Style

Style

After reading Strunk and White’s, The Elements of Style, Williams’, Style: Toward Clarity and Grace, and my peers’ reviews of these two books, I have come up with an all encompassing answer to the question: what is style, and what elements are most important to all writers?

The answer is: there is no clear cut definition of style. It is ever changing; and is based on society’s views of what makes good writing, not necessarily the writer’s own thoughts on the matter. Therefore, the writer is better off following the set rules of grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure, determined by society; then adding her own voice.

The actual elements that make up style are a little less vague, but again, it is up to the individual writer to decide which elements to include in her writing—and which to leave out. Strunk and White have listed “Seven rules of usage, eleven principles of composition, a few matters of form, and a list of words and expressions commonly misused.” (Strunk and White) Strunk and White present their list of rules to would-be writers in hopes that they may one day attain what society deems to be style.

Strunk and White’s rule number six: “Do not break sentences in two—in other words, do not use periods for commas,” (Strunk and White) was interesting because I break it often. Before reading Strunk and White, I was under the impression that when you want a sentence to be emphatic, you can clip it, and force the reader to take notice simply by creating a sentence structure that looks unusual to them. This forces the reader to stop and take another look. Strunk and White warn us that this is not proper, and should be attempted by no means, “Less a clipped sentence seem merely a blunder in syntax or punctuation.”

Strunk and White also claim, “As a rule, single sentences should not be written or printed as paragraphs.” Unfortunately, writing single sentence paragraphs once defined my writing. In grade school, I was told the only way to write well was to write exactly as you speak. I just happen to be the type of person that speaks fast, changes subjects often, emphasizes certain groups of words I want my listeners to grab on to, and then (and this is what often saves me from becoming a complete muddle), summarizes what I was saying.