The Well-Crafted Sentence: A Writer's Guide to Style

by Nora Bacon

What makes a sentence strong? Nora Bacon’s The Well-Crafted Sentence: A Writer’s Guide to Style demystifies grammatical concepts and stylistic choices by taking apart expert writers’ sentences as illustrations and asking students to practice crafting and revising their own. Examples throughout the text are excerpted from 11 readings collected in an anthology at the end of the book, so you can teach style in the context of a larger argument or narrative. With four new model texts, expanded explanations of grammatical concepts, and new coverage of figures of speech, the third edition invites students to experiment with sentence structures that make writing stronger.

Genres: Nonfiction, Writing, Teaching, How To

515 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 24, 2008

Reviews

[Selin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Final Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

It was hard to keep my attention, but manageable.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most books on style are pitched to fairly advanced writers, but this one addresses beginners. Bacon's advice is sensible and useful. I particularly like her five tips for sharpening the focus of subject-verb pairs in sentences (pp. 49–55).

Unfortunately, as often seems the case with books on style, her advice tends to be burdened by an excess of categories, qualifications, examples, and exercises. The book is often daunting on a visual level—cluttered with boxes, lists, underlinings, italics, and bolded terms—and as a result can feel a bit of a slog to get through.

[Noura Alhomsi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was my first good grammar book. I was surprised to find it wasn’t as boring as I expected. It explains a lot of sentence structures and how and when they should be used. It also has a great grammatical glossary in the back. You can use the whole book as a reference and you can just read the chapters individually and without chronological order.

[Jas · Rating 4 out of 5]

really great guide to the sentence. been putting off reading this and i feel like, after reading through, i have a better grasp of my syntax. while i understood and recognized all the grammatical structures discussed, it's always nice to have it laid out in plain terms.

[Sarah Hurst · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good, basic style guide for beginner writers. Probably best for high school seniors or college freshmen.

[Maddy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice reference and accessible. Obviously I'm not going to read it for fun, but I might revisit it sometimes while writing papers.

[Deborah · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice handbook (complete with definitions and exercizes!), but one that focuses on effects and context a little more than most handbooks. Essays in the back to read to consider style and implications (and which are the sources of the exercises).

[Mills College Library]

428.2 B129 2013

[Jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This would be a great accompaniment for an introductory college English class. I hope Bacon's book catches on...