The Elements of Style began as a 43-page booklet that William Strunk Jr., a Cornell English professor, had printed privately in 1918. His former student E. B. White praised it in The New Yorker in 1957, and Macmillan published White's revision in 1959. Our view, stated plainly: its style rules, such as omit needless words, are good defaults for academic writing, and its grammar rules are unreliable enough that no student should treat them as law.
EdCitation publishes this guide. We read Strunk's text in the 1920 Harcourt printing on Project Gutenberg, White's 1957 essay in The New Yorker's own archive, Geoffrey Pullum's two attacks on the book, and the defences we could find. The examples marked as ours were written for this guide.
EdCitation never writes any part of anyone's work, and that is a line we hold with pride: every sentence you hand in is yours. What it does is check. Check your paper reads your brief's word limit and headings into a free checklist, and Mechanics QA checks the finished file for formatting and the language slips a spell-checker lets through.
What is The Elements of Style? A summary
The Elements of Style is a short American guide to English usage and composition, in the form of numbered rules, each followed by a few paragraphs and examples. The book people now call "Strunk and White" has four chapters by Strunk, revised by White, and a fifth chapter by White alone.
What Strunk's booklet contained
White (1957) describes the 1918 booklet as a short introduction, eight rules of usage, ten principles of composition, a few matters of form, a list of misused words and expressions, and a list of words often misspelled. The rules are commands; White pictured "Sergeant Strunk snapping orders to his platoon". The 1920 Harcourt text we read also has eighteen, grouped as seven and eleven, and puts "Use the active voice" at Rule 10 where White's copy had it at Rule 11 (Strunk, 1920), so the 1920 text is not a page-for-page reprint of 1918.
What White added in 1959
White added an introduction, revised Strunk's text, and wrote a final chapter, "An Approach to Style", with a list of reminders. In the fourth edition, the one most students meet, the first two chapters hold 22 numbered rules and White's chapter 21 reminders, among them "Be Clear", "Do Not Inject Opinion" and "Avoid the Use of Qualifiers" (Pearson, n.d.).
Where did Strunk and White come from?
From a Cornell classroom. Strunk taught at Cornell from 1899 to 1937 (Lowery, 2009). White took English 8 with him in 1919, when the booklet was required reading, and Strunk died in 1946 (White, 1957).
The 1957 New Yorker essay
In March 1957 White's classmate Howard Stevenson, editor of the Cornell Alumni News, sent him one of the Cornell library's copies (Garvey, 2010). White wrote about it in his "Letter from the East" in the issue of 27 July 1957, between a night of fighting mosquitoes and an argument against dumping radioactive waste at sea. He called the booklet a case for "cleanliness, accuracy, and brevity", and recalled Strunk leaning over his desk, gripping his lapels, and saying "Omit needless words" three times (White, 1957).
The essay was not uncritical. White admitted that such style rules are "somewhat a matter of individual preference", and quoted Strunk's own warning that the best writers sometimes break the rules and gain something by it. That caveat is easy to miss, because the rules that follow it are stated without one.
The 1959 Macmillan edition
A Macmillan editor, Jack Case, wrote to White the week the essay appeared, and White ended up retyping most of the book and revising it as he went (Garvey, 2010). It was published on 16 April 1959 and reached third place on the New York Times best-seller list that August (Lowery, 2009). Garvey (2010) reports 200,000 copies sold in its first year.
Which editions are there, and which one should you cite?
Cite the edition you read, with the year printed in it. Pullum (2010) counts a 1918 private printing, a 1920 trade edition, two editions rewritten with Edward Tenney in 1934 and 1935, and White editions in 1959, 1972, 1979, 2000, 2004 and 2009, the last a 50th-anniversary reissue of the 2000 text.
- 1918: privately printed in Ithaca, 43 pages (White, 1957); Garvey (2010) names the printer as W. P. Humphrey of Geneva, New York.
- 1920: Harcourt's trade edition, the one on Project Gutenberg (Strunk, 1920).
- 1935: Tenney's version, retitled The Elements and Practice of Composition (Garvey, 2010).
- 1959, 1972, 1979: White's first three editions. Sales across all editions passed 10 million copies (Lowery, 2009).
- The fourth edition: a new foreword by Roger Angell, a glossary of grammatical terms, and pronoun advice revised for sexist language (Pearson, n.d.). Pullum dates it 2000; Cornell's article gives 1999. Take the year from your own copy's copyright page.
White's name belongs in the reference for any edition from 1959 on. When we gave the fourth edition's ISBN, 9780205309023, to Cite a source, it read Open Library's record, which lists White only as a contributor, and built "Strunk, W., Jr. (2001). The elements of style (4th ed.). Longman Publishers." Add White as second author, and check the year against your copy, before you copy it into your list in APA 7 or MLA 9.
What are Strunk and White's rules, and do they work in academic writing?
Most of the style rules still work as defaults in an essay or a dissertation; the grammar rules need checking against your style guide. The table is our reading.
| Rule | What it says | When it helps in academic writing | When to break it | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Omit needless words | Cut words that do no work, such as "the fact that" | Abstracts, and any section over its limit | Never cut the hedges, definitions and signposts an argument needs | Strunk (1920) |
| Use the active voice | Prefer "we measured" to "was measured by us" | Saying who did what in a discussion | Methods, where the procedure matters more than the person | Strunk (1920); Pullum (2009) |
| Put statements in positive form | "Forgot", not "did not remember" | Stating a finding firmly | When the finding is a negative, such as no difference between groups | Strunk (1920) |
| Use definite, specific, concrete language | The specific over the general | Numbers, samples and named cases | Theory, where the abstraction is the subject | Strunk (1920) |
| Do not inject opinion | Keep your opinions out of the prose | Reporting results | A critical essay, where the marks are for your argued judgement | Pullum (2009); Yagoda (2009) |
| Avoid the use of qualifiers | Fewer qualifying words (we read the heading only) | Cutting empty intensifiers such as very | Keep may and suggests where the evidence is limited | Pearson (n.d.) |
| That for defining clauses, which for the rest | White's addition in 1959 | A house style that asks for it | Everywhere else: restrictive which is standard English | Pullum (2010) |
| Your brief's word limit | Not a Strunk rule, but where most cutting starts | Always | Never | Check your paper reads it |
Omit needless words
Strunk's Rule 13 opens "Vigorous writing is concise", and wants "the fact that" revised out of every sentence (Strunk, 1920). It is the rule to use when a section is over its limit. Pullum (2009) calls it useless, because students who know which words are needless do not need telling; our answer is to give them a list, and the academic vocabulary guide has one. Ours: Owing to the fact that the sample was small (9 words) becomes Because the sample was small (5).
Use the active voice
This is the rule Pullum (2009) attacks hardest. Of the four pairs the book offers to show a passive made active, he finds that three contain no passive at all: There were a great number of dead leaves lying on the ground is one. The rule is still a fair default for saying who did what, and the passive still belongs in a method. Orwell made the same demand in 1946; our guide to Orwell's rules for writers sets his six beside academic practice. What APA 7 says is in our guide to academic tone.
Do not inject opinion
White's reminder fits a lab report and fails a critical essay. Yagoda (2009) calls White's chapter a recommendation of "a style of absence", odd advice from a writer whose own prose is plainly opinionated. Pullum (2009) adds that sometimes an opinion is exactly what a tutor wants from a student. Argue, and support each claim with a source.
Strunk and White criticism: what do the critics say?
The best-known critic is Geoffrey Pullum, a linguist and co-author of The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. His case: the style advice is mostly harmless, the grammar advice is wrong, and the book breaks its own rules.
"50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice" (2009)
Pullum (2009) marked the 50th anniversary in The Chronicle of Higher Education by arguing that the book's advice "ranges from limp platitudes to inconsistent nonsense". We read it in the copy on his own university page, because the Chronicle's site refused our request. Beyond the passive, he shows the book's rule that none takes a singular verb failing against Wilde, Stoker and L. M. Montgomery, and White's advice to write with nouns and verbs, not adjectives, followed at once by a sentence with three adjectives. His evidence on starting a sentence with however is in who decides what is correct English.
"The Land of the Free and The Elements of Style" (2010)
Pullum (2010) took the case into the journal English Today. He argues that White added the that and which rule in 1959, then rewrote sentences where Strunk himself had used a restrictive which, crediting the finding to the journalist Jan Freeman. He also traces the split-infinitive remark to the 1920 edition and the paragraph against hopefully to 1972. Our guides to the split infinitive and singular they follow those disputes further.
The New York Times debate (2009)
When the Times asked five writers about the book for its 50th birthday, all five found fault with it, and two kept a good word for it. Fogarty (2009) wrote that the book is useful but "shouldn't be the only book you ever consult".
Is there a defence of The Elements of Style?
Yes, and the best ones defend its spirit, not its grammar. O'Conner (2009) kept her affection for the principles of composition and the closing reminders, calling the first 14 pages "the gospel truth", while calling much of the usage advice wrong. Bulley (2010), replying to Pullum in English Today, defends the book and attacks Pullum's method; quoting his own view from 1992, he holds that there are no rules of correct usage and that writing should be judged "on grounds of quality, not of correctness". The journal's page showed us only the first paragraph, so we report no more of his argument than that.
The case we find strongest is the book's own. White (1957) admitted that its rules were partly a matter of preference, and Strunk's introduction tells students to follow the rules until they can write plain English, and then learn from the masters (Strunk, 1920). Read as a set of defaults for a first-year writer, the book does its job. Read as a grammar, it fails, as Pullum shows.
How to use Strunk and White on your own draft
Use it as a revising checklist once the argument is settled, and let your style guide and brief overrule it. Sentence length, clutter and paragraphs are in our prose guide for clear writing.
- Start from what was asked. Paste the assignment into Check your paper, free, and note the limit you are cutting towards.
- Cut "the fact that" and its relatives. Search for the fact that, the question as to whether and in order to.
- Check each passive. Keep it where the reader needs the procedure; rewrite it where it hides who acted.
- Make vague sentences specific. Replace "a large number" with the number, and cite where it came from.
- Keep your hedges. Strunk's positive form is for things you know; hedging is for things you infer.
- Ignore the grammar bans your style guide does not share: however first, which in a defining clause, a split infinitive.
- Run the last checks. Send the finished file through Mechanics QA, and paste the reference list into Verify references, which is free.
How does EdCitation help you write a paper Strunk would pass?
EdCitation is, in our view, the strongest partner for the checking half of revision: it tests a paper against rules and records, and not one of its tools composes, trims or rephrases a sentence of yours.
Mechanics QA, for the slips
Mechanics QA gives a paper the first read a marker gives it, done by rule. It measures font, spacing, margins, headings and the reference list against the APA 7 student paper, finds comments, tracked changes and placeholders still in the file, matches citations to the list, looks each reference up in the publisher's record, flags figures that disagree between sections, and catches the slips a spell-checker lets through. Each finding is marked where it sits, with its fix, and no model reads the paper. Which words are needless it leaves to you. Mechanics QA is part of Pro at $8 a month, and a free account can run it three times a month (pricing).
Check your paper, for the brief
On 27 September 2026 we gave Check your paper a brief we wrote for a critical review of the book. It returned ten rules, each beside its sentence, among them 1,500 to 1,800 words excluding the reference list, at least six sources (at least three peer-reviewed), at least two sources from 2010 or later, the headings Introduction, Evaluation and Conclusion, MLA 9, and 12-point Times New Roman. It set aside our line asking students to omit needless words and prefer the active voice as something no rule can test: that judgement is yours.
Find sources, Cite a source and Verify references
Find sources, free, searched "Strunk and White Elements of Style" and returned 3,161 results, with Pullum's English Today essay sixth. Cite a source built it from its DOI, and Verify references returned all eleven of this guide's references verified.
Quick questions
What is The Elements of Style about?
It is a short guide to English usage and composition: numbered rules on punctuation, grammar and sentences by William Strunk Jr., revised by E. B. White, with White's chapter on style.
Why is it called Strunk and White?
Strunk wrote the 1918 booklet, and White revised and expanded it for Macmillan's 1959 edition, so both names appear on every edition since.
Is The Elements of Style good advice for academic writing?
Its style rules are good defaults, and its grammar rules are often wrong. Your course's style guide and brief come first.
What does "omit needless words" mean?
Cut every word that adds nothing, such as "the fact that". Keep the hedges, definitions and signposts your argument needs.
Can EdCitation make my writing more concise?
It shows you the target and the slips, and leaves the cutting to you: Check your paper, free, turns your brief's word limit into a checklist item, and Mechanics QA, in Pro, flags formatting and language slips. EdCitation never writes or trims your prose.
References
- Bulley, M. (2010). Defending Strunk and White. English Today, 26(4), 57–62. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266078410000362
- Fogarty, M. (2009, April 24). Rules are meant to be broken. In Happy birthday, Strunk and White. Room for Debate, The New York Times. https://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/happy-birthday-strunk-and-white/
- Garvey, M. (2010, January/February). Word perfect. Cornell Alumni Magazine. http://cornellalumnimagazine.com/word-perfect/
- Lowery, G. (2009, March 26). Omit needless words: Strunk and White's classic, "The Elements of Style," turns 50. Cornell Chronicle. https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2009/03/omit-needless-words-elements-style-turns-50
- O'Conner, P. T. (2009, April 24). We've moved on. In Happy birthday, Strunk and White. Room for Debate, The New York Times. https://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/happy-birthday-strunk-and-white/
- Pearson. (n.d.). The elements of style, Pearson new international edition (4th ed.). https://www.pearson.com/en-gb/subject-catalog/p/elements-of-style-the-pearson-new-international-edition/P200000005508/9781292026640
- Pullum, G. K. (2009, April 17). 50 years of stupid grammar advice. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 55(32), B15. https://pullum.ppls.ed.ac.uk/50years.pdf
- Pullum, G. K. (2010). The land of the free and The Elements of Style. English Today, 26(2), 34–44. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266078410000076
- Strunk, W., Jr. (1920). The elements of style. Harcourt, Brace and Howe. Project Gutenberg. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37134
- White, E. B. (1957, July 27). Letter from the East. The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1957/07/27/letter-from-the-east-7
- Yagoda, B. (2009, April 24). A matter of style. In Happy birthday, Strunk and White. Room for Debate, The New York Times. https://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/happy-birthday-strunk-and-white/