Strunk versus Williams
24 Jul 2010 Leave a Comment
Over the past several weeks our class has been reading to classic books on style: Elements of Style by Strunk and White and Style Toward Clarity and Grace by Joseph Williams. My current mission is to take a previous post of mine regarding my first impressions of Elements of Style and compare it to information found in Style.
Given that I have been reading about keeping things concise with a clear objective, I shall take section of my post and relate it toward the content found in Style.
When I think of grammar, I tend to have flashbacks of Mrs. Eskibele in the 5th grade. She made us use pen so she would know if we mistakenly placed a comma or apostrophe. I thought I could beat the system by using erasable pens. The pens failed and I was shamed.
I firmly believe that if Mrs. Eskibele were more like Strunk and White in the book The Elements of Style, I would have come away from my grammar lessons with a solid foundation for writing rather than a pathological aversion to the term “dangling participle”.
Perhaps Mrs. Eskibele’s maiden name was Williams. The sentence diagrams made me sense the aroma of chalk. I remember countless eternal minutes ticking by into an infinite hours as I slaved away writing sentence diagrams and swearing off the English language. Knowing now what I didn’t know then, was that I really had no understanding of the point behind knowing this information. Note to future self: provide context to content to get understanding and application.
The concise explanations along with the clear examples breaks down all of the “rules”. I really appreciate the chapter on approach to style. The list of 21 do’s and don’ts can make the difference between an average paper to a paper that is more informative and enjoyable.
Just as the tips in Elements of Style provides points to keep into consideration. The reasoning provided in Style, shows how all of those concepts can come together and form a whole for overall structure, meaning, and effectiveness of the writing.
