- 01Title page and publication details
The Elements of Style
Compact guide to clear academic prose.
10Chapters
29Lessons
55Topics
Certificate of completion included
This course was produced by Cavua from a public-domain text.
Skills this course leaves you with.
- Apply core punctuation rules for clear prose
- Revise sentences to remove needless words
- Use active voice and concrete language effectively
- Organize paragraphs with topic sentences and emphasis
- Identify commonly misused words and correct them
- Improve academic writing clarity and concision
Curriculum
The full table of contents.
Every chapter, every lesson, every topic — laid out before you enroll. Click any chapter to expand it.
- Chapters
- 10
- Lessons
- 29
- Topics
- 55
- 01Copyright notices
- 01Contents of the lesson
- 01Purpose and scope of the book
- 02References, acknowledgments, and advice on style
- 01Serial comma in three-term series
- 02Possessive singular nouns with 's
- 03Parenthetic expressions set off by commas
- 01Comma before a conjunction introducing a co-ordinate clause
- 01Do not join independent clauses by a comma
- 01Do not break sentences in two
- 01Paragraph as the unit of composition
- 01Paragraphs and dialogue as units
- 02Topic sentence at the beginning and end
- 03Ways to develop a paragraph
- 01Use the active voice
- 01Put statements in positive form
- 01Definite, specific, concrete language
- 01Concise writing and needless words
- 01Avoiding monotonous loose sentences
- 02Parallel construction for co-ordinate ideas
- 03Keeping related words together
- 04Using one tense in summaries
- 01Placing emphatic words at the end of a sentence
- 01Headings and numerals
- 02Parentheses and quotations
- 03Scholarly references and syllabication
- 04Titles of literary works
- 01All right
- 02As good or better than
- 03As to whether
- 04Bid
- 05But
- 01Misused words and expressions beginning with C
- 01Folk as a collective noun
- 02Misused words: effect, etc., fact, factor, feature, fix, get
- 01Misused relative clauses and filler expressions
- 02However and interesting
- 03Kind of, less, like, and line
- 01Literal and literally
- 02Lose out and related verb forms
- 03Most, nature, and near by
- 04Oftentimes, one hundred and one, and one of the most
- 01Possessive with verbal nouns
- 02People, phase, possess, prove, respective
- 01Shall and will in future tense
- 01Use of very for emphasis
- 02While as connective and concessive
- 03Whom, worth while, and would
- 01Spelling conventions and accepted variants
- 02Words often misspelled
- 03Doubling consonants and hyphenation rules
- 01Punctuating historical and literary passages
- 01Faults in sentences 9–25
- 01Transcriber's corrections list
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