Comparing Strunk and White with Williams

In my previous blog about The Elements of Style, I addressed Strunk and White’s advice about holding to a design, about style, and about word usage. Williams discusses those same issues in Style, but in a different way.

About design, Strunk and White emphasize virtually every type of writing must adhere to a shape and that shape must be designed and then followed. What Strunk and White call design, Williams calls coherence. Coherence is distributing topics in a paragraph or longer writing in a way that makes sense to the reader. Williams says “we always have to choose our topics, to design topic strings that focus the reader’s attention on a particular point of view” (82). By discussing design and coherence, the authors of both books are stressing the need to organize writing to convey information in a readable way. Williams’ advice for this issue is more useful (and usable) than the advice offered by Strunk and White. Strunk and White stress the importance of design, but do not offer an avenue to creating that design or recognizing when or why that design has derailed in a piece of writing. Williams devotes two chapters to coherence and describes in detail how to create coherence and correct lack of coherence.

One of the more readable chapters in Strunk and White about style and the difficulty of developing style since it is not something that can be explicitly taught. Williams also concedes the complexity of style, but offers more information on the elements that add up to style in writing. Chapters on concision, length, and elegance are all advice from Williams that go beyond creating clear sentences and paragraphs and move toward developing style. Where Strunk and White claim style is hard to put one’s finger on, Williams claims the same but still offers suggestions about identifying pieces of style.

Word usage as an issue Strunk and White and Williams handle in a more widely different way. Strunk and White are highly specific about words, almost to the point of ranting, usually words not to use. Williams even alludes to some of the tirades about certain words in his chapter on usage that is more relaxed and informative. He acknowledges that “good” English is often arbitrary and explains how it came to be that way. He does outline the grammar rules that must not be broken in writing, but writes about words only that can easily be misused, not about words that personally irritate him.

I believe Williams’ Style is more useful overall than Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style because it allows a writer tips to recognize and correct bad writing. One way I believe Strunk and White are more effective is in their approach to organizing their book. The Elements of Style is easy to reference upon having a specific question. Style’s approach to organization makes it easy to read as a whole but also makes it difficult to find specific advice.