Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace

In the first reading of Joseph Williams’s Style, I have learned two essential writing tips: avoid nominalization (turning careless into carelessness) and embrace concision (deleting needless words). To demonstrate concision, Williams trims a paragraph in Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style from 199 words to 148 to 101. Then he cuts it to the bone with just 38 words. Because Williams packed so much writing techniques into this book, a second or third careful read is required.