The Elements of Style

Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as possible, including inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation. Some corrections of spelling and punctuation have been made. They are marked like this in the text. The original text appears when hovering the cursor over the marked text. A list of amendments is at the end of the text. THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE BY WILLIAM STRUNK, Jr. PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH IN CORNELL UNIVERSITY NEW YORK HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1918, 1919, BY WILLIAM STRUNK, JR. COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY HARCOURT, BRACE AND HOWE, INC. THE MAPLE PRESS YORK PA CONTENTS Page I. Introductory 5 II. Elementary Rules of Usage 7 1. Form the possessive singular of nouns by adding 's 7 2. In a series of three or more terms with a single conjunction, use a comma after each term except the last 7 3. Enclose parenthetic expressions between commas 8 4. Place a comma before a conjunction introducing a co-ordinate clause 10 5. Do not join independent clauses by a comma 11 6. Do not break sentences in two 12 7. A participial phrase at the beginning of a sentence must refer to the grammatical subject 13 III. Elementary Principles of Composition 15 8. Make the paragraph the unit of composition: one paragraph to each topic 15 9. As a rule, begin each paragraph with a topic sentence; end it in conformity with the beginning 17 10. Use the active voice 19 11. Put statements in positive form 21 12. Use definite, specific, concrete language 22 13. Omit needless words 24 14. Avoid a succession of loose sentences 25 15. Express co-ordinate ideas in similar form 26 16. Keep related words together 28 17. In summaries, keep to one tense 29 18. Place the emphatic words of a sentence at the end 31 IV. A Few Matters of Form 33 V. Words and Expressions Commonly Misused 36 VI. Spelling 48 VII. Exercises on Chapters II and III 50 I. INTRODUCTORY 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…