作者：William Strunk, Jr.
版本：2011年版（第3版）
来源：下载的 mobi 版本

任何事物在无序发展的过程中，都会不断变的复杂，英语也不例外，本书是一本很小的册子，被公认为英语世界中文书写作上的重要指导，可以让英语表达更加美观、有力、简洁、准确

THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE by William Strunk, Jr. is a prescriptive American English writing style guide comprising eight elementary rules of usage , ten "elementary principles of composition", a few matters of form , a list of forty-nine words and expressions commonly misused , and a list of fifty-seven words often misspelled.

You know the authors' names. You recognize the title. You've probably used this book yourself. This is The Elements of Style, the classic style manual, now in a fourth edition. A new Foreword by Roger Angell reminds readers that the advice of Strunk & White is as valuable today as when it was first offered.This book's unique tone, wit and charm have conveyed the principles of English style to millions of readers. Use the fourth edition of "the little book" to make a big impact with writing.

在法律英语领域，英语的复杂性可以让文书只让少部分人能够通透的理解，复杂的语法加上生僻的单词和大量术语，让知识和财富都留存在精英人群中。大部分国家的政府文书也如此，因此在英语世界有一股推动文书简化的力量，可以称为「Plain English」运动

等什么时候自己真的要开始英文写作了，这是一本必读的书，即便如此，对中文写作的启发已经被潜移默化了~

本书的最后一部分「Words and Expressions Commonly Misused」没有细看，罗列了一系列容易被误用的表达和词汇，等以后写作的时候可以作为参考

文字摘录：

The abbreviations etc. and jr. are always preceded by a comma, and except at the end of a sentence, followed by one.

The keynote speakers was Peter J. Smith, Jr.
I just got some eggs, milk, bread, etc., when I ran to the store.

概念摘录：

Parenthesis (rhetoric)

In rhetoric, a parenthesis (plural: parentheses; from the Greek word παρένθεσις parénthesis, which comes in turn from words meaning "alongside of" and "to place") or parenthetical phrase is an explanatory or qualifying word, clause, or sentence inserted into a passage. The parenthesis could be left out and still form grammatically correct text. Parentheses are usually marked off by round or square brackets, dashes, or commas.

Introductory phrase: Once upon a time, my father ate a muffin.
Interjection: My father ate the muffin, gosh darn it!
Aside: My father, if you don’t mind me telling you this, ate the muffin.
Appositive: My father, a jaded and bitter man, ate the muffin.
Absolute phrase: My father, his eyes flashing with rage, ate the muffin.
Free modifier: My father, chewing with unbridled fury, ate the muffin.
Resumptive modifier: My father ate the muffin, a muffin which no man had yet chewed.
Summative modifier: My father ate the muffin, a feat which no man had attempted.

Jr.

In the United States the most common name suffixes are senior and junior, which are written with a capital first letter ("Jr." and "Sr.") with or without an interceding comma. In Britain these are more rare, but when they are used the abbreviations are "Jnr" and "Snr", respectively. The term "junior" is correctly used only if a child's first, middle, and last names are identical to his or her parent's names. When the suffixes are spelled out in full, they are always written with the first letter in lower case. Social name suffixes are far more frequently applied to men than to women (due to the common practice of women taking their husbands' surnames).

second nature

A process or action that has been practiced over time so that it becomes natural or habitual.

Participle

A participle (glossing abbreviation ptcp) is a form of a verb that is used in a sentence to modify a noun, noun phrase, verb, or verb phrase, and plays a role similar to an adjective or adverb.[1] It is one of the types of nonfinite verb forms. Its name comes from the Latin participium,[2] a calque of Greek metochḗ "partaking" or "sharing";[3] it is so named because the Ancient Greek and Latin participles "share" some of the categories of the adjective or noun (gender, number, case) and some of those of the verb (tense and voice).

Like other parts of the verb, participles can be either active (e.g. breaking) or passive (e.g. broken). Participles are also often associated with certain verbal aspects or tenses. The two types of participle in English are traditionally called the present participle (forms such as writing, singing and raising) and the past participle (forms such as written, sung and raised).

Active voice

Active voice is a grammatical voice common in many of the world's languages. It is the unmarked voice for clauses featuring a transitive verb in nominative-accusative languages, including English and most other Indo-European languages.

Active voice is used in a clause whose subject expresses the main verb's agent. That is, the subject does the verb's designated action. A clause whose agent is marked as grammatical subject is called an active clause. In contrast, a clause in which the subject has the role of patient or theme is named a passive clause, and its verb is expressed in passive voice. Many languages have both an active and a passive voice; this allows for greater flexibility in sentence construction, as either the semantic agent or patient may take the subject syntactic role.

Ruled paper

Ruled paper (or lined paper) is writing paper printed with lines as a guide for handwriting. The lines often are printed with fine width and in light colour and such paper is sometimes called feint-ruled paper. Additional vertical lines may provide margins or act as tab stops or create a grid for plotting data, for example graph paper (squared paper or grid paper) where horizontal and vertical lines divide the page into squares.

术语表：

单词摘录：

It aims to lighten the task of instructor and student by concentrating attention (in Chapters II and III) on a few essentials, the rules of usage and principles of composition most commonly violated.

In these sentences the clauses introduced by which, when, and where are non-restrictive;

But whether the interruption be slight or considerable, he must never omit one comma and leave the other. Such punctuation as

If two or more clauses, grammatically complete and not joined by a conjunction, are to form a single compound sentence, the proper mark of punctuation is a semicolon.

It is of course equally correct to write the above as two sentences each, replacing the semicolons by periods.

The writer must, however, be certain that the emphasis is warranted, and that he will not be suspected of a mere blunder in punctuation.

Elementary Principles of Composition

If the poem is a narrative in the third person throughout, paragraph C need contain no more than a concise summary of the action.

For this reason, the most generally useful kind of paragraph, particularly in exposition and argument, is that in which

Ending with a digression, or with an unimportant detail, is particularly to be avoided.

Sometimes, however, it is expedient to precede the topic sentence by one or more sentences of introduction or transition.

But this device, if too often used, would become a mannerism.

The brief paragraphs of animated narrative, however, are often without even this semblance of a topic sentence.

The active voice is usually more direct and vigorous than the passive

This rule does not, of course, mean that the writer should entirely discard the passive voice

The habitual use of the active voice, however, makes for forcible writing.

Who is, which was, and the like are often superfluous.

Although single sentences of this type may be unexceptionable, a series soon becomes monotonous and tedious.

Apart from its triteness and emptiness, the paragraph above is bad because of the structure of its sentences, with their mechanical symmetry and sing-song.

This principle, that of parallel construction, requires that expressions of similar content and function should be outwardly similar.

unless this would cause ambiguity.

the writer should avoid intercalating such expressions as

He should indicate clearly at the outset, once for all, that what follows is summary

But he should aim to write an orderly discussion supported by evidence, not a summary with occasional comment

Formal quotations, cited as documentary evidence, are introduced by a colon and enclosed in quotation marks.

Proverbial expressions and familiar phrases of literary origin require no quotation marks.