William Strunk (Strunk, William, 1869–1946) was an American professor of English at Cornell University, best known to Chinese readers for a short but widely circulated writing guide, The Elements of Style. The book began as teaching material he prepared for his students at Cornell and was later revised and published. It offers concise, concrete rules on word choice, sentence structure, punctuation, and paragraph organization, stressing that prose should be clear, accurate, and direct. Though brief, the work has had a lasting influence on the teaching of English writing and is regarded by many as a handy reference. Public information about his life and academic career is limited, so this entry focuses mainly on his representative work and his views on writing.
