Understanding Style

Preface ; Part one: What Style Is: Good and Bad Writing ; Chapter 1: Voices You Want To Listen To: Elements of ; Written Voice ; Voice and the Sound Qualities of Writing ; Voice and the Writing Situation ; Grammar and Voice ; Diction and Voice ; Avoiding Discriminatory Language ; A Gallery of Voices ; Points to Remember ; Chapter 2: Voices That Put You Off: Common Modes of Bad Writing ; The Professional Terror ; The Creative Genius ; The Sleepwalker ; The Clunker ; Points To Remember ; Chapter 3: Two Common Problems: Overwriting and Underwriting ; Eliminating Deadwood ; How Much Cutting Is Enough? ; Varieties of Deadwood ; Verbal Filler ; Authorspeak ; Overexplaining ; A Caution Against Underwriting ; Points To Remember ; Part Two: Accurate, Effective Word Choice ; Chapter 4: Finding the Right Words: What's in a Name? ; A World of Words ; Types of Diction ; Formal and Informal Words ; General and Particular Words ; Abstract and Concrete Words ; Long and Short Words ; Learned and Commonplace Words ; Points To Remember ; Chapter 5: Finding Fresh Words: Cliches, Usage, Quoting, Figurative Language ; Cliches Beat a Hasty Retreat ; Usage Cranks and Usage Demons ; Some Notes on Quoting ; Figurative Language ; Points To Remember ; Part Three: Clear Subjects and Lively Verbs ; Chapter 6: Subjects and Predicates ; Subjects ; Standard Sentence Order and "You-Understood" ; Subjects in Dependent Clauses ; Types of Dependent Clauses ; Coordinate Clauses ; Predicates ; Multiple Predicates and Predicates in Dependent Clauses ; Points To Remember ; Chapter 7: Naming Definite Actors and Actions ; Naming Definite Actors ; Avoiding Indefinite Actors ; The Problem of Nominalizations ; Naming Definite Actions ; Avoiding Weak Verbs: to be ; Other Weak Verbs ; Unnecessary Auxiliaries ; Unnecessary Passive Verbs ; Keeping Actors and Actions Together ; Points To Remember ; Part Four: Making Connections: Coherence and Emphasis ; Chapter 8: Coherence: Making Sentences Connect ; Maintaining Related Grammatical Subjects ; Patterns of Old and New Information ; Reinforcing Coherence with Transitional Devices ; Reinforcing Coherence with Coordinate Structures ; Reinforcing Coherence with Subordinate Structures ; Points To Remember ; Chapter 9: Assigning Emphasis ; Nuclear Emphasis ; Coming to a Good End ; Nuclear Stress in Lesser Breath Units ; A Note on Punctuation ; Patterns of Emphasis ; Using Grammatical Transformations To Shift ; Emphasis ; Emphasis Through Grammatical Bulk ; Points To Remember ; Part Five: Changing the Pace: Rhythmic and Grammatical Variety ; Chapter 10: Controlling Rhythm ; Sentence Rhythms ; Types of Breath Units ; Avoiding Overlong Breath Units ; Using Breath Units to Control Rhythm ; Using Stress to Control Rhythm ; Using Long and Short Words to Control Rhythm ; Points To Remember ; Chapter 11: Grammatical Variety ; How Sentences Become Complex ; Grammatical Variety in Context ; Varying Sentence Structure with Nominals ; Varying Sentence Structure with Adjectivals ; Varying Sentence Structure with Adverbials ; Varying Sentence Structure with Parallel Construction ; Grammatical Emphasis ; Points To Remember ; Part Six: Quick Fixes ; Chapter 12: Rules of Thumb ; Start most sentences with the subject ; Make your subjects definitely named actors ; Make your verbs name definite actions ; Write mostly in independent clauses ; Keep subjects and verbs close together ; Keep verbs and complements close together ; Use single verbs with multiple subjects. Use single subjects with multiple verbs. ; Favor the active voice ; Choose positive rather than negative constructions ; Focus each sentence on the ideas expressed by the subject and predicate ; Mix long and short sentences ; End sentences with a bang, not a whimper ; Points To Remember ; Appendix A: A Brief Dictionary of Usage ; Appendix B: Alphabetical Guide to Punctuation ; Appendix C: Glossary