Comparing Strunk and White with Williams

Williams doesn't address the plentiful technicalities of English grammar like Strunk and White does; instead, he gives advice on forming complete ideas that have "flow" in a paragraph or whole document. Williams doesn't have the authoritative attitude of Strunk & White, and I think the advice reflects that in its lack of technical examples and punctuation dos and don'ts. Without that 'tude, Williams doesn't use ironic examples that are "wrong" to make his case like Strunk. He generates his own examples that geniunely are helpful to understanding the concept without being condescending to the reader.

Williams is more effective because of the helpful, co-pilot approach, however, the length and depth of the explanations can become a liability. Some passages inspired confusion during my reading, forcing me to backtrack and reread the last passage once, if not twice more. Some of the explanations require background knowledge of the language. An example is the discourse on passive and active voice; if I'm really not sure what the difference is and how to replicate it in a sentence, the book leaves me wondering. The discussion on nominalization was also confusing, but Williams did manage to explain this adequately.

I liked some of the straightforward simplicity in Strunk's handbook. The reference-quality passages were easy to digest. The cut and dried rules with no explanations put me off, but they get the job done and present a basic foundation for components of writing. For more comprehensive writing tips, Williams beats out Strunk hands down. Not only does Williams have the grace and clarity in his own writing to sympathize with a student, he shows how to translate that style to the student's writing. I think that Strunk's advice should be taken with a grain of salt after reading what Williams had to say. I still agree that a firm grasp of the basic rules are Strunk's territory and should be followed, and that once those are implanted the student can then use the strategies in Williams' book to modify Strunk's rules, put them back together, and end with an organized and stylistically superior piece of writing.