The Elements of Style (Classic Style Manuals)

The Elements of Style

The Classic Style Manual

Brand New Copy

New Edition

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.

CONTENTS

Introductory

Elementary Rules of Usage

Form the possessive singular of nouns by adding 's

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

Enclose parenthetic expressions between commas

Place a comma before a conjunction introducing a co-ordinate clause

Do not join independent clauses by a comma

Do not break sentences in two

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

Elementary Principles of Composition

Make the paragraph the unit of composition: one paragraph to each topic

As a rule, begin each paragraph with a topic sentence; end it in conformity with the beginning

Use the active voice

Put statements in positive form

Use definite, specific, concrete language

Omit needless words

Avoid a succession of loose sentences

Express co-ordinate ideas in similar form

Keep related words together

In summaries, keep to one tense

Place the emphatic words of a sentence at the end

A Few Matters of Form

Words and Expressions Commonly Misused

Spelling

Exercises on Chapters II and III