Other editions of book The Elements of Style by Jr. William Strunk

Contents: I. IntroductoryII. Elementary Rules of Usage1. Form the possessive singular of nouns with 's 2. In a series of three or more terms with a single conjunction, use a comma after each term except the last3. Enclose parenthetic expressions between commas4. Place a comma before and or but introducing an independent clause5. Do not join independent clauses by a comma6. Do not break sentences in two7. A participial phrase at the beginning of a sentence must refer to the grammatical subject8. Divide words at line-ends, in accordance with their formation and pronunciationIII. Elementary Principles of Composition9. Make the paragraph the unit of composition: one paragraph to each topic 10. As a rule, begin each paragraph with a topic sentence; end it in conformity with the beginning11. Use the active voice12. Put statements i

The Elements of Style is a prescriptive American English writing style guide in numerous editions. The original was composed by William Strunk Jr., in 1918, and published by Harcourt, in 1920, comprising eight "elementary rules of usage", ten "elementary principles of composition", "a few matters of form", a list of 49 "words and expressions commonly misused", and a list of 57 "words often misspelled".

The Elements of Style is a prescriptive American English writing style guide comprising eight "elementary rules of usage", ten "elementary principles of composition", "a few matters of form", a list of forty-nine "words and expressions commonly misused", and a list of fifty-seven "words often misspelled". In 2011, Time magazine listed the writing style-guide as one of the 100 best and most influential books written in English since 1923. Cornell University professor of English William Strunk, Jr., wrote The Elements of Style in 1918, and privately published it in 1919, for in-house use at the university. In The Elements of Style (1918), as a professor of English, William Strunk concentrated on specific questions of usage and the cultivation of good writing with the recommendation "Make every word tell"; hence, the 17th principle of composition is the simple instruction: "Omit needless words."