How to Write Well: 50 Pointers on Process, Usage, and Style
About this ebook
For decades, people looking for a concise guide to English-language writing turned to The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White. That slim book has been used by everyone from high school and college students to professionals seeking quick advice on usage, grammar, and form. But The Elements of Style hasn’t been updated in more than a quarter century, and it no longer reflects the way good writers work or what they most need to know, especially in the age of generative AI.
How to Write Well: 50 Pointers on Process, Usage, and Style is the modern, evidence-based alternative. Leading language and writing expert Bryan A. Gamer distills a lifetime of teaching and research into 50 compact pointers for modern writers seeking to produce clear, accurate, and lively prose. You’ll learn how strong writers think, how they turn ideas into blueprints, and how they draft, revise, and tighten with ruthless selectivity. You’ll also encounter lucid guidance on grammar and punctuation that corrects Strunk & White’s famous blunders, including shaky treatment of passive voice and a fixation on trivia over substance.
How to Write Well presents a start-to-finish method: mindset, habits, process, and the concrete techniques that produce clean, forceful writing. Unlike The Elements of Style, this book doesn’t pretend your draft magically appears on the page. It shows you how to generate ideas, structure them, and build a repeatable process for everything you write—from emails and memos to articles, briefs, and books. And while emphasizing the mind and the voice of the writer, it also offers advice on working intelligently with AI while keeping full editorial control.
If you’re serious about writing, Garner’s How to Write Well is the indispensable style book you need now.
About the author
Bryan A. Garner is president of LawProse, Inc., Distinguished Research Professor of Law at Southern Methodist University, and editor-in-chief of Black’s Law Dictionary. He is the author of Legal Writing in Plain English and The Chicago Guide to Grammar, Usage, and Punctuation, also published by the University of Chicago Press. Garner is the author of the best-selling books Garner’s Modern English Usage and, with Justice Antonin Scalia, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts and Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges.
