The
Elements of Style
by
William Strunk, Jr.
Professor of English
Cornell University
Privately Printed
Ithaca, New York
1918
Copyright
1918
By William Strunk, Jr.
Press of W. P. Humphrey, Geneva, N.Y.
Contents
1. Form the possessive singular of nouns with 's3. Enclose parenthetic expressions between commas
4. Place a comma before and or but introducing an independent clause
5. Do not join independent clauses by a comma
6. Do not break sentences in two
7. A participial phrase at the beginning of a sentence must refer to the grammatical subject
8. Divide words at line-ends, in accordance with their formation and pronunciation
III. Elementary Principles of Composition
9. Make the paragraph the unit of composition: one paragraph to each topic10. As a rule, begin each paragraph with a topic sentence; end it in conformity with the beginning
12. Put statements in positive form
14. Avoid a succession of loose sentences
15. Express co-ordinate ideas in similar form
16. Keep related words together