Alternative to Strunk & White?
I have to confess that I find Strunk & White's "The Elements of Style" to be a very tedious read.
Can anyone recommend an alternative title that covers similar ground?
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At the base there are "formating" guides, the driest of them all, like the Associated Press Style, Chicago Manual of Style, MLA handbook....
S&W is sometimes listed under the former category, but it is more a writing philosophy, a stylistic statement. Yes, it can be tedious in parts, but it is well worth it. The gist of it is to be effective with your writing. For more visual learners there is "The Elements of Style - Illustrated"
Then there are writing guides like: "On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction by William Zinsser". Here is a link to some of the best books on writing
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I would not have thought S&W was long enough to be tedious, but it is certainly dry. A considerably more lively, and longer, and, I think, better book is Sir Ernest Gowers The Complete Plain Words. Livelier still, and much much shorter, is George Orwell's Politics and the English Language.
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