The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition School & Library Binding – August 1, 1999

The book was full of useful information.It was short and informative.I finished the book in one day but will keep thinking about its contents for months.

I've loved this book since I first ran across it more than 30 years ago. Simple, straight to the point, and easy to understand. Admittedly, some of the rules in here are dated and others have been "relaxed" (or reversed), but writing purists (like myself) still hold this book dear and sacred. One of the best features of this book is that in its brevity it provides a solid foundation for concise writing. Anyone from junior high through college and beyond can learn from this book.Getting this as an eBook just makes it so much easier to carry, means you'll never lose it, and adds the ability to search it. Love it, love it, love it!

I purchased this Kindle edition 30 March 2020. It is the Fourth Edition, by both Strunk & White, exactly as the cover says. This is a classic. The classic. I almost never give a five-star review. There is no more influential style manual for writing American English, unless it is the U.S. Government Printing Office's style manual, or perhaps The Chicago Manual of Style. I have all three and use all three. Where they conflict, I usually follow Strunk & White. I purchased this Fourth Edition because I finally noticed how out of date my Second Edition was getting. In addition, I am getting The Elements of Style 2018. No, not because of some OCD compulsion, but because I would like multiple points of view on some issue every so often, or find only one manual covers a particular matter.There, is of course, also "the" dictionary, which comes in very usefully on a lot of issues. I prefer both the Oxford Dictionary of American English and the Random House Dictionary of American English. The Oxford Dictionary is what the Kindle Reader uses )unless you the user, have changed that).There you have it, a small pile of references that can get you through almost anything. There is another iconic reference, intended for academic writing, that is more authoritative on matters like citing scholarly sources, but I do not remember its title now and am not able to get up to go look at it. I also recommend The Secretary's Handbook, which is very handy for correspondence and such. It overlaps with the GPO's style manual and it is up to you to decide which is more appropriate in any places where they conflict.Always strive to be clear. Easy to say, but we sometimes need a lot of help to accomplish that. Sometimes I still fall short.

Focuses only on the most common writing errors, but it’s great for learning details of style or as a refresher course.

I have used Strunk and White as a reference guide for many years, throughout my professional life. Although I had used it as an undergraduate, I made use of it again as an Army officer, and as a graduate student. I gave copies to my daughter and grandchildren to help them with their writing assignments and expect that this reference will be presented to my great-grandchildren. No one who is related to me need ever turn in poor quality writing.

We all know this is the go-to book for writing. I'll skip that then and get right down to the issue at hand. I have seen others stating that this is either the original edition such as that at Project Gutenberg, but either they have updated it here or it never was. This is definitely the 4th edition and I have proof.Around location 765 you'll find an example of 'keeping related words together'. It reads as follows:New York’s first commercial human-sperm bank opened Friday with semen samples from eighteen men frozen in a stainless steel tank. »»»»» New York’s first commercial human- sperm bank opened Friday when semen samples were taken from eighteen men. The samples were then frozen and stored in a stainless steel tank.Strunk JR., William. The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition . Pandora's Box. Kindle Edition.The edition at Gutenberg was published in either 1918 or 1919. I am fairly certain that any sperm bank was not even thought of at that time.Don't be fooled and you can always check for yourself. You can always return Kindle e-books if you find that it is not what you thought it was, within 7 days (at the time of this writing), for a full refund.I just wanted to clarify this information for prospective buyers.

I bought this book after reading Stephen King’s “On Writing”, and I am thankful for the recommendation. For a new writer or really anyone who write regularly it is an indispensable reference for questions that come up such as whether or not to use a comma, when to use a semi-colon, whether to use simple or flowery language, etc.Pick it up.

This is a very concise “book” of 31 pages highlighting the use of writing English well. The examples of usage are terse and not explained fully. The reader is referred to bounce back between the rules given earlier somewhere above.I have read the books: “On Writing Well” and “Writing Tools”on this subject, and find the book “Writing Tools”, (a book of about 300 pages) to be more comprehensive, more detailed, giving better examples to improve writing skills.

An indispensable instruction manual for beginning writers. It seeks excellence in language, guiding the user in the elaboration of qualitative text. Written yesterday, but it seems like today.

I returned the Kindle version of this book as is badly formatted. The examples are supposed to be listed in columns with the wrong examples on the left and the correct ones on the right, but in this version they're listed underneath each other which makes it very hard to tell which is which. There are also multiple instances of sentences being cut off and breaks in weird places.You can get the original version of this book for free on Project Gutenberg, with correct formatting.

Un piccolo libro, semplice, essenziale e chiaro, per imparare a scrivere partendo dalle virgole. Fondamentale per non commettere errori banali. Consigliato.

This book is a real gem for any beginning writer, the e-book version is deeply flawed, however, because it does not represent the tabular layout this book originally contained: bad example in the left column, good example in the right one. It also lumps in the start with the next paragraph with the end of the previous one. As a result, what in print is a very concise and well-structured guide becomes a muddled mess on your e-reader.

I love the clarity and direct language used to explain the different parts of English composition. Well illustrated with examples.