Books by Richard Lanham

Providing a basic descriptive terminology for prose style, this handbook supplies detailed, carefully charted answers to questions such as: what is a noun style? A verb style? A hypotactic or a paratactic style?

Intended as a supplement for courses that requires writing. This book models a system for creating prose. It argues that the bad writing results from our attempts to imitate Official Style. It shows how to "translate" official style into plain, understandable English through the application of a series of simple rules.