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    The Elements of Style (Classic Edition): With Editor's Notes and Study Guide
    The Elements of Style (Classic Edition): With Editor's Notes and Study Guide
    The Elements of Style (Classic Edition): With Editor's Notes and Study Guide
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    The Elements of Style (Classic Edition): With Editor's Notes and Study Guide

    By William Strunk Jr

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    About this ebook

    This Classic Edition contains the original version of "The Elements of Style" written by Cornell University English professor William Strunk Jr. Generations of college students and writers have learned the basics of grammar from this short primer over the years. It was rated "one of the 100 most influential books written in English" by Time in 2011, and iconic author Stephen King recommended it as a grammar handbook that all aspiring writers should read.

    Written one hundred years ago, "The Elements of Style" is a nostalgic link to a momentous time in American history that ushered in the Art Deco era and the Roaring Twenties. Many of the English grammar rules it cites are as relevant today as they were at the turn of the 20th century; but, one by one, these rules are becoming out-of-date This Classic Edition, updated as we head into 2017, is intended as a tribute to Prof. Strunk's enduring book. It follows the original version but includes these enhancements for today's readers:

    1. Editorial notes have been inserted to indicate grammar rules now considered obsolete, and to provide brief insights on updated rules for present-day writers.

    2. Easily recognizable symbols have been added to the grammar examples throughout the book so that readers can discern correctly written sentences from errors at a glance.

    3. A Study Guide has been added at the conclusion of the book.

    4. The paperback version includes blank, lined pages at the end for convenient note taking. 5. The digital version has been restyled for improved display on all modern e-book readers.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPublishdrive
    Release dateDec 26, 2016
    ISBN9781988236490
    The Elements of Style (Classic Edition): With Editor's Notes and Study Guide
    Author

    William Strunk Jr

    William Strunk, Jr. (1869-1946) was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, the eldest of William and Ella Garretson Strunk's four children. Strunk excelled in school, eventually earning a bachelor's degree from the University of Cincinnati and a PhD at Cornell University. He then attended the Sorbonne and the Collège de France from 1898-99 where he studied morphology and philology. Strunk began his academic career teaching mathematics at Rose Polytechnical Institute in Terre Haute, Indiana from 1890-91, then returned to Cornell and taught English there for 46 years. In 1922 he published English Metres, a study of poetic metrical form, and began writing he critical editions of various classical works. Strunk joined a literary group called the Manuscript Club which held Saturday night meetings to discuss writing and literature. There, Strunk met and became friends with a young aspiring writer, Elwyn Brooks ("E.B.") White. In 1918, Strunk published The Elements of Style, but originally only intended it to be used by his Cornell students, who nicknamed it "the little book." In 1935, Strunk and Edward A. Tenney revised the manuscript and re-published the guide for wider distribution as The Elements and Practice of Composition. Years later, after Strunk had passed away, E.B. White - now working at the New Yorker - praised the "little book" in his column, calling it a "forty-three-page summation of the case for cleanliness, accuracy, and brevity in the use of English." As a result of the new attention White's praise generated for Strunk's manuscript, Macmillan and Company commissioned White to revise the 1935 edition for republication. The resulting book became an immediate hit. Since The Elements of Style (now credited to both Strunk and White) was originally republished in 1959, sales of the book - and subsequent editions - has exceeded ten million copies and the book is often referred to simply as "Strunk and White." William Strunk retired from Cornell in 1937 and in 1945 he suffered a mental breakdown, diagnosed as "senile psychosis." He died less than a year later at the Hudson River Psychiatric Institute in Poughkeepsie, New York.

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      Book preview

      The Elements of Style (Classic Edition) - William Strunk Jr

      THE

      ELEMENTS OF STYLE

      By William Strunk Jr.

      CLASSIC EDITION

      UPDATED & EDITED

      By Richard De A’Morelli

      SPECTRUM INK PUBLISHING

      Tomorrow’s Great Classics Today

      The Elements of Style: Classic Edition

      Copyright © 2017 by Spectrum Ink Publishing

      Published simultaneously in Canada & the United States

      Release Date: January 2017

      This volume is an updated, annotated, and restyled version of a public domain work. Revisions, editorial notations, and all passages containing original content, including the Foreword, are copyrighted and protected under Canadian, United States, and international copyright law. Design elements, layout, and typography are original and protected by copyright. Such copyrighted material may not be reproduced or transmitted by any means, uploaded, or otherwise posted on any website without the publisher’s consent, except for brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      ISBN numbers:

      978-1-988236-51-3......Paperback

      978-1-988236-50-6......Mobi

      978-1-988236-49-0......Epub

      978-1-988236-48-3......Paperback (large print)

      Spectrum Ink Canada

      Vancouver, British Columbia

      Spectrum Ink USA

      San Luis Obispo, California

      Online:

      http://vu.org/books

      Table of Contents

      THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE

      Foreword

      GRAMMAR AND STYLE FOR THE 21st CENTURY

      Chapter 1

      INTRODUCTORY

      Chapter 2

      ELEMENTARY RULES OF USAGE

      Rule 1. Form the possessive singular of nouns by adding 's.

      Rule 2. In a series of three or more terms with a single conjunction, use a comma after each term except the last.

      Rule 3. Enclose parenthetic expressions between commas.

      Rule 4. Place a comma before a conjunction introducing a co-ordinate clause.

      Rule 5. Do not join independent clauses by a comma.

      Rule 6. Do not break sentences in two.

      Rule 7. A participial phrase at the beginning of a sentence must refer to the grammatical subject.

      Chapter 3

      ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES OF COMPOSITION

      Rule 8. Make the paragraph the unit of composition.

      Rule 9. Begin each paragraph with a topic sentence.

      Rule 10. Use the active voice.

      Rule 11. Put statements in positive form.

      Rule 12. Use definite, specific, concrete language.

      Rule 13. Omit needless words.

      Rule 14. Avoid a succession of loose sentences.

      Rule 15. Express co-ordinate ideas in similar form.

      Rule 16. Keep related words together.

      Rule 17. In summaries, keep to one tense.

      Rule 18. Place the emphatic words of a sentence at the end.

      Chapter 4

      A FEW MATTERS OF FORM

      Headings

      Numerals

      Parentheses

      Quotations

      References

      Hyphenation

      Titles

      Chapter 5

      WORDS AND EXPRESSIONS OFTEN MISUSED

      Chapter 6

      SPELLING

      Chapter 7

      EXERCISES ON CHAPTERS II AND III

      Study Guide

      Foreword

      GRAMMAR AND STYLE FOR THE 21st CENTURY

      Excerpted from Elements of Style 2017, by Richard De A’Morelli

      Years ago, when my first magazine article was published shortly after my fourteenth birthday and I set my heart on writing as my life’s ambition, there weren't many resources available for aspiring writers. Amazon.com was decades off in the future. We purchased paperbacks from the local bookstore, subscribed to Writer’s Digest magazine, and borrowed a handful of books from the public library. I owned several dictionaries, a thesaurus, some paperbacks on writing and vocabulary, a high school grammar textbook, and a thin book with a cloth cover and faded pages: The Elements of Style. It was an indispensable reference that I reached for often when writing and editing my early books and articles.

      The Elements of Style was written one hundred years ago by William Strunk Jr., an English professor at Cornell University. Over the years, generations of college students and writers have learned the basics of grammar from this short handbook. It was rated one of the 100 most influential books written in English by Time in 2011, and iconic author Stephen King recommends it as a grammar handbook that all aspiring writers should read.

      This Classic Edition is meant as a tribute to Prof. Strunk's book that has endured down through the years. Many of the grammar rules it mentions are as valid today as they were a century ago; but, one by one, these rules have grown out-of-date. Another shortcoming of the book is that it does not include essential grammar and style rules today’s writers should know in this era of technology and self-publishing.

      Last summer, I set out to update Prof. Strunk's book. I had intended to delete obsolete rules and add new rules which are widely followed today. As I worked through the project, I kept thinking: Wait, maybe I should add this...and this...and this. As the weeks passed, my quick update grew into 250 pages packed with updated grammar and style rules. I drew from a variety of sources besides Strunk’s book, and I eventually finished the project, which is now available on Amazon. Com as Elements of Style 2017.

      But I had not accomplished my original goal: to produce a tribute edition of Strunk’s original book, with footnotes calling attention to grammar rules that no longer apply in the present day. So I circled back for another try, and this book is the end result.

      Before we delve into Chapter 1, let’s review briefly what grammar is, and why it matters so much in today’s world. Simply put, grammar is concerned with how words are used and put together to form sentences and paragraphs. Style refers to an additional set of rules many writers, and all professional editors, follow to edit and proofread book manuscripts and other documents. A knowledge of grammar is important because it will help you to write sentences that make sense. Style rules are just as important because they will help you to turn a first draft into a publication-ready, final draft manuscript.

      Style rules cover a wide range of issues, above and beyond the basic principles of grammar, from questions on word usage to capitalization, punctuation, how to abbreviate, and how to write numbers. Style rules fill in

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