The Elements of Style（二）

12. Choose a suitable design and hold on it.

13.Make the paragraph the unit of composition.

14.Use the active voice.

15.Put statements in positive form.

16.Use definite, specific, concrete language.

17.Omit needless words.

    Vigorous writing is consice. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all sentences short, or avoid all detail and treat subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.

18.Avoid a succession of loose sentences.

19.Express coordinate ideas in similar form.

20.Keep related words together.

21.In summaries, keep to one tense.

22.Place the emphatic words of a sentence at the end.