There are many elements that I found in Strunk and White’s: The Elements of Style, I found very helpful to think about in which I would want to incorporate in my own writings. To be honest the chapter, where it discusses the elementary rules of usage I found very helpful. Another part in the book I found helpful is omitting needless words, because it is something that occurs a lot in my writing. Lastly, the approach to style is where it discusses revising and rewriting. I also found there were a couple of things related to Strunk & White, I thought would be unhelpful.
Usually in my writings, I make common mistakes in punctuation most of the time. One of the first mistakes I make would be the first rule which is to the possessive singular of nouns by adding’s. I can’t remember how many times in school I been marked down from common mistakes like adding a (s) on the end of a word when needed. Another problem that I found in my writing is the usage of comma’s in the correct way. In the book it says to separate comma’s in a single conjunction.
I also felt the explanation of a colon was very helpful because I never really knew when to use it in a sentence. The book , The Elements of Style, it says: "to use a colon after an independent clause to introduce a list of particulars, an appositive, an amplification, or an illustrative quotation (Strunk & White)". A colon, tells the reader that what follows is closely related to the preceding clause . The most I knew about colons is they are to be used in the beginning of letters.
Another part I found very helpful is omitting needless words. The authors explain how writing should be concise and sometime cut to the point. I have a tendency to be very wordy when it comes to writing essays or short assignments. Sometime depending on the writer, they might get bored of reading some of the same words used repetitively. A good example of using needless words would be instead of using, the question as to whether when one could say just whether. Even though I found some things helpful, I also found things unhelpful.
The chapter that I found to be unhelpful would be the on a few matters of form. A good example would be the word colloquialisms. It just simply says that if a person uses a colloquialism or a slang word or phrase, to just use it and not draw attention to it by enclosing it in quotation marks. I don’t think this is helpful to me since I really doubt I would use very often.
I really learned a lot a lot of the book, The Elements of Style. It would be really be a book that I would consider reading and using again. I can always go back and cross reference with it any time I need or unsure of a particular way of constructing a sentence. The most important thing that I read would have to how to incorporate a comma in the correct place. So now I can refer back to this book when in need on how to use a comma.
