The Elements of Style
By William Strunk Jr. & E. B. White
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Editorial review
Less than 110 pages long. Probably the best return-on-time of any book in the English-speaking writing canon. Strunk's rules are the kind of small, specific instructions that, taken seriously, change the way you write the next sentence — and the next thousand after that.
AI-distilled summary
The classic short style guide for English prose: a brief, opinionated set of rules of usage and principles of composition, with E. B. White's now-canonical chapter on style appended.
Key takeaways
- 1
Omit needless words. Then do it again.
- 2
Specificity is not a flourish; it is the structure of trust between writer and reader.
- 3
A great paragraph has one job; that is what makes it great.
- 4
Style is the residue of choices, not the goal of them.
- 5
Most bad prose is bad thinking pretending to be otherwise.