Sunday, October 5, 2008

Comparing Strunk/White and Williams

Style: Toward Clarity and Grace by Joseph M. Williams is similar to Strunk and White's The Elements of Style in its purpose. Both texts strive toward making their readers into better writers. Examples of proper and improper usage lined the pages along with rules and suggestions about why certain writing is labeled good or bad. My blog about the Strunk and White book was mostly a positive review, but not unlike reading the text, my feelings about it varied near the end. I wrote that Strunk and White's book was enjoyable and a bit humorous, easing along the reading of usage rules. The more I read, however, the more I grew tired of the tedious rules and advice/orders. Williams' book puts forward extensive information and uses many examples to illustrate usage, but in a less aggressive manner. Williams more or less explains what seems to be the best option for conveying a particular piece of writing, and suggests what to do with it. Compared with Strunk and White, Williams' text was less obtrusive in its explanation. For this reason, I thought that Williams' advice was more useful. His method of asserting a point was unlike the scolding that I recieved from Strunk and White. Reading Williams was like reading suggestions rather than rules. I also liked that many of his examples of both good and bad writing were entire paragraphs, or at least a few sentences long. Stylistic suggestion is better exemplified in longer text because you get a better feel for the words and what they are trying to accomplish. I felt like Williams was sitting next to me in a library reading what I had written, making some notes, and offering them as help. Strunk and White felt like the drawing that someone made in class; an old man holding a ruler and standing in front of a blackboard (not dry/erase) and telling me what I did wrong. This method was somewhat effective though because Strunk and White's style was intense and therefore stuck in my head. It is sort of like when a dog soils the carpet and you rub his face in it to tell him that what he did was wrong. The particular version that I had was illustrated, which made it much easier to read. The illustrations were soothing, like the off-white colored paint in a dentist's office. Had I purchased the text without illustration, the reading may have gone much differently.

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