Thinking books · Communication & persuasion · Strunk & White, 1918
The Elements of Style — the big ideas
The short, opinionated classic on writing plainly.
Free — no account needed to read
The big ideas
"Omit needless words" is the whole book in three words, and applying it seriously to your own writing is harder than agreeing with it.
Prefer the concrete and the specific to the abstract and general — the same discipline that makes an argument checkable.
Its rules are prescriptive and some are disputed by linguists. Treated as defaults rather than laws, they work.
Practise it — no need to have read it
Take your last written recommendation. Remove every qualifier that is not doing real work — quite, rather, somewhat, potentially.
A hint: Notice how many were protecting you rather than informing the reader.
Where it shows up in real life
- Any written communication
- Tightening a proposal
- Noticing hedging
This book is old enough to be freely available in most countries.
Described in our own words with the source named — never quoted, and not a substitute for reading the book.
The thinking it builds
- Argumentation — Build and evaluate arguments