William Strunk, Jr.

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  The Elements of Style William Strunk, Jr.

  The Elements of Style William Strunk, Jr. # Express co-ordinate ideas in similar form. This principle, that of parallel construction, requires that expressions of similar content and function should be outwardly similar. The likeness of form enables the reader to recognize more readily the likeness of content and function. Familiar instances from the Bible are the Ten Commandments, the Beatitudes, and the petitions of the Lord's Prayer. Wordsworth, in the fifth book of The Excursion, gives a minute description of this church. In the fifth book of The Excursion, Wordsworth gives a minute description of this church. Cast iron, when treated in a Bessemer converter, is changed into steel. By treatment in a Bessemer converter, cast iron is changed into steel. The objection is that the interposed phrase or clause needlessly interrupts the natural order of the main clause. This objection, however, does not usually hold when the order is interrupted only by a relative clause or by an expression in apposition. Nor does it hold in periodic sentences in which the interruption is a deliberately used means of creating suspense (see examples under Rule 18). The relative pronoun should come, as a rule, immediately after its antecedent. There was a look in his eye that boded mischief. In his eye was a look that boded mischief. He wrote three articles about his adventures in Spain, which were published in Harper's Magazine. He published in Harper's Magazine three articles about his ...

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  William Strunk, Jr. (18691946). The Elements of Style. 1918.

  III. ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES OF COMPOSITION 9. Make the paragraph the unit of composition: one paragraph to each topic. If the subject on which you are writing is of slight extent, or if you intend to treat it very briefly, there may be no need of subdividing it into topics. Thus a brief description, a brief summary of a literary work, a brief account of a single incident, a narrative merely outlining an action, the setting forth of a single idea, any one of these is best written in a single paragraph. After the paragraph has been written, it should be examined to see whether subdivision will not improve it. Ordinarily, however, a subject requires subdivision into topics, each of which should be made the subject of a paragraph. The object of treating each topic in a paragraph by itself is, of course, to aid the reader. The beginning of each paragraph is a signal to him that a new step in the development of the subject has been reached. The extent of subdivision will vary with the length of the composition. For example, a short notice of a book or poem might consist of a single paragraph. One slightly longer might consist of two paragraphs: 1. Account of the work. 2. Critical discussion. 1. Facts of composition and publication. 2. Kind of poem; metrical form. 3. Subject. 4. Treatment of subject. 5. For what chiefly remarkable. 6. Wherein characteristic of the writer. 7. Relationship to other works. The contents of paragraphs C and D would vary with the poem. Usually ...

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