Writing with Clarity and Style, 2nd Edition, will help you to improve your writing dramatically. The book shows you how to use dozens of classical rhetorical devices to bring power, clarity, and effectiveness to your writing. You will also learn about writing styles, authorial personas, and sentence syntax as tools to make your writing interesting and persuasive. If you want to improve the appeal and persuasion of your speeches, this is also the book for you. From strategic techniques for keeping your readers engaged as you change focus, down to the choice of just the right words and phrases for maximum impact, this book will help you develop a flexible, adaptable style for all the audiences you need to address. Each chapter now includes these sections: Style Check, discussing many elements of style, including some enhanced and revised sections Define Your Terms, asking students to use their own words and examples in their definitions. It’s in the Cloud, directing students to the Web to locate and respond to various rhetorically focused items, including biographies and speeches. Salt and Pepper, spicing up the study of rhetoric by stretching students’ thinking about how their writing can be improved, sometimes by attending to details such as punctuation, and sometimes by exploring the use of unusual techniques such as stylistic fragments. Review Questions, providing an end-of-chapter quiz to help cement the chapter ideas in long-term memory. Questions for Thought and Discussion, a set of questions designed for either in-class discussion or personal response. New to the Second Edition Additional examples of each device, including from world personalities and the captains of industry More and longer exercises, with a range of difficulty Advice from classical rhetoricians including Aristotle, Horace, Longinus, Cicero, and Quintilian.

First Published in 2017. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an Informa company.

Engaging and direct, Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace is the guidebook for anyone who wants to write well. Williams' and Bizup's clear, accessible style models the kind of writing that audiences-both in college and after-will admire. The principles offered here help writers understand what readers expect and encourage writers to revise to meet those expectations more effectively. This book is all you need to understand the principles of effective writing.

This acclaimed book is a master teacher's tested program for turning clumsy prose into clear, powerful, and effective writing. A logical, expert, easy-to-use plan for achieving excellence in expression, Style offers neither simplistic rules nor endless lists of dos and don'ts. Rather, Joseph Williams explains how to be concise, how to be focused, how to be organized. Filled with realistic examples of good, bad, and better writing, and step-by-step strategies for crafting a sentence or organizing a paragraph, Style does much more than teach mechanics: it helps anyone who must write clearly and persuasively transform even the roughest of drafts into a polished work of clarity, coherence, impact, and personality.

Writing with Clarity and Style, 2nd Edition, will help you to improve your writing dramatically. The book shows you how to use dozens of classical rhetorical devices to bring power, clarity, and effectiveness to your writing. You will also learn about writing styles, authorial personas, and sentence syntax as tools to make your writing interesting and persuasive. If you want to improve the appeal and persuasion of your speeches, this is also the book for you. From strategic techniques for keeping your readers engaged as you change focus, down to the choice of just the right words and phrases for maximum impact, this book will help you develop a flexible, adaptable style for all the audiences you need to address. Each chapter now includes these sections: Style Check, discussing many elements of style, including some enhanced and revised sections Define Your Terms, asking students to use their own words and examples in their definitions. It's in the Cloud, directing students to the Web to locate and respond to various rhetorically focused items, including biographies and speeches. Salt and Pepper, spicing up the study of rhetoric by stretching students' thinking about how their writing can be improved, sometimes by attending to details such as punctuation, and sometimes by exploring the use of unusual techniques such as stylistic fragments. Review Questions, providing an end-of-chapter quiz to help cement the chapter ideas in long-term memory. Questions for Thought and Discussion, a set of questions designed for either in-class discussion or personal response. New to the Second Edition Additional examples of each device, including from world personalities and the captains of industry More and longer exercises, with a range of difficulty Advice from classical rhetoricians including Aristotle, Horace, Longinus, Cicero, and Quintilian.

“Charming and erudite," from the author of Rationality and Enlightenment Now, "The wit and insight and clarity he brings . . . is what makes this book such a gem.” —Time.com Why is so much writing so bad, and how can we make it better? Is the English language being corrupted by texting and social media? Do the kids today even care about good writing—and why should we care? From the author of The Better Angels of Our Nature and Enlightenment Now. In this entertaining and eminently practical book, the cognitive scientist, dictionary consultant, and New York Times–bestselling author Steven Pinker rethinks the usage guide for the twenty-first century. Using examples of great and gruesome modern prose while avoiding the scolding tone and Spartan tastes of the classic manuals, he shows how the art of writing can be a form of pleasurable mastery and a fascinating intellectual topic in its own right. The Sense of Style is for writers of all kinds, and for readers who are interested in letters and literature and are curious about the ways in which the sciences of mind can illuminate how language works at its best.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A sharp, funny grammar guide they’ll actually want to read, from Random House’s longtime copy chief and one of Twitter’s leading language gurus NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY O: The Oprah Magazine • Paste • Shelf Awareness “Essential (and delightful!)”—People We all write, all the time: books, blogs, emails. Lots and lots of emails. And we all want to write better. Benjamin Dreyer is here to help. As Random House’s copy chief, Dreyer has upheld the standards of the legendary publisher for more than two decades. He is beloved by authors and editors alike—not to mention his followers on social media—for deconstructing the English language with playful erudition. Now he distills everything he has learned from the myriad books he has copyedited and overseen into a useful guide not just for writers but for everyone who wants to put their best prose foot forward. As authoritative as it is amusing, Dreyer’s English offers lessons on punctuation, from the underloved semicolon to the enigmatic en dash; the rules and nonrules of grammar, including why it’s OK to begin a sentence with “And” or “But” and to confidently split an infinitive; and why it’s best to avoid the doldrums of the Wan Intensifiers and Throat Clearers, including “very,” “rather,” “of course,” and the dreaded “actually.” Dreyer will let you know whether “alright” is all right (sometimes) and even help you brush up on your spelling—though, as he notes, “The problem with mnemonic devices is that I can never remember them.” And yes: “Only godless savages eschew the series comma.” Chockful of advice, insider wisdom, and fun facts, this book will prove to be invaluable to everyone who wants to shore up their writing skills, mandatory for people who spend their time editing and shaping other people’s prose, and—perhaps best of all—an utter treat for anyone who simply revels in language. Praise for Dreyer’s English “Playful, smart, self-conscious, and personal . . . One encounters wisdom and good sense on nearly every page of Dreyer’s English.”—The Wall Street Journal “Destined to become a classic.”—The Millions “Dreyer can help you . . . with tips on punctuation and spelling. . . . Even better: He’ll entertain you while he’s at it.”—Newsday