Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace

by Joseph M. Williams, Gregory G. Colomb

Engaging and direct, Lessons in Clarity and Grace is the guidebook for anyone who wants to write well.Engaging and direct, Lessons in Clarity and Grace is the guidebook for anyone who wants to write well.

Genres: Writing, Nonfiction, Reference, Language, Education, Communication, Textbooks

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1981

Reviews

[Juliana · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book changed the way I think about sentence structure, and I'm the type of girl who thinks about sentence structure all the time.

[Terence · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a brilliant little guide to improving your writing that I wish I had known about when I was an English teacher.

Williams begins with the basics and builds up to chapters on style and usage. The underlying themes throughout are two: Good writing is not limited to professional authors - anyone can do it with sufficient practice and a decent amount of concern about what you write; and the rules of grammar and syntax are guides to clear communication. Writers can "bend" and even break them in the interests of that communication.

Definitely recommended to anyone who writes (prose, poetry or nonfiction) and to those of us who edit them.

[Vanessa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not too bad for an English textbook. My favorite parts are when Williams makes the very mistakes he chastises other writers for doing.

[Vanessa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Writing is a difficult task (to say nothing of writing with a second language), no one is in more need of guidance and help than a writer who doesn’t know how to put her thoughts into words in a captivating and convincing way. “Style toward Clarity and Grace” can help, it is a thorough, elaborated yet comprehensible guide book on communicating complexity effectively and elegantly. The precursor of this book was a text book of writing for undergraduate students in US, which is to say this may not be the right book for everyone. A couple of things ESL learners may want to know before they pick up this book: it says little about grammar, nothing about choosing the right words and collocation; it is not a book on how to write correctly, but how to write well.
　　
　　This book consists of 8 parts: causes, clarity, cohesion, emphasis, coherence, concision, length, elegance and usage. At the very first beginning of the book, Mr.Williams shows us it is very difficult to write in a clear, precise and elegant style by providing examples of professional and educated writings that doesn’t measure up to this standard. After explaining why it is easy to fall short, he uses the following parts to deal with sentences construction and prose rendering: in parts that titled clarity, cohesion and emphasis Mr Williams teaches us skills from the basic level of constructing a sentence as readable and unequivocal to the advanced level of refining a sentence as graceful and powerful; in parts that titled coherence, concision and length he centers on ways of linking sentences smoothly and climatically, and then, on manners of unveiling sufficient evidence to entrance the readers rather than to stifle them; in the part titled elegance he talks about the whole presentation of writing as in how to write beautifully even poetically (the more advanced writing tools such as metaphor and rhythm are briefly mentioned in this part.)
　　
　　One of the things that makes this book great is that it doesn’t instill dogmas like other writing books always do, Mr Williams provides methods that can be used to make our writing clear and elegant at the same time empathizes the importance of maintaining our creativity and cultivating our own style. In the final part, Mr Williams introduces the idea that some grammar rules can be broken to best serve our writing.
　　
　　Reading this book was a journey that taught me the playfulness and fulfillment of writing, it not only helps me write better but also inspires me to write more.

[Joe S · Rating 4 out of 5]

For the tens of people out there who actually have to teach reading and writing, I've decided to start reviewing the heap of atrocious textbooks I've had to slog through while building my syllabi.

This book is brilliant. I feel like a better writer for having read it. I wish it had been required when I was taking first-year comp. It fucks the old-school conservativism of Strunk-n-White right in the ear. Williams sidesteps the paralyzing imperatives for pre- and mid-writing processes and skips right to rewriting, walking through the revision process on a sentence level. And not once does he say "you must" or "you must never" (two phrases that freeze freshman brains quicker than "pop quiz"). Instead, he basically says readers are monkeys who need help understanding. And here's how you lead those monkeys by the hand. Subtle change in focus, huge change in distribution of power.

Less one star for the omnipresent linguistic terms that even I didn't remember. I'm not quite sure it was absolutely necessary to refer so often to nominalizations and resumptive modifiers. Probably not so good for an ESL class. Or maybe even better. I'd never have known what the crunk a resumptive modifier was if I hadn't taken a foreign language.

[Patrick Garrett · Rating 2 out of 5]

A Rather Expensive Guide with Little Unique Content

Though well written--a prerequisite for a style book--I wasn't blown away by this guide's content. A required text for a rhetorical studies seminar at UC, Riverside, we compared this book with Virginia Tufte's Artful Sentences to glean practical value from a spectrum of books that have the intention of distilling style into a couple hundred pages. The approach in this text comes in response to, and in some ways falls short of, the seminal Elements of Style. That is, presenting some fundamental rules, which claim to be more universal than others, and urging writers to adopt them judiciously. Tufte's approach, however, categorizing sentences broadly and provides many (my classmates thought too many) examples in each category--a stylistic immersion of a kind. If immersion isn't for you, and you're looking for a sort of check-list for grammar and style, I would suggest going with Elements of Style. If you've already read EOS, your looking for the same rules in a fresh voice, and you have a few bucks to spend, go ahead and buy this guide.

[Anna]

I especially appreciated lessons 6, 7, and 8.

[Matthew Christian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hard to read at times but useful

[Omar Halabieh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I recently finished reading Style - The Basics of Clarity and Grace - by Joseph M. Williams.

Below are key excerpts from the book that I found particularly insightful:

When we don't know what we're talking about (or have no confidence in what we do know) we typically write long sentences choked with abstract words.

I suspect that those who choose to observe all the rules all the time do so not because they think they are protecting the integrity of the language or the quality of our culture, but because they want to assert a style of their own.

We began with two principles: •Make central characters subjects of verbs. • Use verbs to name the actions those characters are involved in.

Most readers prefer subjects of verbs to name the main characters in your story, and those main characters to be flesh-and-blood characters. When you write about concepts, however, you can turn them into virtual characters by making them the subjects of verbs that communicate actions.

Your readers want you to use the end of your sentences to communicate two kinds of difficulty: long and complex phrases and clauses; and new information, particularly unfamiliar technical terms.

Five Principles of Concision: 1. Delete words that mean little or nothing. 2. Delete words that repeat the meaning of other words. 3. Delete words implied by other words. 4. Replace a phrase with a word. 5. Change negatives to affirmatives.

A highly recommended read in the area of writing.

[Ksenia Anske · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book to buy to have in your reference library, along with The Elements of Style and The Chicago Manual of Style. Though you'll find it mostly discussing non-fiction examples, the lessons are the same. You can apply them to any writing, fiction included. And you'll chuckle, too, recognizing your own ineptnesses described so eloquently here, and with such fine humor (especially when you get to the last chapter that includes a brief history of good English and the separation of real grammatical rules from mere linguistic folklore insisted upon by purists but ignored by all good writers).

[Jessy Reese]

Helpful but not fun

[Feng Ouyang · Rating 5 out of 5]

Style, Lessons in Clarity and Grace
Williams, Joseph M.; Bizup, Joseph.
1 Style as Choice
• Styles are not rules but choices.
• Writing rules are divided into grammatical rules (mandated) and style rules (optimal).
• An important set of modern rules are about gender pronouns. We appear to be modern when following these rules.
2 Clarity
2.1 Lesson 2 Actions (Sentence level)
• Identify the focus of your sentence: who does what. Make the focus the subject and action of your sentence.
• Avoid long, complex subject parts. Usually, that should not be your subject. For example, don’t say “the expectation of John is that,” but say “John expects that.”
• Avoid nominalization (nouns that represent actions). Use action verbs directly.
• However, nominalization can be useful when you want to make the action as subject (e.g., to connect with the last sentence for better flow or to focus on the fact that the action happened) or object, or when the nominalization words are familiar (such as request or examination).
2.2 Lesson 3 Characters
• This lesson continues with the last one in cleaning up the subject-action relationship.
• To clean up a complex sentence, you need to find ALL subjects involved. A sentence can have multiple subjects embedded in clauses and proposition phases. You need to pick the central one for the main sentence or use multiple sentences to place all of them.
• Often, the subject is missing from the original sentence (e.g., “Expectation of success is an important motivator.” It could mean “we are more motivated if we expect success.”). The writer needs to fill in the subject based on his best judgment or use passive voice.
• Inanimate things can also be subject. In the above example, it is OK to use expectation as a subject, except it is a nominalization to be avoided.
o You can also tell stories whose main characters are abstractions, even nominalizations. All things being equal, you should prefer concrete characters. But there are circumstances when a more abstract version of a story is better.
• Avoid excessive abstractions that could bury the real focal points.
o Most readers want the subjects of verbs to name flesh-and-blood characters. But often, you must write about abstractions. When you do, turn them into virtual characters by making them the subjects of verbs that tell a story. If readers are familiar with your abstractions, no problem. But when they are not, avoid using many other abstract nominalizations around them. When you revise an abstract passage, you may have a problem if the hidden characters are “people in general.” Unfortunately, unlike many other languages, English offers no good way to name a generic “doer.” Try a general term for whoever is doing the action, such as researchers, social critics, one, and so on. If that won’t work, try “we.”
• Possible reasons for using passive voice:
o The readers do not need to know or care about the actor.
o Avoid “first-person” descriptions to make it sound more objective (“The work was evaluated” vs. “I evaluated the work”).
o A smoother movement from the last sentence (starting with the last thing mentioned before)
o Provide a more consistent and appropriate point of view: the same thing that receives multiple actions
• Metadiscourse is the text that revers not to a writer’s subject matter but to the writer, the reader, or the writing itself. It deviates from the main thread of writing. While metadiscourse should not be used excessively, it is often used even in scholarly papers, especially in introductions and conclusions, where the writer would wish to be more personal. Here are some examples
o To explain your thinking or writing: In this paper, we will argue/claim/ show...; I conclude from these data that...
o To trace logic or form of your argument: First...; In addition...; Most important...; Consequently...
o To address your readers: As you recall...; Consider...
o To describe the organization of your document: This paper is divided into three parts…; Our arguments proceed as follows…
o To refer to other parts of your document: In the passage above...; As demonstrated by Figure 1...
o To express a stance or point of view: Not unexpectedly...; We concur that...; It seems unlikely that...
o To hedge or intensify your argument: usually, perhaps, seems, in some respects...; very, clearly, certainly... (I discuss hedges and intensifiers more in Lesson 8.)
• Using first-person instead of passive voice is more appropriate in metadiscourses.
• Long noun sequences, although sometimes necessary and concise, make sentences dense. They can be changed by adding relational propositions or converting them to subject-action pairs.
• Shorter subjects (as opposed to long phrases or subclauses) make the sentences easier to understand. They provide a center for the reader to know the focus of the sentence.
2.3 Lesson 4 Cohesion and Coherence
• Cohesion means a smooth flow between sentences. It works well by the “old to new” principle.
o Start with the information that the reader already knows (mentioned in the last sentence or familiar in general).
o End with new information
o Start with simple concepts and end with more complex ones
o You need to balance sentence clarity (e.g., avoiding passive voices) with the need for cohesion, which requires ordering the sentence parts in a certain way. If you must tradeoff, favor cohesion.
• Coherence is about a group of sentences forming a whole picture. An example of an incoherent passage would be a paragraph written by different people; each only knows the previous sentence. The text may flow well from sentence to sentence but does not provide anything meaningful as a whole.
o A reader wishes to grasp the topic of each sentence or clause quickly and see how the topics are connected over multiple sentences. Note that topics are not necessarily grammatical subjects, although it is a good idea for clarity to make the topic the subject.
o One way to keep the focus is using the same topic for a sequence of sentences. For example, when discussing how to write for clarity, we can use “readers” as the common topic when addressing several concepts instead of making these concepts as subjects.
o You should also put the topic at the beginning of the sentence so a reader can easily spot it. At the same time, a sentence should start with concepts or topics that are familiar (by common knowledge or by previous mentions) to the reader (cohesiveness).
o In a paragraph, the topics should form a small set of related ideas (coherence).
o To identify topics you should use, imagine giving the paragraph a title. Words contained in the title are candidates for topics in the paragraph.
• Beginning a sentence with topic words is not always easy. We tend to start a sentence with metadiscourses that link to the previous ones or introduce modifiers to limit or predicate our statements. [However, I often feel that the metadiscourses and predicates are more important than the topic and should lead the sentences.]
• Don’t sacrifice consistency and focus for the sake of variety. Don’t vary sentence structures so that the topics are obscured in some sentences. Don’t change the words in topics for diversity because consistent wording helps a reader spot the common subject.
• Cohesion and coherence are about making text easier to understand when it introduces new information and concepts. This task is difficult because the writer is already familiar with the subject and cannot identify with a reader who may have difficulty understanding. Careful and conscious editing is necessary.
• Be careful when using connecting devices such as “therefore,” “however,” etc., to ensure they reflect the correct logical relationships. Otherwise, these words may create faked coherence. Spare words such as and, also, moreover, another, and so on because they are often not necessary when listing multiple things.
• Summary of the Tips
o Place the subject as close as possible to the beginning of the sentence. Start with old and familiar information and lead to new and unfamiliar ones.
o In a paragraph, use a small set of closely related topics. When necessary, use a common topic (such as the researcher or the report) to connect the disparate concepts involved.
2.4 Lesson 5 Emphasis
• Once we place the subject and actions, we continue to discuss the orders and positions of the rest of the sentence.
• A sentence is easier to understand if it progresses from simple to complex components. Complexity is based on grammatical structures and/or terms (such as unfamiliar technical terms).
• End a sentence with emphases, which is usually the new information. This practice requires trimming the unnecessary phases at the end (e.g., those already implied by the rest of the sentence). The rule may require moving some sentence parts to the beginning, which is a tradeoff with the earlier rules of starting with subject and action.
• Six ways for emphasizing
1. Use “empty words” such as “there is …” to begin a sentence to shift the stress to a later position. This is a tradeoff with the clarity rule against using empty words as subjects.
2. Use passive voice to put the actor in a later position.
3. Use “what we need is…” to emphasize the real target. This is similar to the first way.
4. Use “It” as a placeholder for the actual subject: “It seems that inevitable that …” This is again similar to the first way. But it has the added advantage of making the sentence head-light.
5. Use “not only, but also” instead of “and” to stress the latter item. Note that this is discouraged by the “Grammarly” tool.
6. If you need to end a sentence with a word used before, try to replace it with a pronoun or just omit it. Otherwise, the reader will have a mental voice drop at the end, and the intended stress would be lost.
• Emphasizing in a paragraph. To make a paragraph more consistent and understandable, we should stick with a few topic words and use them to construct all sentences. These topic words should be emphasized in the topic sentence (the first sentence), so the reader is clear about the focus of the paragraph.
3 Clarity of Form
This part is about organizing the entire documents.
3.1 Lesson 6 Framing Documents
This lesson discusses introductions and conclusions.
o The functions of an introduction are 1) tell readers what to expect (what); 2) motivate readers to read it (so what). Be careful, do not assume readers already know as much as the author about the structure and importance.
o An introduction can use the following format: shared context, problem, solution/main point/claim.
 The shared context is widely acceptable facts, values, or experiences
• In an academic paper, the shared context can be several paragraphs in the form of a literature review. However, in other documents, it can be much shorter.
• Sometimes people introduce the common context and then challenges it, opening the essay.
 Problem: the specific topic to be addressed.
• A problem includes a situation and its consequence.
• A problem can be either conceptual or practical. The former usually takes more explanation.
 Solution: proposal: what we should do and/or what we should think.
o Prelude: another part of the introduction. It can be a quotation, an anecdote, a striking fact, etc. It is used to grab initial attention.
o The inclusion and extension of these parts depend on the presumed reader’s knowledge about the topic.
o There should be a clear division of the three parts in the introduction. For example, use “but” or “however” to transition from shared context to the problem.
o Put the solution or claim to the end of the introduction for emphasis.
o Clearly signal the end of the introduction.
o Conclusions contain three parts: summary, significance, and further thoughts.
3.2 Lesson 7 Framing Sections
Section means section, subsection, or a group of paragraphs. They are a part of the whole document.
o Make the readers clear on the section structure
o Signal the beginning and end of a section, either by subtitles or by some transition sentences.
o Provide a short segment that introduces the section. The introduction should announce the section theme, tied to the claims or statements forecasted in the document introduction.
o In the body of the section, use the concepts announced in the introduction to organize the section and repeat them regularly.
o The introduction part of a section should include the topic terms of the paragraph.
o Make the readers clear on each part of the section
o Clarify how each piece of information relates to the points of the section. It can be background, point itself, supporting reasons or facts, explanation of how reasons and facts support the point or consideration of other points of view.
o Clarify how parts of the document are organized. The organization can be chronological, logical, or coordinating.
o Each paragraph, which can be long or short depending on the genre, contains an introduction part that outlines the framing (why the paragraph is here), the points, and how you plan to make the points. Make sure your main point appears at either the beginning or end of the paragraph.
o In general, a writing unit is easier to understand if it begins with a short and easy segment that frames the longer and more complex segments that follow. This principle applies to sentences, paragraphs, sections, and documents.
The tradeoff of templated writing
• When following the rules outlined in this part of the book, some authors may question these rules’ necessity and feel they suppress creativity.
• The templates help the readers to follow the points. In most cases, the readers are looking for easily accessible information instead of creativity. So they will be grateful if the document follows a predictable pattern.
• Although we, as writers, are conscious of the rules we must follow, the readers may not feel it is unnatural.
• As another book said, it is OK to break the rules sometimes, especially when your large-scale structure is good but some sentences or paragraphs are less conforming. However, you need to show you understand the rules before getting the freedom to violate them.
4 Grace
4.1 Lesson 8 Concision
Concision is about compacting writing and avoiding wasted words. More compact writing is easier to understand and more powerful. We can perform the following editing to achieve concision:
• Delete meaningless “helper” words: kind of, actually, particular, really, certain, various, virtually, individual, basically, generally, given, practically, etc.
• Delete doubled “duplicated” works: full and complete, hope and trust, any and all, true and accurate, each and every, basic and fundamental, hope and desire, first and foremost, various and sundry. These pairs sound more learned, but they don’t add to the meaning.
• Delete what is implied: predict future events, completely revolutionary, past history, final outcome, unexpected surprise, period of time, gray in color, dull in appearance, etc.
• Replace a phrase with a word: improve writing -> edit, the thing to do before anything else -> first, use X instead of Y -> replace, sequences of subjects and verbs ->clauses, the same ideas expressed in nouns -> nominalization, the reason for -> why, despite the fact that -> even though, in the event -> if, in a situation where -> when, concerning the matter of -> about, there is a need for -> must, in a position to -> can, prior to -> before
• Change negatives to affirmatives
• Remove redundant metadiscourses (phases that indicate where the discussion is going instead of the discussion itself, such as I believe, as you can see, etc.) They are useful, but too many of them dilute the content.
• Hedges and intensifiers. Removing hedges effectively intensifies the statements. Note that words like obviously, no doubt, may have the opposite effect on the readers, suggesting that the statements are not absolutely credible.
Note that all these edits for concision change the voice of the sentences. So make sure the effect is intended.
4.2 Lesson 9: Shape
This lesson is about how to write long sentences that are easy to grasp.
• Start with your point. Not only do we want to put subject and action at the beginning, but also we should start with the main logical point. That probably means that the subject and action of the sentence should align with our main logical point. The “point first” principle also applies to paragraphs, sections, and documents.
• Avoid starting with a long subclause and get to the subject quickly. Try to move the subclauses to a later position.
• Avoid long subject subclause so a reader can get to the verb and object quickly.
• Avoid interruptions within the subject-verb-object flow.
• Put new and complex information at the end of a sentence.
• Avoid cascading explanation subclauses (sprawl). Try to use other forms such as present participles or break them down into separate sentences. Another way is changing the cascading modifying clauses into parallel modifiers separated by commas.
• In a parallel list, place the short terms before long terms.
• Be careful about grammatical “bugs.”
o Parallels must have the same grammatical structure. For example, don’t list a phrase and a subclause, or a phase and an adverb, as parallels.
o Be careful about connecting words and their logical implications. For example, “and” is for parallel items, not progression ideals.
o Use repeated words instead of pronouns if the pronoun references could be confusing.
o Watch out for confusing pairing of modifiers and what they modify. A more severe case is the dangling modifier, whose grammatical object is not the intended one.
On the other hand, a straightforward sentence is not always the style choice, in my view. Sometimes a slow start provides suspense that piques the reader’s interest. You may also want to slow the reader down to force deliberation.
4.3 Lesson 10 Elegance
This section discusses some techniques for enhancing the impact and power of the text.
• Balance means having corresponding parts in a sentence or parallel components.
o Coordinate balance is components linked by thins like “and,” “but,” “not only, but also,” etc. The parallel parts are not only symmetrical in meaning but also in sound and length.
o Noncoordinate balance correlates parts that are not grammatically equivalent. The parts are tied together in various ways by rhythm, rhyme, structure, etc.
• Emphasis: we can bring weight to the end of the sentence and thus make the sentence more powerful in several ways.
o Weighty words. End the sentence with words that carry more weight. Usually, nouns or nominalizations have more weight. This is a good reason for a

[Stephanie · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's helpful, if not a little tedious at some points, but it wasn't the worst nonfiction reference book I've been required to read for a class.

Even though it offered good insight and tips, I wish the font wasn't so small. I tried to increase font size, only to discover that the feature isn't offered. It also doesn't allow text-to-speech which further dampened my reading experience.

[A Crawley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Game changer for your writing— it's a lethal weapon. The book teaches how to craft power sentences with ease. I believe it's one of those books that can be life changing. It was for me. It can be for you.

[Cara · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was super interesting and taught me a lot. Already applying what I learned in my work.

[Jonathon Crump · Rating 5 out of 5]

So helpful. The best book on style I’ve read. Reading this has made me a better writer.

[Austin Spence · Rating 4 out of 5]

Learned a lot from this about developing my prose. Many pages exposed me of writing poorly. We will see how successful Mr. Williams was in the spring semester with its many papers.

[Drew Perron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Style: Toward Clarity and Grace is not a bad book, as books on how to write good English go. It's got a lot of advice, clearly laid-out, and if you follow its teachings, your words will be understandable and get your point across. But it's got a deeper goal here, a meaningful purpose - one that it's too conservative to accomplish.

That's small-c conservative - not in the sense of a political party, but in the sense of being overcautious, having trouble accepting or adjusting to change. The writers want to push past the strict, inflexible rulesets of the past, with their long lists of dos and don'ts that set an arbitrary standard but don't help communication in the slightest; they want to give real, understandable reasons why you would or would not want to use a word, a phrase, a form of sentence or paragraph or document; they want to explain what makes some writing difficult to understand, and other writing lyrical and flowing, and give you the tools to make your writing more like the latter than the former. And to some extent, they succeed - don't get me wrong, there is a lot of useful material in here. But the writers don't realize that they themselves are still clinging to arbitrary standards, still passing them on implicitly and explicitly.

There are so many places where Style pushes against traditional bugaboos. The idea that shorter sentences are necessarily better is taken apart; rules like "nouns shouldn't modify nouns" and "no dangling modifiers" are shown to have no weight in English as it is spoken and written; different ways to design topics are given equal weight and affirmed as equally valuable in different circumstances, with examples taken from great historical luminaries. But there are so many places where the authors not only affirm a linguistic prejudice, they do so without any given reason, confidently declaring that certain words, phrases, methods of speaking, are Just Wrong, Not Proper English, an obvious affront on decent communication. The worst example is in chapter seven, "Concision", where a whole panoply of expression and idiom is dismissed as redundant or meaningless with very little discussion - yet, in the same chapter, subjects like "Excessive Detail" or "Hedges and Emphatics" are worthy of spending pages talking about why one might want to use a specific style (you know, the thing the book is about) even though it's not Concise.

And this is the place that really shows the central problem with the book. "Concision" begins by talking about how to cut meaningless words from an example sentence. Among the things that they cut are the words "in my opinion", and the reason given is that "any statement is implicitly opinion". But in a book like this, an instructional, educational tome adapted from a school textbook, statements are implicitly fact. And if you don’t take steps to sort out the differences between your opinions, which don't need to be justified, and your factual statements, which do, you end up with exactly the kind of arbitrary rules which this book is pushing against.

The goal that Style is reaching for is valuable, and if it cannot reach it, it is at least a step along the path to it. There's a drive here, a meaningful purpose towards making the world better, summed up best, I think, in a paragraph at the end of chapter four, "Emphasis":

"Some teachers of writing want to make voice a moral choice between a false voice and the voice 'authentic'. I suspect that we all speak in many voices, no one of which is more or less false, more or less authentic than any other. When you want to be pompous and authoritative, then that's in the voice you project because that's what you are being. When you want to be laconic and direct, then you should be able to adopt that voice. The problem is to hear the voice you are projecting and to change it when you want to. That's no more false than choosing how you dress, how you behave, how you live."

[Krys · Rating 3 out of 5]

As far as style books go, this is one of the best I’ve read. It’s focus on how language is actually used versus stuffy grammar rules speaks volumes for how the teaching of writing has changed since I was in school.

The book is repetitive, only have one or two real points, constantly circles back on providing different ways of looking at the same principles depending on what aspect of a piece of work you are writing or revising. Those points, such as lead with short and simple and end with long and complex, were incredibly well-reasoned and clear for non-professional writers. I also enjoyed the defense of passive voice in a few particular instances.

But in addition to its repetition, the book also made use of example sentences that worked against the points of the lesson. and the final chapters got so far into the weeds that I can’t imagine students reading this book would learn much, discussions on coordination, for example. Either you already coordinate intuitively and the book will only point out what you do most of the time anyway, or you get lost in all the sentence diagrams and it won’t be much help.

Despite my criticisms, however, the early chapters really do provide good advice, especially for folks writing reports for their job who might need some help writing clearly.

[J. Alfred · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title of this book makes it sound as though it is full of flowery banality. When she first saw the book, my wife clasped it to her chest and sighed at the ceiling like an exaggerated Victorian. And yet, and mercifully, the text is spirited and punchy with a great deal of wit. Williams's argument boils down to "you should write as you would be written to," and the remainder is composed of 'lessons' complete with detailed instruction and concrete examples. The examples do make the crisp writing sag, but they have their purpose. I can testify to the book's helpfulness, at least in small matters, in that I re-wrote the majority of the sentences in this review at least once to better conform to Williams's precepts (if I have failed tremendously, it's my fault rather than his. All teachers recognize the student ignoring advice carefully given).
In short, any writer who introduces his glossary with a selection of quotes is worth your admiration. If you're trying to improve your own writing or want a cheap, useful and easy-reading text for a classroom, this one will do the job.

[J · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was recommended by a dear friend. It arrived today via snail mail and appears to have had a good, long life in the Trinity Western Library. How I wish they would have left the card and card holder in the back jacket of the book. I was pleasantly surprised to read Elaine Chaika's name in the acknowledgments (page XV). As the author, J.M.Williamson points out, this is not the kind of book to be taken in at one sitting or even two. That is fine with me because, it gives me a chance to ponder each lesson at my own pace. More importantly, it provides me with the opportunity to mull over the concepts and make the lessons my own. Thank you Elaine. I am loving it.

Btw, Elaine; I have taken in your latest post on the "r" pronunciation and my eyes are still crossed. I felt like a mouth breather when I was done with that one. I am not worried however because complicated material has the same effect on me as time has on the fermenting grape; there's wine in them thar grapes.

[Jo Deurbrouck · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yum, grammar porn! I could watch Williams parse beautiful, grammatically sophisticated sentences all day long. I also appreciate his easy refreshers for concepts like 'nominalization,' 'summative clause,' and the difference between coherence and cohesion. These things only stay fresh in my mind if I take myself back to school now and then. Some reviewers have dinged the man for being a less-than-graceful writer from time to time. This doesn't detract from the book's value for me. What would, I think, if I had read them, were the exercises. I have no interest in reading bad writing for the sole purpose of practicing ways to improve it. I believe a fine-tuned ear comes from what you read. I skipped all of the exercises, wishing all the while that Williams had taken the Francine Prose approach, giving me page after page of lovely examples I could wallow in instead of messes he thought I'd enjoy cleaning up.

[Marc Perry · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you read only one book to improve how you write, edit, and read English prose, then in my opinion, it should be this book by Joseph Williams. This is not a book for the uninitiated. Rather, this is a book for experienced writers who are unhappy with how they write, and are flailing around looking for some way to improve their writing. It is all in here; the history of how the English language assimilated multiple words, with different origins, that have similar or identical meanings; how obtuse, and turgid, academic writing became in the interest of appearing erudite; and of course, how you can cut, slash, and burn, your own sentences so that they leap off the page in a way that the reader effortlessly absorbs your meaning, intent and thoughts. Williams is phenomenal in his deep understanding of what makes poor writing awful, and what makes good writing delightful.

[Ian Yang · Rating 5 out of 5]

Don't know how I actually bumped into this great book, I guess I was just fortunate when I fortuitously picked the right book that accidentally mentioned it. I wonder why I was never introduced to it when attending university 'cause it not only clarifies plenty of practical and fundamental knowledge about writing in English (or rewriting, quoting the author) but helps a great deal when you want to rephrase a more complex sentence and make it less impersonal and obscure, especially when the materials are offered - those you read in textbooks or professional writing - by someone who isn't capable of writing in a clearer and simpler way. I genuinely believe this book will make a great, life-time companion as my reading and writing experience grows with time.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

There were a lot of relevant writing issues in this book and I felt like it did a good job of explaining the different concepts to make writing sound better and clearer. Every chapter featured a different aspect of writing that could be improved. I knew that I did a lot of things this book said were common mistakes and it was nice to see how clunky and cluttered it made writing and how I could fix it. This book helped my writing and offered tips and ways to change my writing to make it more graceful and elegant. I would recommend this book.

*Taken from my book reviews blog: http://reviewsatmse.blogspot.com/2010...

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to read this book for a writing class I took called, "Writing, Technology, and Style." Despite some places where I felt where Williams went into too much detail, I thoroughly enjoyed his chapter on usage because it was just another tally mark of books that I've read that talk about how teaching nothing but grammar to students actually makes them worse writers. Again, there were quite a few chapters in this book that I glossed over because some of the things Williams was saying were too complicated, but on the whole, I really enjoyed this book.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

What began as required reading in one of my classes quickly became a staple. I gave it 3 stars simply because this is not light reading nor is it the kind of book anyone (at least I hope)wants to read in one sitting. Rather, I would recommend taking a chapter at a time, giving the concepts time to take root. Guaranteed to improve your writing.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gives great examples of clear, concise writing along with examples of less clear, less concise writing. Provides grammatical & syntactic explanations for why certain sentences are clearer or less clear. These examples and practice exercises help me to think about the phrasing and pacing of my sentences as I write.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best "how to" book I've ever read. Williams breaks the writing process into 10 key elements that ensure that the message is correct and will be read. He provides many examples and goes through the process of editing samples from good to really great. Chapter 9, Elegance, is absolutely amazing. I need to reread this book!

[Eleanor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly elegant manual on writing mostly for research purposes. Each chapter is preceded by quotes that illustrate the point of the following section beautifully, poetically. The writing is so clear and direct yet friendly and inviting, I'd love to write half as well as the author of this manual.