The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. is an essential guide for students, writers, editors, speakers, and anyone who wants to improve their usage of the English language. The book was originally published in 1918, and is a short, straightforward manual outlining the most important principles of English usage. Over the years, the book has gained a cult-like following as a timeless classic, and is often referred to as “Strunk and White”, as E.B. White revised the book for a 1955 edition.
The book starts with an introduction by E.B. White, in which he shares his admiration for William Strunk Jr’s teaching method and “the force, the precision, the economy emanating from his brief course”. The majority of the text is composed of 19 brief chapters discussing the “crucial elements” of English style.
The Elements of Style emphasizes the importance of keeping writing clear and concise, without unnecessary wordiness. Strunk divides the chapter about expression into two parts; “An Approach to Style” and “A Few Matters of Form”. He begins the “An Approach to Style” section by teaching readers how to use directness, strength, and economy of language. He encourages writers to aim for a sense of “deliberate simplicity”, emphasizing the importance of precision and naturalness when crafting a sentence.
The chapter on “Form” dives into more technical aspects of writing, such as grammar and punctuation. Strikingly, Strunk describes parts of speech in terms of what he calls “construction” - how words are used to convey meaning. He covers topics such as agreement of subject and verb, pronoun and antecedent, and appositives. He also details the proper usage of articles, conjunctions, and prepositions.
Building upon those topics, the chapter “The Beginning and the End” teaches the reader to place emphasis in the beginning and end of a sentence, using figures of speech to great effect. Strunk outlines several devices, including alliteration and contrast, parallel construction, and sentence-opening single-word clauses. He also discusses how to properly introduce quotations, and cautions against using too many quotations in a single sentence.
Overall, the goal of The Elements of Style is to teach students how to write in plain English, helping them to find the right words to express their ideas clearly and concisely. Strunk’s philosophy was that effective writing was not only about grammar and syntax, but also about “the way English should be used in literature”. The book remains a timeless classic, as it has already been updated four times and is now in its fifth edition - a testimony to its enduring value.
