The Elements of Style

Publisher Marketing: 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 or more, and one for the use of the semicolon, in the belief that these four rules provide for all the internal punctuation that is required by nineteen sentences out of twenty. Similarly, it gives in Chapter III only those principles of the paragraph and the sentence which are of the widest application. The book thus covers only a small portion of the field of English style. The experience of its writer has been that once past the essentials, students profit most by individual instruction based on the problems of their own work, and that each instructor has his own body of theory, which he may prefer to that offered by any textbook. The numbers of the sections may be used as references in correcting manuscript. The writer's colleagues in the Department of English in Cornell University have greatly helped him in the preparation of his manuscript. Mr. George McLane Wood has kindly consented to the inclusion under Rule 10 of some material from his Suggestions to Authors. Review Citations: Audio File Best Nonf & Culture 12/01/2008 pg. 29 (EAN 9781428154681, Compact Disc) Ingram Advance 10/01/2005 pg. 150 (EAN 9781594200694, Hardcover) - *Starred Review Library Journal 09/15/2005 pg. 90 (EAN 9781594200694, Hardcover) Vanity Fair 11/01/2005 pg. 150 (EAN 9781594200694, Hardcover) Library Journal 10/15/2005 pg. 86 (EAN 9781594200694, Hardcover) Horn Book Magazine 01/01/2006 pg. 106 (EAN 9781594200694, Hardcover) American Reference Bks Annual 01/01/2006 pg. 420 (EAN 9781594200694, Hardcover)