July 1: Strunk and White Day
Today is the birthday of William Strunk, Jr.(1869-1946), the
principal author of The Elements of Style. This book, also known as Strunk and White, is without a doubt one of the most influential
style guides of all time, selling over ten million copies. Strunk originally published the book as an instructional
pamphlet for his students at Cornell University in 1918. The book gained its great notoriety after it was
revised and published by Strunk’s former student E. B. White in 1959.
The 11 Principles of Composition below are just a sample of the
advice for writers found in The Elements of
Style.
1.
Choose a suitable
design and stick to it.
2.
Make the paragraph the
unit of composition.
3.
Use the active voice.
4.
Put statements in
positive form.
5.
Use definite,
specific, concrete language.
6.
Omit needless words.
7.
Avoid a succession of
loose sentences.
8.
Express coordinate
ideas in similar form.
9.
Keep related words
together.
10. In summaries, keep to one tense.
11. Place the emphatic words of a sentence at the end.
Assignment 1: Select one of the principles in the list above
and explain why it is either good advice or bad advice for writers.
Assignment 2: What is your single most important Principle of
Composition? In other words what do you think
is the most important piece of advice that a writer can follow? State your advice as a rule; then, explain it in
detail with showing examples where appropriate.
Quote of the Day: Vigorous
writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph
no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no
unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that
the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat
his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell. –William Strunk, Jr.
