Meet Professor James Memmott.
Professor Memmott was my journalism professor at the University of Rochester. At the time he was also the Sports reporter for the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle. Since then he has written for the Features section of the newspaper, retired from the paper and now teaches in the English department at UR.
I had asked Professor Memmott for a couple of recommendations on books that would help my writing.
He sent me those recommendations...along with the actual books!
Sigh, just another reason to realize in hindsight that Rochester was a great school all along!
Professor Memmott's List
1. Essentials of Writing is a handbook or style guide used at Hamilton College, where I went to school years ago. It is sort of college specific and meant as an explanation of some grading symbols, but it does talk about writing in a technical way.
2. The other Working with Words is, again, a handbook. There have been later editions, but the language, etc., doesn't change that much.
3. The Suspended Sentence: A guide for Writers by Roscoe C. Born. It may be out-of-print, but, if not it's chatty, sensible, even fun.
4. Lapsing Into a Comma, a Curmudgeon's Guide to the Many Things That Can Go Wrong in Print – and how to avoid them. It's by Bill Walsh, a copy desk chief at the Washington Post. It's the sort of book you can poke about in and it's easy and fun to read.
5. Everyone still swears by Strunk and White's The Elements of Style. I've never used, it, but I've certainly looked at it. There's a new illustrated edition.
6. William Zinsser's On Writing Well is also considered a must-have guide to writing. My memory of it is that's it's good.
8. Style, The Basics of Clarity and Grace by Joseph M. Williams. It's a little paperback published by Pearson Longman.
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