Post 7: Comparing S&W with Williams

I don’t really think that Williams discusses what I wrote about in my previous blog about Strunk and White’s book The Elements of Style. The Williams book, Style: Towards Clarity and Grace, focuses less on simple mechanics, like using commas or colon placement, and more on the placement of words and creating a thoughtful piece of writing.
I think that Williams’ book is much more helpful than the book by Strunk and White. There are a few reasons for this. The first is that the Williams book gives the reader a much more detailed explanation of why things sound better and look better in a certain format while the Strunk and White book basically just tells you what to do rather than why you should do it. When I actually understand why something is supposed to be a done a certain way, it makes it much easier for me to do it in that manner. The book explains each example almost too much. The Williams book also addresses things that cannot be fixed by using a spell checker. A spell checker will not let you know when your prose are unclear, do not make sense, or do not sound professional. A spell checker will often pick up on simple grammatical errors or when you use the wrong punctuation. The Williams book allows you to be able to scan your work of writing and understand what needs improvement or rewording. I feel that these skills are much more valuable than simply knowing how to punctuate correctly.
The Strunk and White book was much less helpful to me than the Williams book. I feel that I have most of the things that it went over under control at this point in my academic career. However, the section on words that are commonly confused and misused was very helpful. I still struggle with knowing whether to use effect or affect in a sentence. The fact that the Strunk and White book was much smaller and easier to read made it helpful as well. It is good to keep around if you need to reference something quickly. The Williams book would be harder to make a quick reference to, unless the person who read it marked everything off with little markers or flags. The fact that Strunk and White uses simpler language makes it easy to understand as well. Pretty much anyone that can read would be able to understand the point that the book is trying to make while the Williams book should only be used by a much more experienced reader. Both of the books serve a purpose, even if the purpose is different for each one. Each is good resource for any writer to have on hand.