The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition

also a must-have for any student, teacher, lawyer or journalist. still use mine from college.

this books cleanses the article or letter or an essay with easy and simple rules. just around 20 pages. it hits my list of referential material;

A copy of this book should be in every writer's library.

Experienced writers will find much of what is in this small book to be redundant. Even so, this book is a very useful resource. I keep a copy nearby all the time and skim for reminders and tidbits of information that I either did not know, or had forgotten.

This book is a classic, known as the best of its type. It's a reference book that's actually readable. The "White" of "Strunk and White" is E. B. White, the author of Charlotte's Web. If you are serious about writing in English, you're almost certain to be a better writer if you read and digest this book.

The problem with my generation is that we all want to throw off the standards that have guided the creation of art in favor of individual expression. While individual expression is wonderful, it must be presented in a manner that has some objective parameters; we can't expect others to intuitively understand what goes on in our mind, we must find a way transfer what goes on there into the minds of others, and standards are necessary for this.

That said, this is a wonderful reference for issues of style in written expression. The guidelines are intuitive; they are what we would hope for from other writers, and therefore what we should strive for in our own writing. The book is easy to reference, concise, and should help almost anyone become a better writer as a result of using it and employing its guidelines. Recommended to anyone that writes often, especially those who write research work in the fields of art and humanities.