of Style, by William Strunk

    This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

    almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or

    re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

    with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

    Title: The Elements of Style

    Author: William Strunk

    Release Date: August 19, 2011 [EBook #37134]

    Language: English

    *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE ***

    Produced by Jana Srna and the Online Distributed

    Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was

    produced from images generously made available by The

    Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

    Transcriber's Notes:

    Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as possible, including inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation.

    Some corrections of spelling and punctuation have been made. They are marked like this

    in the text. The original text appears when hovering the cursor over the marked text. A list of amendments is at the end of the text.

    THE

    ELEMENTS OF STYLE

    BY

    WILLIAM STRUNK, Jr.

    PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH

    IN

    CORNELL UNIVERSITY

    NEW YORK

    HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY

    COPYRIGHT, 1918, 1919, BY

    WILLIAM STRUNK, JR.

    COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY

    HARCOURT, BRACE AND HOWE, INC.

    THE MAPLE PRESS YORK PA

    CONTENTS

    I. INTRODUCTORY

    This book 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. In accordance with this plan it lays down three rules for the use of the comma, instead of a score or more, and one for the use of the semicolon, in the belief that these four rules provide for all the internal punctuation that is required by nineteen sentences out of twenty. Similarly, it gives in Chapter III only those principles of the paragraph and the sentence which are of the widest application. The book thus covers only a small portion of the field of English style. 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 may prefer to that offered by any textbook.

    The numbers of the sections may be used as references in correcting manuscript.

    The writer's colleagues in the Department of English in Cornell University have greatly helped him in the preparation of his manuscript.

    Mr. George McLane Wood has kindly consented to the inclusion under Rule 10 of some material from his Suggestions to Authors.

    The following books are recommended for reference or further study: in connection with Chapters II and IV, F. Howard Collins, Author and Printer (Henry Frowde); Chicago University Press, Manual of Style; T. L. De Vinne, Correct Composition (The Century Company); Horace Hart, Rules for Compositors and Printers (Oxford University Press); George McLane Wood, Extracts from the Style-Book of the Government Printing Office (United States Geological Survey); in connection with Chapters III and V, The King's English (Oxford University Press); Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, The Art of Writing (Putnam), especially the chapter, Interlude on Jargon; George McLane Wood, Suggestions to Authors (United States Geological Survey); John Lesslie Hall, English Usage (Scott, Foresman and Co.); James P. Kelley, Workmanship in Words (Little, Brown and Co.). In these will be found full discussions of many points here briefly treated and an abundant store of illustrations to supplement those given in this book.

    It is an old observation that

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