What Other's are Saying

Feelings on Strunk and White seem to be fairly consistent in that they offer good advice, but do not leave room for variation. One classmate, Sherry even began her blog with:

I really like this book. In fact, I like it so much that I am considering buying it for future use as I am currently borrowing it from my local library. If I were following the rules of the book I would not have started the second sentence with the words "in fact". Strunk and White believes this is unnecessary. I disagree with him. I think it makes it makes the previous sentence stronger.

This was her way to prove that Strunk and White may have gone too far in their take on omitting needless words. Though it should be noted there are those who felt omitting needless words was one of the most valuable pieces of advice they received from Strunk and White, as Rebbecca points out in her discussion on Strunk and White. There are seemingly more students, however, who agreed with Sherry's take on Strunk and White. Beth even went as far as to say she has it out for Strunk and white. The absolute certainty that there is only one way to get things done which Strunk and White seem to emulate did not bode well with many students.

Williams on the other hand faired much better with students as Beth pointed out, many of the problems people had with Strunk and White were in the commonly mis-used section of their book, where as Williams addressed many of the same issues in his optional rules for usage, and usage rule folklore. Williams seems to have had the same trouble with Strunk and White as the students of this class did.

Just as the problems of Strunk and White seem to be solved in Williams, the problems of Williams seem to be corrected in Strunk and White. As Lauren seems to say in her blog the benefit of Strunk and White is its ease and clarity, where as Williams is more complex and therefore sometimes more difficult to understand. In other words, each book has its positive attributes as it has its negative attributes.

From what I have read of my classmates most everyone was able to take some good advice from each of these two books, but it seems no one is willing to consider either book the definitive book on writing. There is a repulsion many felt with being told rules to writing, or even more so with being told certain words or phrases have only one possible meaning. But through it all it seems that the clarity of Strunk and White is still highly respected, as is Williams respect of differences in writing, of separating actual writing rules versus writing folklore. These are all view I too felt while reading these two style guides. These books both make valuable reference guides that can be referred to often in the writing process.