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Style: Toward Clarity and Grace (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing) | 
 enlarge | Author: Joseph M. Williams
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
List Price: $13.00
Buy Used: $2.61
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Rating:  27 reviews
Sales Rank: 36788
Media: Paperback
Pages: 226
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.6
ISBN: 0226899152
Dewey Decimal Number: 428
EAN: 9780226899152
ASIN: 0226899152
Publication Date: June 15, 1995
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Amazon.com Review
"Telling me to 'Be clear,' " writes Joseph M. Williams in Style: Toward Clarity and Grace, "is like telling me to 'Hit the ball squarely.' I know that. What I don't know is how to do it." If you are ever going to know how to write clearly, it will be after reading Williams' book, which is a rigorous examination of--and lesson in--the elements of fine writing. With any luck, your clear writing will turn graceful, as well. Though most of us, says Williams, would be happy just to write "clear, coherent, and appropriately emphatic prose," he is not content to teach us just that. He also attempts, by way of example, to determine what constitutes elegant writing. Despite the proliferation of books in this genre, rarely does one feel so confident in one's instructor. Williams is meticulous and exacting, yet never pedantic. Though he agrees with most of his grammarian colleagues that, generally speaking, the active voice is better than the passive or that the ordinary word is preferable to the fancy, Williams is also quick to assert that there's no sense learning a rule "if all we can do is obey it." And he is most emphatic about the absurdity of prescriptions concerning usage (such as, "Never begin a sentence with a coordinating conjunction"). Such rules, he says, "are 'violated' so consistently that, unless we are ready to indict for bad grammar just about every serious writer of modern English, we have to reject as misinformed anyone who would attempt to enforce them." --Jane Steinberg
Product Description
This acclaimed book is a master teacher's tested program for turning clumsy prose into clear, powerful, and effective writing. A logical, expert, easy-to-use plan for achieving excellence in expression, Style offers neither simplistic rules nor endless lists of dos and don'ts. Rather, Joseph Williams explains how to be concise, how to be focused, how to be organized. Filled with realistic examples of good, bad, and better writing, and step-by-step strategies for crafting a sentence or organizing a paragraph, Style does much more than teach mechanics: it helps anyone who must write clearly and persuasively transform even the roughest of drafts into a polished work of clarity, coherence, impact, and personality.
"Buy Williams's book. And dig out from storage your dog-eared old copy of The Elements of Style. Set them side by side on your reference shelf."—Barbara Walraff, Atlantic
"Let newcoming writers discover this, and let their teachers and readers rejoice. It is a practical, disciplined text that is also a pleasure to read."—Christian Century
"An excellent book....It provides a sensible, well-balanced approach, featuring prescriptions that work."—Donald Karzenski, Journal of Business Communication
"Intensive fitness training for the expressive mind."—Booklist
(The college textbook version, Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace, 9th edition, is available from Longman. ISBN 9780321479358.)
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| Customer Reviews: Read 22 more reviews...
 Helpful November 8, 2008
Judith L. Hoyt
Although a little hard to read at first, it definitely gets to the point about good writing. A great read for those who need help writing!
A Must-Have for Academic Writers April 26, 2008
Jeff DeSurra (Arcadia, CA United States)
For students, scholars, or everyday writers, this is a must-have book. This is a great book for learning how to hone your writing skills to get thoughts on the paper in a way that is still understandable to the reader. He goes over how to effectively construct sentences, link those sentences into paragraphs, and then shape those units so that they are concise, elegant, and coherent. Williams provides multiple examples of what good and bad writing looks like and the keys on how to transform bad writing into good writing.
The best part of the book is the connection that Williams makes between thinking and writing. Bad writing often masks incomplete thinking, so this book is also a guide indirectly of how to read more effectively and deeply. For any student who wants to take their writing to the next level and beyond the strong Strunk and White foundational grammar, this is a book for you.
Excellent Resource December 7, 2007
William Sloos (Toronto)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
In the book, Style: Toward Clarity and Grace, authors Joseph M. Williams and Gregory C. Colomb provide an effective teaching manual to assist novice writers in turning elementary prose into clear, compelling, and persuasive writing. Instead of offering a tiresome prescription of rules or an overly simplistic how-to list, chapters discuss how to be concise, focussed, and structured in the writing process. To educate writers in distinguishing poor quality writing from high quality writing, numerous real life writing examples are illustrated, demonstrating how sentences and paragraphs can be revised and improved. Aimed at developing advanced writing skills, a variety of practical methodologies are presented to assist writers in producing a coherent and elegant document that succinctly communicates their objectives. Beyond mere mechanics, larger matters of form and organization are explored with the purpose of equipping writers with a range of workable solutions to enable them to better engage with their readers and produce a final draft that is not only readable, but is a skilfully written and professional composition.
Recognizing that even mature writers can sometimes write poorly, the authors also explain the various causes for poor writing and suggest ways for writers to identify, diagnose, and overcome different problems that can occur in the writing process. They identify a number of factors that can contribute to poor writing including: an unfamiliar topic, confusion over the objective, insufficient time to revise, bad writing habits, or just plain ineptitude. Additionally, writers may also write poorly because they use pretentious language, fear making grammatical mistakes, or experience episodes of "stylistic aphasia", a regression that occurs when writers write about things they know little about. Being able to address the sources of poor writing can assist writers in identifying their weaknesses and discover and develop effective strategies for overcoming them.
Additionally, the authors also explore the origins and consequences of writing professional prose. Some distinguished professional writers have crafted complex arguments but have failed to effectively communicate the complexities in a clear and concise fashion, leaving readers feeling confused and incompetent in their reading comprehension. Though complex writing may reflect complex ideas more precisely, it may also needlessly complicate complex ideas, or even complicate simple ideas. Rather than making complex ideas and concepts more convoluted, the authors suggest ways to write in a manner that takes complex material and communicates it in a clear and simple approach, without surrendering professionalism or diminishing the essential components of the argument or objective.
 An important book for professional writers and academia September 3, 2007
AleFu (HK)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book covers not the basic grammar issue, but how to make your passage / paragraph / and in general writing flow.
Undergraduate may find it helpful when they are taking a writing class, while graduate students should seriously read this book as manuscript writing is paramount.
This book taught me how to write August 2, 2007
J. Schimel (Montpellier, France right now)
Most of my colleagues think I am a good writer. Most of what I know about writing well I learned from this book. It is a fascinating treatise on communication as much as a guide to writing well. It is a must for any professional writer.
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