Style in writing has been researched and analyzed for years. Writers such as Joseph M. Williams, Heidi Shultz, William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White have thoroughly explained style and it’s components within their works. These authors constructed style guides. These are manuals used for quick references, layout of rules in pertaining to writing, and examples of writing tools. These manuals are used in classrooms and businesses in the writing field all over the world.

An important component of writing style is audience. A clear audience must be established to gain full understanding of what is being mentioned and what rule or rules are being emphasized. Audience emphasis varies between authors; each piece of writing is focused, or seems to be focused, on a certain group of readers.

In Strunk and Whites work The Elements of Style; the audience seems to be that equivalent to freshman comp. level, or in other words, the “traditional college student”. The reading is clear and rather simple, the language is equal to the level of most freshman college level understanding. The layout of the material is separated and bulleted clearly and precisely for quick reference and simple analysis. This form of separation offers up clarity for the beginning student.

Joseph Williams’s work Style Towards Clarity and Grace appears to be directed to a higher educated audience such as professionals and advanced college level writing students. The language style is advanced, however the layout remains clear and precise like that of Strunk and White. Lists and graphs are formatted within the reading, but in order to comprehend the aids, the reader must first have a previous knowledge of the terms and definitions to gain full understanding of the text.

The Elements of Electronic Communication by Heidi Shultz is clearly directed at business readers. For example, professionals in the computer technological world would benefit greatly from this reading. Like the other stylebooks by Strunk and White and Williams, the layout is clear, but the information in this work would be primarily beneficial to those strictly in the electronic world. The examples and the language within Shultz’s style guide is very technical and would require a some background training in technology to grasp what is trying to be said within the text.

Audience is an important part of every piece of work. Each style guide lists terms, definitions, statements, and rules regarding the authors view and/or experience with style in writing. The style of writing components such as clarity, voice and length varies greatly on the audience that the information is directed to. For example, Heidi Shultz’s style guide gives rules and examples that would be ultimately useless for freshman composition readers. Strunk and Whites or William’s work would not be beneficial to Shultz’s readers, etc.

Another component of writing style mentioned earlier is length. Length varies in each of the works. I propose that the length of the style guides is due to the audience that is being attempted. For example, in the Williams work Style Toward Clarity and Grace he explains length in each of his chapters. The setup that he uses is long explanations, and graphs/tables to assist the reader. This style is primarily good for advanced readers. The graphs and tables that Williams uses are advanced. These ‘aids’ would not be helpful to the beginning reader. Thus, the audience would have to be more educated and/or advanced in literature and writing style.

Heidi Shultz’s work The Elements of Electronic Communication is shorter than Williams work, but the density of the work would be given to the same audience as Williams’s readers. The difference in these two books regarding length is the format used to explain rules and examples. Heidi’s work focuses on electronic communication (thus the title) therefore, the examples were technical. But, the lengths of the examples were necessary due to the steps needed in electronics, which are not used in handwritten writing.

Strunk and White’s work The Elements of Style is nothing at all like the reading by the others. This work was directed to a younger audience and therefore, the examples and rules are broken up in a way that is easy to understand. Younger readers tend to shy away from long, drawn out explanations. With this in mind, a style guide that would be most beneficial to younger learners would definitely be this book. It is short and to the point.

Outside of the visible length itself, all three books define length in different fashions. Both Shultz and Williams discuss length in relation to how it affects writing. Williams introduces his book with a statement that the length of sentences should vary. He mentions in this introduction that a person should never write a sentence longer than twenty words. Soon after this statement, Williams offers up the statement “…if you never write sentences longer than twenty words, you’ll be like a pianist who uses only the middle octave…”(135). This statement along with the one that mentions the variation in sentence length shows the importance of how length has to be judged on the content of what is being written. In other words, if one must go beyond twenty words, make sure that the information is valid enough to keep reader’s attention and not confuse them.

Sentences that are long and drawn with no point out are a “no-no” in Williams’s perspective. However, there are pieces of writing that tend to be long and still are linguistically correct and clear. For example, the sentence that consisted of eighteen clauses by Thomas Hooker was long, but a main point was established. Williams argues that as long as a main point is met, the length should be ignored. According to Williams, we, as readers, should not worry about clauses “but rather long sentences without shape”(136). This point is also good for all readers. When a main point is met, regardless of length, the readers are not confused, and willing to read more for the next point that may be made.

Heidi Shultz discusses the length of writing in a different way. Shultz’s writing is primarily meant for written work on the computer; therefore, length is defiantly a major factor in writing. The size of a computer screen only allows so many characters, sentences, and paragraphs to be inserted before the reader must scroll to another page. This way of writing makes it harder for readers to stay on track. Turning a page in a book is less complicated than following a computer screen that constantly moves. Because of this way of following along, Shultz proposes that we make all writing that is to be viewed on the computer screen limited to one screen worth, that way, the reader will not get lost.

The long, drawn out explanations in some style guides are structured in this way for an audience of mature, advanced readers. The shorter, simple explanations are guided towards beginning or intermediate readers. The length is in direct correlation to the readers. All of the style guides discussed by Strunk & White, Williams, and Shultz show this correlation in their works. Although any reader can walk away with something important from these books, it would be best to use the one that is set up in the most beneficial way for each individuals style.

Shultz, Heidi. The Elements of Electronic Communication. Allyn and Bacon: Boston,2000.

Williams, Joseph M. Style Toward Clarity and Grace. The University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 1990.

Strunk, William Jr. and White, E.B. The Elements of Style Fourth Edition. Allyn and Bacon: Boston, 2000.