Comparing Strunk and White and Williams
In my earlier post, Strunk and White, first impressions, I mentioned how I didn’t understand how to use colons correctly and that Strunk and White’s rule didn’t help in this matter. If I was an advanced writer, I think Strunk and White’s commanding rules, like this one, would have been adequate; but, as a novice writer who is looking for guidance, vaguely stating that something is, without explanation, is useless and sometimes confusing. Williams’ book, on the other hand, is comprised of very detailed and well explained elements of style that are appropriate for the novice. Therefore, I was hoping Williams’ book would guide me through the process of writing with colons; so, I was slightly disappointed when it didn’t cover the subject. Many of the rules for punctuation were not discussed in Williams’ book, and I think that they should be discussed – maybe in the length section.
Williams did cover a number of other important elements of style which were intelligently broken down for the novice writer. Unlike Strunk and White who stated rules like, “omit needless words,” Williams explained how and why words should be omitted. He wrote an entire chapter on the importance of concision. Through introducing concision as an issue in style, providing examples of both concise and not concise prose, and then explaining why one example was better than the other, he was able to help the reader understand how to identify and fix wordy prose. I especially liked his discussion on metadiscourse. He explained through the removal of meaningless modifiers and redundant words a sentence becomes more concise.
The previous post also mentioned Words and Expressions Commonly Misused; Williams sort of mentioned these things indirectly.
Well, since I think the books have different purposes, I didn’t expect them to discuss elements of style in the same manner or for the same audience. Both books are useful and effective in their own way depending on what the reader expects to gain. For the novice writer Williams’ technique is much more useful. He guides the reader to understand how to develop style and explains why it is important. Williams’ book is meant for a reader who wants to understand style and how good style differs from bad style. On the other hand, Strunk and White’s book is meant for the advanced writer who is aware of how to write with good style but wants a quick refresher. While Williams’ book is intended to be read straight through, Strunk and White’s book is designed to be easily referred to – like a dictionary. Strunk and White’s book more or less states what good style should look like. Their approach is therefore much more effective for portraying the basic principles of style. Williams’ book is too detailed to be a quick reference book. A reader who was looking for a quick reminder would find his approach cumbersome; in order to understand his point a reader would have to sort through numerous detailed paragraphs along with tedious examples.
Overall, both books, while very different, are excellent works!
