The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. Professor of English Cornell University Privately Printed Ithaca, New York 1918 Copyright 1918 By William Strunk, Jr. Press of W. P. Humphrey, Geneva, N.Y. ________________________________________ Contents I. Introductory II. Elementary Rules of Usage 1. Form the possessive singular of nouns with 's 2. In a series of three or more terms with a single conjunction, use a comma after each term except the last 3. Enclose parenthetic expressions between commas 4. Place a comma before and or but introducing an independent clause 5. Do not join independent clauses by a comma 6. Do not break sentences in two 7. A participial phrase at the beginning of a sentence must refer to the grammati