THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE (UPDATED 2011 EDITION) The All-Time Bestselling Book on Writing English Newly Edited (Special 2011 Edition) BY WILLIAM STRUNK, JUNIOR ... Style OVER 10 MILLION COPIES SOLD! [Revised] by Strunk William & Strunk Junior William & William Strunk The Elements of Style by & Press The Elements of Style & Hong Chris

Author:Strunk, William & Strunk Junior, William & William Strunk, The Elements of Style by & Press, The Elements of Style & Hong, Chris [Strunk, William]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: The Elements of Style Press
Published: 2011-06-26T16:00:00+00:00

Apart from its triteness and emptiness, the paragraph above is bad because of the structure of its sentences, with their mechanical symmetry and sing-song. Contrast with them the sentences in the paragraphs quoted under Rule 10, or in any piece of good English prose, as the preface (Before the Curtain) to Vanity Fair.

If the writer finds that he has written a series of sentences of the type described, he should recast enough of them to remove the monotony, replacing them by simple sentences, by sentences of two clauses joined by a semicolon, by periodic sentences of two clauses, by sentences, loose or periodic, of three clauses—whichever best represent the real relations of the thought.