Product Description
This comprehensive, accessible guide addresses how to draft clear and effective contracts.The focus of this manual is not what provisions to include in a given contract, but instead how to express those provisions in prose that is free of the problems that often afflict contracts.This manual highlights common sources of inefficiency, dispute, and misunderstanding and recommends how to avoid them. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Good Book, but I think Tina Stark's book is more informative
I really like this book.I think Tina Stark's book is a little more elementary, and more substantive, in terms of how to draft a contract.I'd buy that first.This book is a little more helpful on language than Stark's book.If you are actually drafting contracts for a living you must read both.Starks book helps you put together basic contract clauses and organize a contract.This book will help you redword or expand a clause, or alter a form, and not screw up the language.

useful, well laid out; but often I don't follow given rule
really helpful in most situations. When I disagree with a given rule for a specific situation, it usually gives enough information for me to select and justify another format.

Quick read with helpful tips
This book provides a good desk reference for best practices in contract drafting. Although focused primarily on commercial transactions, the tips are helpful for all areas of contracts. Highly Recommended.

So-so
Bought this book after reading some of the author's articles and the rave reviews here.It is more like a style guide (it focuses on tenses, font, grammar) than a substantive legal drafting guide.It is very nitpicky regarding the English language, to the level where if you adhered to every rule, you would be closer to a fuddy duddy phD candidate type than a practitioner. It reminds me of the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers.I much prefer Charles Fox's Working With Contracts - What Law School Doesn't Teach You, which is more practice-oriented and actually explains each clause, and its the purpose and meaning.Every junior associate should receive Fox's book as a present when they start their first year.

It could threaten my job security...
As a contract litigation attorney I'd be worried if more people were to buy this book.Luckily for me the vast majority of lawyers and people who draft agreements apparently have not.Thus, I'm not worried about my job. It was actually an enjoyable read, too. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Writing Crime New York Style

Most police dramas lack the belief that must be present for a book to be published. This book is written by a police professional for the the writer who doesn't have the life experience in law enforcement. If nothing else, it would be an excellent reference for the novice writer of crime, the analysis of the crime, the offender, and the general venue of the plot.

Will the REAL POLICE please stand up?
For years I have shared Joe's grief at watching TV Shows and reading books based on the NYPD. It was apparent that the people involved couldn't find NYC on a map!
Joe puts you there...In the front seat of the "RMP," as you speed to the next "Job...", wondering if it will be a DOA or just another "unfounded" radio-run.
Thanks Joe for filling in the blanks..Hope you "civilians" appreciate his hard work!.

Resume patrol.....Mike D. (NYPD HWY 1)

Police work from the inside
Many books have been written attempting to explain law and police procedure for crime writers; few are written by real cops. This book, written by an 11-year veteran of the NYPD, looks at real police procedures in the Big Apple.

It gives the street addresses, coverage areas and major landmarks for all the precincts in the five boroughs. It describes the various units and other personnel within a precinct, like the Integrity Control Officer, the Anti-Crime Unit, the Borough Task Force, the Emergency Services Unit, the Squad Commander, the Hate Crimes Task Force, and the Organized Crime Control Bureau, among many others. There is now no reason for a writer to put a precinct in the wrong part of the city, or to have a crime investigated by the wrong part of the precinct.

The author then explores what really happens at the scene of a homicide. Rigor mortis is part of practically every murder novel, but is usually done incorrectly. It does not turn a body permanently rigid; after about a day and a half, the body returns to totally flaccid. A reliable way for the medical examiner to determine the time of death is to check the contents of the stomach during the autopsy.

The first patrol officer on the scene will often make or break the case. He or she will establish the crime scene without contaminating it, and detain witnesses and suspects. Everything starts with a clear and accurate description, whether it's of a lost child or a murder suspect.

Other chapters look at police lineups, what the Miranda Warning is all about, courtroom testimony (including how to survive cross-examination), the various types of serial killers, and sex crimes and child abuse cases. There is also a handy glossary of actual police lingo and a list of police acronyms.

This is a very complete book. For writers of crime novels, especially NYPD novels, this book belongs on your reference shelf. For everyone else, read this book and see for yourself just how well, or how badly, TV does the police business. Highly recommended.

Adds Authenticity to Your Writing
All authors are going to take some license when it comes to writing crime fiction, but the key to selling an unlikely scenario (I mean, how many serial killers are there in real life as opposed to in books?) is to make it as believable as possible. That depth of story and vision is a lot easier to achieve if you peruse through WCNYS. Giacalone breaks down the hows and whys of policework, providing lots of insight and useful details without getting bogged down in endless technicalities. The book covers everything from proper police ranks to how to get a suicide jumper off a roof. All the while, this info is told with a minimum of clutter, and more than the occasional laugh (the culmination of his suicide jumper example is worth the price of admission alone!). It's an enjoyable and very educational read.

Writing Crime New York Style
This book is an insightful, detailed and entertaining resource for all crime and mystery writers, as well as informative for crime show watchers.Learn what really happens from an NYPD perspective about crime and criminal investigations, and spot the "felonies" perpetrated by TV police dramas.A fully researched guide that includes police procedure, definitions and glossary of police lingo.I keep going back to it again and again!A five star book! ... Read more

Product Description
This is a practical book designed to be used by writers of all kinds to develop their own writing skills. It shows that advanced writing skills are best learned from studying the prose styles and techniques of already established writers and reveals the many small-scale changes that a writer can make to a text in order to achieve certain effects. Provides general principles for effective prose writing. Focus is highly practical and geared to different styles of everyday writing and examples are drawn from a range of different contexts, cultures and historical periods. For thosewishing to improve their writing style. ... Read more

Product Description
hardcover, good binding, clean pages ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Misses its audience
I tried to read this book with an open mind, and it's clearly a book only an English lit teacher could love.

Given the book's target audience - beginning writers - it falls far short of being helpful to them. What the book SHOULD do and doesn't is present the broad concepts and principles, and then if the author chooses to "instruct by example" as Payne does, then provide examples that support and illustrate those concepts and principles.

Instead each chapter jumps into a seemingly endless stream of analysis of fiction works, attempting to instruct by way of example with no real "how-to's." The overwhelming problems - besides a tendency toward pedantic wordiness - are that the snippets used are too short and the analyses too specific to be useful to the target audience of this book: beginning writers looking for the broader principles to apply to their own writing.

Each chapter is followed by exercises. However, the exercises are not presented with the goals for each ("WHY am I doing this") or any way of analyzing or learning from the results after doing them ("WHAT worked when I did this"). Beginning writers could finish this book feeling as I did - somewhat confused and very much like I wasted my time.

I would highly recommend "Finding Your Writer's Voice" by Thaisa Frank and Dorothy Wall instead.

Ironies
Within scant minutes of starting into Johnny Payne's treatment of Voice and Style, I have had to add the book to the pile of items being returned to the library.Why?In a 4-page discussion of Voice and Irony, Payne analyzes the technique he himself used in a novella entitled, The Ambassador's Son.The discussion might be germane were it not that Payne apparently did not do adequate research for the original work.For instance, he describes a Mr. Featherson as the "Peruvian ambassador."However, Mr. Featherson is not at all "Peruvian"-the last name alone would suggest otherwise-but an American in a foreign culture.Perhaps Payne intends Mr. Featherson to be the American ambassador to Peru?
Furthermore, it doesn't sound as though Payne has met many ambassadors.He describes how Mr. Featherson blatantly ignored health warnings about the dangers of eating shellfish and invited his son to try some at a local restaurant.That would be ludicrous: foreign service families take cholera warnings very seriously, and Peru is notorious for a high cholera rate.
Mr. Featherson displays other non-ambassadorial behavior as well, including sloppy deportment in a restaurant and excessive drinking: in reality, American emissaries and their families are extremely conscious of their public behavior because of its potential to reflect poorly on the US. After all, they serve their country, not as Payne seems to think, to impose American culture on a foreign environment (that was the old colonial agenda), but to facilitate exchange and communication.
In short, Payne undermines the very topic he is trying to illuminate: authority.To have authority one has to know what one is talking about, and if one doesn't know, one had better research!

Rating the Elements of Fiction Writing series
I've read all the books in the Elements of Fiction Writing series and this is how I'd rank them.

"Scene & Structure" "Characters & Viewpoint" "Beginnings, Middles & Ends"

The above three books are invaluable -- must reads.They are the best of the series, in my opinion, and are packed with good information on every page.Well-done.

"Conflict, Action & Suspense" "Description" "Plot" "Manuscript Submission" "Setting"

The above five books are good, solid reads.Again, they contain good information and cover the subject decently.

"Voice & Style" "Dialogue"

To me, the last two books need to be rewritten.They are by far the weakest of the series.Both suffer from an annoying style, particularly Dialogue, and both are very skimpy on real information.Neither one is very helpful.

This is the order in which I'd recommend reading them.

A wonderful book
Johnny Payne's book is a wonderful creative writing tool for both teaching and learning on your own, complete with indepth analysis--all presented in a very accessible style. (Although I could have done without the personalstories about the wife, etc.)Use this book and follow the exercises, andyour writing will improve.

Dr. Johnny Payne's Text succeeds where others have failed
Dr. Johnny Payne's text VOICE AND STYLE is an excellent tool for helping fiction writers develop their own individual creative voice.Payne accomplishes this by taking the larger term known as "Style" andbreaking it down intoidentifiable and practicable elements. Theseelements include but are not limited to Habits of Speech, Authority andVoice, Atmosphere and Tone, and Voice in Dialogue. His approach isanalytical and thought-provoking but never boring.Using this"nuts and bolts" approach, he walks the reader through eachsubject using personal anecdotes and examples of his own creative process. Payne also draws on the wisdom and varied styles of many modern andtime-proven authors from Barthelme and Cisneros through James, Hemingway,and Fitzgerald. Dr. Payne believes that the techniques of fictionwriting can be taught and he includes creative excercises at the end ofeach chapter that are designed to allow the practicing writer to applyspecific elements to her or his own personal writing style.In asense, Dr. Payne's text teaches writers by allowing them to discover andimprove on what they already know. In the end, the student feels led alongthe creative path rather than pushed down it.The result is a highlyeffective and entertaining text that most writing students will want tokeep and refer back to often. ... Read more

Product Description
How do you spell Rachmaninov?Where doyou place the hyphen in Hofmannsthal if it breaks across two lines? Is itpremiere or premire? The answers andmuch more can be found in a new,essential resource forauthors, students, editors, concert producersanyone who deals with music in print. An expanded version of the style sheetfor the well-known journal 19th-Century Music, this small volume covers some ofthe thorniest issues of musical discourse: how to go about describing musical works and procedures in prose, the rules for citations in notes and bibliography, and proper preparation ofsuch materials as musical examples, tables, and illustrations. One section discusses program notes, another explains the requirements of submitting manuscripts written on a word processor. An appendix lists common problem words. ... Read more

Product Description
Advice on good writing from everybody's favorite editorial curmudgeon

Persnickety, cantankerous, opinionated, entertaining, hilarious, wise...these are a few of the adjectives reviewers used to describe good-writing maven Bill Walsh's previous book, Lapsing Into a Comma. Now, picking up where he left off in Lapsing, Walsh addresses the dozen or so biggest issues that every writer or editor must master. He also offers a trunkload of good advice on the many little things that add up to good writing. Featuring all the elements that made Lapsing such a fun read, including Walsh's trademark acerbic wit and fascinating digressions on language and its discontents, The Elephants of Style provides:

• Tips on how to tame the "elephants of style"--the most important, frequently confused elements of good writing
• More of Walsh's popular "Curmudgeon's Stylebook"--includes entries such as Snarky Specificity, Metaphors, Near and Far, Actually is the New Like, and other uses and misuses of language
• Expert advice for writers and editors on how to work together for best results

Customer Reviews (10)

Get This Book
I like this book! I find it more useful that the classical Elements of Style by Strunk & White in that it lists a great many words that tend to be misused in modern times and explains more clearly the use of commas.

The advice in this book is outstanding for news reporting but cannot be used for preparing an article for publication in a scientific journal because, at least for this one reason, of the advice on acceptable usages of "data" as a singular noun (it's not. No exceptions) and I didn't notice any advice to string together a convoluted maximum entanglement of words in a rambling sentence of forbidding length for the purpose of saving space.

The author includes some pertinent differences in usages described other newspapers' style guides so that the reader can judge what's best for his or her intended forum.

Elephant-sized Wisdom Packed into This Little Book
Walsh's book dispels writing myths and lists common writing errors for today's authors and journalists. There is only one red flag I would have liked to see him raise: the use of the word "got" as in "I've got to stop by the store" or You've got some coffee spilled on your shirt." As far as I am concerned, "got" could be completely removed from the dictionary without being missed. Even "proper" uses of the word like "I got a shirt at the store" would sound better as "I bought a shirt at the store."
Still, I learned so much from Walsh's elephants, and plan to refer to his book often!

Strunk and White for the rest of us
For those of us who have trouble blindly accepting short declarative rules about grammar and style; here's a guy who doesn't just relate HIS positions on the subject, he explains WHY he holds those positions. Within this framework you will learn that many of the grammar-rules, which are often presented as hard facts by others, are actually quite squishy.

This author is not so arrogant as to think he can simply relate his opinions as a list of facts. Instead, he feels the need to justify his opinions. In explaining his justification for a given style-rule, he enlightens us, and gives us the understanding we need to draw our own conclusions. Those conclusions almost always agree with his, but with the added understanding comes the confidence to break rules we normally agree with, if that's what thesituation calls for...

..."Or" should I say: "if it is that for which the situation calls" :-)

for the serious writer
I thought this might be similar to Patricia O'Conner's wonder Woe Is I which I use with my college writing students. But it is not. It is really more like an easier-to-approach Chicago Manual of Style. In other words for those who get easily intimidated by the Chicago style manual, this is much more "user friendly." And, like Dr. O'Conner, the author does not fall into the traps of absolutely ridiculous rules that are perpetuated by so many writing teachers and so many textbooks. For example, he takes to task those who say one can never begin a sentence with "and" or "but." And all those other ridiculous rules that no good writer adheres to. It is a great book. Highly recommended.

The First Church of Walsh
Elephants of Style, the play on the title of Strunk and White's famous book aside, is an essential for any writer as well as any one who cares about where the English language is headed.

One really can't go wrong with a book from Bill Walsh.I wish I could say at least one thing negatively about this book, but I can't.

If you haven't purchased this book do so soon.There was so much I learned here and even now I'm not following one rule that Walsh suggests, but I am a creature of habit and old habits, as they say, die hard. There I did it. Now, purchase Bill Walsh's book and see what I'm talking about.

See also Walsh's Lapsing Into a Comma : A Curmudgeon's Guide to the Many Things That Can Go Wrong in Print--and How to Avoid Them.You will be glad you did. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (7)

Mean and useless book
I really liked the idea behind this book, and I looked forward to seeing just what could fill an "anti-textbook." What I discovered was that this particular anti-textbook was filled with repetition and hatefulness. The author spends a lot of time attacking others (in very personal ways); this added nothing to his thesis and came over as sheer priggishness. He keeps on beating dead horses throughout the book, heaping scorn on pretty much everyone that is not Richard Lanham. One particul...more I really liked the idea behind this book, and I looked forward to seeing just what could fill an "anti-textbook." What I discovered was that this particular anti-textbook was filled with repetition and hatefulness. The author spends a lot of time attacking others (in very personal ways); this added nothing to his thesis and came over as sheer priggishness. He keeps on beating dead horses throughout the book, heaping scorn on pretty much everyone that is not Richard Lanham. One particularly ugly scene was where he tore apart an undergrad's letter to his school paper. Lanham's personal vitriol was out of proportion to the student's crimes against prose, and was rather bizarre(I was questioning the author's sanity actually).

I found it torturous to read, but kept plodding along in the hope that he might actually say SOMETHING about "style." In the end I don't think he said a single thing worth remembering. I suggest this as a book to avoid.

Still Fresh and Lively
Dr. Richard Lanham lays the blame for generations of tin-eared student writing squarely at the feet of textbooks that ignore how professional writers really work.By turning writing into a Puritanical duty, he says, "The Books" sap the joy out of language and reduce students to passivity.My experience as a teacher says he's probably correct.But the question of how to implement Lanham's enticing vision remains unanswered.

"The Books," Lanham says, exhort clarity without bothering to demonstrate it, and indeed, demonstrate the opposite.The Books discourage jargon, which Lanham demonstrates clearly has its place in academic discourse.The Books encourage students to "be themselves" at an age when they haven't yet discovered their identities.In other words, The Books demand what no student will ever be able to deliver.

Lanham proposes that the alternative is to return language instruction to the sense of play that once dominated.Language games and writing puzzles would rekindle the joy of language that most of us had as children, and lost in the bewildering factory that is school.Though I simplify Lanham's claims somewhat, his basic thesis is that students will only produce readable writing when they enjoy the act of writing itself.

Though I'm inclined to agree, after several years in the college composition class, I'm stymied as to how to apply his prescription.I have several sections of comp, each with over twenty students per class.And that's at the college level; in public schools, six or eight classes per day, often with over forty students, has become commonplace.Teachers don't have time to orchestrate or evaluate these learning games in our already overstuffed days.

This book is full of ideas that, though thirty-five years old, remain fresh and lively.It will surely generate many impassioned discussions among writing teachers, and among the more committed writing students.And if we take those discussions seriously, perhaps we'll solve the issue of how to instill a love of readable language.If you take this book as the start down that journey, you'll already be off on a good strong path.

Style - An Anti-Textbook
Don't waste your money. Just some ramblings of a pompous professor who thinks he knows more than anyone else. Not much of value if you want insight on how to write. Try "Artful Sentences" by Virginia Tufte if you really want help.Artful Sentences: Syntax as Style

"Pleasure flows from concepts" (52).
Lanham, the true hedonist, even epicure, when it comes to prose (and probably other things), understands that the root of all art, all human expression, is based on pleasure, and he knows how pleasure is made through sequences of words.I love him for this.In writing--as in all art--we have to play with our raw materials, and, as Aristotle says, we play when we imitate, and then we learn things.Invoke the Sanskrit goddess of divine play, "Lila."Galumph, Galumph, Galumph!Lanham's got the groove, what else can be said?

Return to Rhetoric!
This book is brilliant. It's also quite funny. It's an argument for bringing back rhetoric, particularly the study of literary ornamentation, to transmute the leaden prose and confused thinking all around us nowadays. According to Lanham, preaching "scientific" notions of clarity won't cause students to write more clearly: it will only make matters worse. (Are you listening, Strunk & White?) We must turn the act of writing into an aesthetic game. Once we recover our sense of literary play, and not before then, our prose will improve.Some of the examples that Lanham uses are rather dated now--my goodness, how stale and silly all that hippie lingo sounds today!--but his advice is timeless.

Lanham occasionally overstates his case. This is often an effective pedagogical tactic. Although I think Lanham is mostly right about how to improve our prose, it's certainly possible to produce a gorgeous flow of words and still be a stranger to reason. (A little logic now and then is relished by the best of men.) I suppose there is a danger that some recalcitrant students will use Lanham's book as an excuse to avoid the hard work of thinking and writing clearly, just as some unimaginative grinds use Strunk & White's book to justify writing only the most ploddingly blunt and dessicated prose. Such are the hazards of pedagogy. ... Read more

Product Description
"Takes the straitjacket off punctuation....Lukeman's wit and insight make this an instant classic."—M. J. RoseThe first practical and accessible guide to the art of punctuation for creative writers. Punctuation reveals the writer: haphazard commas, for example, reveal haphazard thinking; clear, lucid breaks reveal clear, lucid thinking. Punctuation can be used to teach the writer how to think and how to write. This short, practical book shows authors the benefits that can be reaped from mastering punctuation: the art of style, sentence length, meaning, and economy of words. There are full-length chapters devoted to the period, the comma, the semicolon, the colon, quotation marks, the dash and parentheses, the paragraph and section break, and a cumulative chapter on integrating them all into "The Symphony of Punctuation." Filled with exercises and examples from literary masters (Why did Poe and Melville rely on the semicolon? Why did Hemingway embrace the period?), A Dash of Style is interactive, highly engaging, and a necessity for creative writers as well as for anyone looking to make punctuation their friend instead of their mysterious foe. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (24)

First copy in the Pacific Ocean :)
This is a replacement copy as the first copy along with a crate full of books by accident dropped in the pacific ocean by movers....
This is a classic book, great for the writer's elbow.I have the book however, my punctuation and spelling are for the French in me?
I still find it trouble some to apply correctly however, no fault of account for the book, The book knows however,I probably too old to re learn new tricks. (BG)
Is old allowed for an excuse?

Good book if used by a smart person....

Tranforming a Blogger into a Writer HoboTraveler.com
I have a quirky style, terse, jumps, moves and changes, one of my readers recognized this. He persisted in prodding me to buy this book, on one trip home from my endless journey, I decided I would. I guess I feel weak when buying writing books, just does not congeal with my macho image. I would say, this book is a Godsend, it is helping to guide me from being a hack Blog writer to a place whereby I can one day call myself, a writer.

Andy Graham of HoboTraveler.com Travel Journal presently in Dominican Republic 2010

A Dash of Style.
I loved the book, A Dash of Style: The Art and Mastery of Punctuation.
As a creative writer I've always been a bit confused as to where to place the comma. I had to bluntly admit to my editor, "I simply do not know how to place punctuation." We worked side by side as we completed the layout and design of my book. Sacred Shadow, Sacred Ground: A Vietnam War Widow's Journey Through Unresolved Grief
I always concentrated more on content of the written word. A Dash of Style, is a book that I find easy to read and understand.
I have a lot of work to do in order to apply the information, but I am eager to experiment with the art of punctuation. I think this book is an important read, especially for the creative writer.

Great!
Can't say enough about it. An enormous help. Too bad my school teachers couldn'thave done the same.

Artfully written
A Dash of Style is a well-written and necessary book full of gems for every writer or would-be writer.Reading the book was a pleasure in itself.It has increased my ability to write well and practicing the writing assignments has improved my writing considerably!Although these are rules and writing skills one learned or should have learned in school, this book provides an enjoyable review of writing helps that are turning my previously written pieces into masterpieces. Thank you, Mr. Lukeman! ... Read more

Product Description
The Elements of Style by William Strunk jr.

&

How To Speak And Write Correctly by Joseph Devlin - Special Edition

The Elements of Style by William Strunk jr.

Asserting that one must first know the rules to break them, this classic reference book is amust-have for any student and conscientious writer. Intended for use in which the practice ofcomposition is combined with the study of literature, it gives in brief space the principalrequirements of plain English style and concentrates attention on the rules of usage andprinciples of composition most commonly violated.

&

How To Speak And Write Correctly by Joseph Devlin

In the preparation of this work the writer has kept one end in view, viz.: To make it serviceable for those for whom it is intended, that is, for those who have neither the time nor the opportunity,the learning nor the inclination, to peruse elaborate and abstruse treatises on Rhetoric, Grammar, and Composition.

This book is a must-have for any student and conscientious writer. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Great Resource
I think this is a great book for anyone that needs help with grammar, I have it bookmarked in several places. It's an essential for all aspiring authors.

Concise reference tool
This book is a concise reference book stating plainly what is acceptable and what is not acceptable.Small enough to be read throughly, and yet broad enougn in its coverage to allow the reader to feel prepared for upcoming writing events.

Better Quality & Faster Service Needed

"The Elements Of Style and How To Speak And Write Correctly" arrived late along with numerous deficiencies. This inferior product omitted the glossary, index, edited out important examples and in general diluted the quality of this classic. How is any student and/or conscientious writer supposed to find information without an index in either of the books? Wrote a letter to the supplier regarding the above deficiencies--No reply after almost 2 months.

A Classic...but....
Of course, The Elements of Style is a classic and it's helpful to combine these two books into one volume but it would be better if a book on writing didn't have so many typos. This edition needs some serious editing. ... Read more

Product Description

Product Description
A guide to the diverse world of food writing, from the practicalities of recipe testing to the possibilities of having a cookbook published. The book explores food writing in various forms, offering how-to advice on style and content and looking at the appropriate market. It starts with recipe-writing, including a look at the perils of plagarism. It then moves on to cover food writing, a wide area including restaurant reviews, travel pieces and investigative writing about food issues. How to undertake research is explored in depth and a list of useful reference sources given. There is also a detailed look at the cookery books market, with advice on how to approach publishers and agents. ... Read more

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.

A textbook edition with exercises, Style is available from Longman.Amazon.com Review
"Telling me to 'Be clear,' " writes Joseph M. Williams inStyle: Toward Clarity and Grace, "is like telling me to 'Hitthe 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 afterreading Williams' book, which is a rigorous examination of--and lessonin--the elements of fine writing. With any luck, your clear writingwill turn graceful, as well. Though most of us, says Williams, wouldbe happy just to write "clear, coherent, and appropriately emphaticprose," he is not content to teach us just that. He also attempts, byway of example, to determine what constitutes elegant writing.

Despite the proliferation of books in this genre, rarely does one feelso confident in one's instructor. Williams is meticulous and exacting,yet never pedantic. Though he agrees with most of his grammariancolleagues that, generally speaking, the active voice is better thanthe 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 theabsurdity of prescriptions concerning usage (such as, "Never begin asentence with a coordinating conjunction"). Such rules, he says, "are'violated' so consistently that, unless we are ready to indict for badgrammar just about every serious writer of modern English, we have toreject as misinformed anyone who would attempt to enforce them." --Jane Steinberg ... Read more

Customer Reviews (30)

Useful Guide to Writing
This is the most useful guide to writing English I have ever read.It has advice like: put old information first, then follow it up with new information.When you're in the mire of trying to rewrite a paragraph packed with information, it is simple advice like this that helps break down the craft.

Essentially, this book is an instruction on how to *read*.By breaking down the psychology of the reader (how information is processed; what questions are asked) he clarifies the various tasks of the writer.

The other reviews of this book pretty much cover my own views, but I will add that the title itself is brilliant.The only significant criticism I have of the book is that for his writing examples, he mainly uses business letters in which the content is very dry.But perhaps his point was to illustrate techniques of style on dry writing, to show that the techniques work regardless of the content.

I have bought at least five copies of this book for other people or when I've lost my own copy.

Instead of buying this
I think a faster way to get the most important lessons from this book is to go straight to the source--that is, (download or buy) then read George Orwell's essay "Politics and the English Language."

By accident or on purpose, Williams has done in 200 plus what Orwell did in 20 or less.

If you don't like Orwell's English bias (especially towards interminable Dickensonian sentences), a bias shared by Prof. WIlliams, then after reading Orwell, take the pleasant stroll of reading anything and all of Twain, Melville, and Hemingway. But, out of all things to read about writing well, I cannot recommend this book.

Just what I was looking for to improve my writing
I want my writing to be clear, cohesive, coherent, concise and elegant. This book is showing me how.

Helpful
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
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. ... Read more

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-- Stanley Persky, City University of New York

Customer Reviews (4)

An essential text for any serious composer.
This text not only provides an in depth tutorial of species counterpoint, it also provides a wealth of examples spanning many styles and periods.Too many counterpoint books neglect the application of contrapuntal technique in real compositional context but that is not the case here.

Good book if you are patient with the writing
I must differ with the reviewer who said (in 2000) that this book is "fairly new." It first came out in the late 1960s or early 1970s, because I used to use it as a textbook in my theory courses at a midwestern liberal arts college. My experience was that the typical undergraduate music major found it rather rough going, but maybe I wasn't the best teacher back then, either! I myself learned a lot from the book. As far as I know, it's the only book on counterpoint that successfully illustrates how composed music (e.g., by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, etc.) is built on the same principles as species counterpoint. This should be an answer to the student who has trouble seeing the value of those seemingly endless (and amazingly difficult!) species counterpoint exercises. While the traditional answer has been "it teaches you discipline," S & S are able to show (convincingly, in my opinion) that beneath the surface of a brilliant piano sonata of Beethoven can be found the basic principles of voice leading that only species counterpoint can teach.

I agree with the reviewer who pointed out that the authors are not always consistent with earlier books with respect to the rules of species counterpoint. However, it must be said that in most cases they point this out and supply a reason for their departure from tradition. For example, I think that part of the reason they don't allow voice crossing in the species exercises is that part crossing is a "pure" contrapuntal technique that would severely weaken the polarity or independence between the two voices, and make cloudy the connection they seek to establish between the species approach and the techniques of prolonged counterpoint (aka "real" music) they discuss later in the book. I have no problem with that. Neither do I have a problem with Jeppesen allowing voice crossing in species counterpoint, because he's approaching the technique with a different goal in mind, namely that of imitating the style of Palestrina. The two books have different aims, and the prospective user should be aware of that.

The point about the authors' prose style that one reviewer made is very well taken. To me it is overly pompous and inflated, and many of their points could be made in far fewer words. It's a little suggestive of the image that the authors occupy a lofty perch from which they toss down a few crumbs of learning from time to time to students, but even as they do so, they don't think the students are really worthy of receiving this wisdom. Maybe that's a bit harsh, but I really can't see my current students warming up very much to this kind of writing. There is definitely no feeling that "you too can succeed in writing excellent counterpoint" here. Times do change, after all.

If you are reading this review you are perhaps either a teacher looking for a good text, or a musician who wants a stronger theory background. By all means get this book and learn from it. But don't let the authors' prose style make you feel inferior, like a lowly worm who, no matter how hard he or she tries, can never achieve results worthy of the masters. Better just to accept them for the pretentious pedants they are, and forgive them for it.

Kind of lofty in tone, but a pretty good book
I'm sure lots of people have been in this situation: you blitz through species counterpoint in your freshman year as a music major, only to realize its importance much later (i.e. after your extensive tour of the rest of music theory). Books like Salzer/Schachter's are a good way to go back and do it properly. This book is excellent and thorough, covering counterpoint not only as a theoretical grounding for later harmonic theory, but also examining its use in large-scale composition. The only problem with the book is the Salzer/Schachter's prose- it's like they're bringing down the counterpoint rules on tablets from the sacred mountain. Some procedures are flatly forbidden that more relaxed authors -- like Jeppesen -- excuse (in instances where fudging the rules produces a beautiful voice leading). In some cases, they contradict other authors- Jeppesen cannot encourage voice-crossing enough, Salzer/Schachter list it as a mortal sin. Worse, Salzer/Schachter write their exercises for 'The Student', an individual of impossible concentration and diligence who can compose whole exercises in his/her head and would be ashamed to even touch a piano. In other words, their tone is not exactly encouraging- compared to 'The Student', your early efforts are bound to feel pretty clumsy (at least mine were). Still, this is a nice book with lots of good exercises and examples drawn from real music literature. Between Salzer/Schachter, Fux, and Jeppesen, it's more than possible to make a thorough review of counterpoint working by yourself.

The best (and most serious) counterpoint text to date
The Salzer counterpoint book is a must for any serious musician.Thisbook adresses counterpoint not as a theoretical abstraction but as aconcrete musical experience.All too often counterpoint is reduced tomeaningless exercises not connected with real world music.This book combines Fux's species counterpoint whith Schenkerian thought (with out overdoing it) to create the one of the most solid counterpoint book to date. ... Read more

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Style Guide

The first requirement of The Economist is that it should be readily understandable. Clear writing is the key to clear thinking. So think what you want to say, then say it as simply as possible.

Readers are primarily interested in what you are saying. The way you say it may encourage them either to read on or to give up. If you want them to read on, then:

• Catch their attention  Do not spend sentences setting the scene or sketching in the background. Hold the reader by the way you unfold the tale and by fresh and unpretentious use of language.
• Read through your writing several times Edit it ruthlessly. Cut out anything superfluous. Unadorned, unfancy prose is usually all you need.
• Do not be stuffy Use the language of everyday speech, not that of spokesmen, lawyers or bureaucrats.
• Do not be hectoring or arrogant Nobody needs to be described as silly: let your analysis prove that he is.
• Do not be pleased with yourself Don’t boast of your own cleverness by telling readers that you correctly predicted something or that you have a scoop. You are more likely to bore or irritate than to impress them.
• Do not be too chatty Surprise, surprise is more irritating than informative.
• Do not be too didactic Avoid sentences that begin  Compare, Consider, Expect, Imagine , Remember or Take.
• Do your best to be lucid Simple sentences help.

Amazon.com Review
Rare is the style guide that a person--even a wordperson--would want to read cover to cover. But The Economist StyleGuide, designed, as the book says, to promote good writing, is sowitty and rigorous as to be irresistible. The book consists of threeparts. The first is the Economist's style book, which acts as aposition paper of sorts in favor of clear, concise, correct usage. Thebig no-noes listed in the book's introduction are: "Do not bestuffy.... Do not be hectoring or arrogant.... Do not be too pleasedwith yourself.... Do not be too chatty....Do not be toodidactic.... [And] do not be sloppy." Before even getting to theletter B, we are reminded that aggravate "means makeworse, not irritate or annoy"; that an alibi"is the proven fact of being elsewhere, not a false explanation"; andthat anarchy "means the complete absence of law orgovernment. It may be harmonious or chaotic."

Part 2 of the book describes many of the spelling, grammar, and usagedifferences between British and American English. While manyBriticisms are familiar to most Americans and vice versa, there aresome words--such as homely, bomb, and table--thattake on quite different meanings altogether when they cross theAtlantic. And part 3 offers a handy reference to such information ascommon business abbreviations, accountancy ratios, the Beaufort Scale,commodity-trade classifications, currencies, laws, measures, andstock-market indices. The U.S. reader should be aware (but not scaredoff by the fact) that some of the style issues addressed arespecifically British. --Jane Steinberg ... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

Look this up in your Funk & Wagnalls
Eriudite, concise and finely-pointed.The Economist is economical with words-and rich in meaning.If you following their style guide you can improve your writing. Their relentless focus is on maintaing clarity-yet they provide for the extra dimensions of nuance and allusion.Because is why you do something.Since refers to the time passed between the deed and now.The difference between expecting and anticipating is action: if Jack and Jill anticipate their marriage, only Jill may be expecting.This guide puts forth the rules and conventions that create the style that makes the Economist so readable, and it can make your dispatches better read as well.

So British
For anyone wanting to be informed, amused and refreshed about the right way to use English, the ninth edition of The Economist Style Guide is invaluable. I'd always thought that "immolate" meant burn but it means "sacrifice" so a photograph of a monk on fire would correctly be termed self immolation but the term would equally apply if the photograph was of a monk who had died from a self inflicted gunshot wound. This and dozens of other little gems throughout the book make it eminently readable and a useful guide for anyone who communicates in print ot text. In particular, the distinctions and subtleties between American and British usage is a reminder of the flexibility of this wonderful language.

Excellent for non-native speakers
Writing and speaking are the most difficult skills to learn if you're a non-native speaker. Even though most learners believe that speaking is more useful - and there is some vanity involved in it - it's actually writing that takes precedence in today's connected world. Most business communications today are done through email, and no one wants the recipient to have a laugh at their expense.

Grammar, punctuation and vocabulary are important, for sure, but once you have mastered those, why not spend a few more hours dedicated to polishing a bit your written English? With just 160 pages, you get tips that will make your writing look formal, but not stilted; correct, but not pretentious. You may even have a laugh or two with the entries.

A world class standard
This is a good tool and further reference for anyone who is a multinational executive, it provides insights into local knowledge and local references. The book not intensive in grammar is relevant to the modern day communication in any international field.

The Economist Style Guide: 9th Edition
I thought there were a few inconsistencies in the manual, but I still highly recommend this concise reference book to anyone who does any writing, editing, or translating into English. ... Read more

Product Description

You know the authors’ names. You recognize the title. You've probably used this book yourself. And now The Elements of Style–the most widely read and employed English style manual–is available in a specially bound 50th Anniversary Edition that offers the title's vast audience an opportunity to own a more durable and elegantly bound edition of this time-tested classic.

Offering the same content as the Fourth Edition, revised in 1999, the new casebound 50th Anniversary Edition includes a brief overview of the book's illustrious history. Used extensively by individual writers as well as high school and college students of writing, it has conveyed the principles of English style to millions of readers. This new deluxe edition makes the perfect gift for writers of any age and ability level.

Fifty Years of Acclaim for The Elements of Style, by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White

“I first read Elements of Style during the summer before I went off to Exeter, and I still direct my students at Harvard to their definition about the difference between 'that' and 'which.'  It is the Bible for good, clear writing.”

                        -- Henry Louis Gates Jr.

“For writers of all kinds and sizes the world begins and ends with Strunk and White’s Elements of Style. Only something to actually write about trumps the list of what is required to put words together in some kind of coherent way. I treasure its presence in my life and salute its fifty years of glory and accomplishment.”

                        -- Jim Lehrer

“The Elements of Style remains an unwavering beacon of light in these grammatically troubled times.  I would be lost without it.”

                        -- Ann Patchett

"To the extent I know how to write clearly at all, I probably taught myself while I was teaching others -- seventh graders, in Flint, Michigan, in 1967.  I taught them with a copy of Strunk & White lying in full view on my desk, sort of in the way the Gideons leave Bibles in cheap hotel rooms, as a way of saying to the hapless inhabitant: ‘In case your reckless ways should strand you here, there's help.’  S&W doesn't really teach you how to write, it just tantalizingly reminds you that there's an orderly way to go about it, that clarity's ever your ideal, but -- really -- it's all going to be up to you."

                        -- Richard Ford

“The Elements of Style never seems to go out of date. Its counsel is sound and funny, wise and unpretentious. And while its precepts are a foundation of direct communication, Strunk and White do not insist on a way of writing beyond clear expression. The rest is up to the imagination, the intelligence within.”

                        -- David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker

 “It’s the toughness–the irreverence and implicit laughter–that attracted me to the little book when I was seventeen. I fell in love with Strunk & White’s loathing for cant and bloviation, the ruthless cutting of crap, jargon, and extra words. For me, that skeptical directness included a tacit permission by The Elements of Style to break its rules on occasion: an alloy of generosity in the blade, a grace I still admire and still learn from.”

                        -- Robert Pinsky

“In the quest for clarity, one can have no better guides than Strunk and White. For me, their book has been invaluable and remains essential.”

                        -- Dan Rather

"Eschew surplusage! A perfect book."

                        --Jonathan Lethem

"Not until I started teaching writing and I reread The Elements of Style did I realize that

most everything I would be teaching young writers, and everything I would be learning myself as a writer, was contained between the covers of this slim, elegant, wise little book."

                        -- Julia Alvarez

 “Strunk and White seared their way into my brain long ago, and I benefit from them daily.”

                        -- Steven J. Dubner, co-author of Freakonomics

“Since high school, I have kept a copy of this book handy. That should be unnecessary. I should, by now, have fully internalized The Elements of Style. But sometimes I get entangled in a paragraph that refuses to be ‘clear, brief, bold.’ I dip back into The Elements of Style and am refreshed.

     After Scott Simon interviewed me on NPR about whether the word ‘e-mail’ needs a hyphen (yes, it does), some listeners, including friends of mine, wondered why I had answered in the affirmative when asked, in passing, ‘Are you a drunken white man?’ Those listeners misheard. ‘Strunk and White man’ was what Scott said.”

                        -- Roy Blount Jr.

“Strunk & White--writing's good-natured law firm--still contains enough sparkling good sense to clean up the whole bloviating blogosphere."

                  -- Thomas Mallon

 “I used Strunk -- that’s what we called it, Strunk -- as a student at Berkeley fifty years ago.  I didn't know that it was new, and that we were the first generation to be educated in The Elements of Style.  I got a firm foundation in the English language, learned to write basically, and could depict the realistic world.  Then I was able to become an impressionist and expressionist.” 

                  -- Maxine Hong Kingston

 “Strunk and White's gigantic little book must be the most readable advice on writing ever written.  Side by side with Roget, Shakespeare, the Bible, and a dictionary, it's an essential for every writer's shelf.”

                        -- X.J. Kennedy... ... Read more

Customer Reviews (33)

Great Book
This book should be a staple in anyone's personal or business library. The book offers everyone today a bible in the proper way to write in any situation you are presented on a daily basis.

Re: Book review
This anniversary edition of a key style and grammer manual arrived in excellent condition and in a timely manner without any shipment or condition problems.As to the book, I highly recommend its useful and insightful breakdowns on the English language and its easy to read explanations of the various, and otherwise sometimes complex, English language.

Excellent Writing Book
This item was recieved MUCH quicker than was told or than I anticipated. The book arrived in absolute perfect condition and has been extremely helpful to me in my university class. I actually would have enjoyed the read even had it not been a college requirement, as it is definitely written very well. If your looking here you must have an interest, so do yourself a favor and pick one up. You won't regret it at all.

Elements of Style
A wonderful read of what's right and what's wrong in constructing English sentences.
A good book to have.

Brilliant
When I read this book in high school English, I had no idea how much it would influence my life.

Now 37 years later, I'm rereading it and seeing what it did for me. It changed my approach, one practical step at a time, and made it possible for me to earn a living as a writer. ... Read more