Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace

The book is fantastic. Hardly thicker than Strunk&White, it couldn’t be more different. Real advice, understandable explanations, illuminating examples, and a wide scope of relevant topics. Refreshingly, Williams eschews trite pearls of wisdom; he in fact devotes ample space to educate the reader about counterexamples to classical dogma, cases where opinions rehashed by venerated “authorities” really hurt. Yes, short sentences are great, but if you can’t write a long sentence that’s also understandable, you’re like a composer who cannot produce anything but jingles. Yes, using an active voice makes your writing more forceful and direct, but you will surprisingly often encounter situations where a passive construction is significantly preferable, for it eases the flow of information. (Besides, being forceful and direct is not always a virtue.) And yes, you’re on a good path if you can write good sentences, but if you can’t create cohesion between them, and coherence over a whole paragraph, your writing will remain opaque. I’m even in the target audience of the book: it’s not written for poets, it’s for people who need to communicate information (academics, journalists, but probably foremost: college students learning how to write essays). Hence, many examples are not too far away from what I deal with on a day-to-day basis, when writing grants, papers, or referee reports. The book closes with a beautiful reminder to those who don’t know why to bother with good writing, when there’s so much terrible writing going around. I quote: “What experienced readers know, and you eventually will, is that clear and graceful writers are so few that when we find them, we are desperately grateful. They do not go unrewarded." If that's no motivation to care, then I don't know what is. There’s so much in this book that I loved—lessons, attitude, motivation, and more—that I can confidently recommend it to anyone who cares to improve their writing. What I don’t know yet, though, is whether the longer version of the book, “Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace”, is even better, or says the same in more words and on more pages. But I will find out!

A must-have for every writer and editor. Not much else to say.

This is a very technical book on writing. It is beneficial as a doctoral student, but it is not an easy read.

This is a condensed version of Williams' other, too-many editions of this book. It always bothers me when an author makes a change in a sentence and then calls the book a new edition. With that said (sorry!), this is for me THE book on expository/academic writing--on writing clear sentences and organizing the ideas your text. I don't know of any other book on writing this kind of prose that compares. The ideas contained in this book and his other versions, beginning with the hardback yellow colored version that I began with some 30 years ago, have provided a framework or foundation for my teaching of writing all of my years. Clearly written, infinitely usable. Get it.

Style is a excellent book for learning how to right with a properly style. It is clearly written and it gives the reader the tools to start putting into practice a good writing. I loved every chapter of this book.

Got this for a textbook for a writing course. It has so much good information that it could be good for anybody even for people who don't consider writing. I wish every academics read this book before they write textbooks so we can understand it better.

I can't properly rate this book as I originally got it for a college course, but after a week I decided to drop the class. The price was outrageous for the size of the book.

Everyone who does writing as part of their profession should have this book. The first chapter alone helped me to revamp a book I was writing at the time. I purchased this book as part of a Masters of Arts course that I am doing.