Style: A Pragmatic Approach

by Peter Richardson

Style combines a concise and clear guide to stylistic revision and a mini-anthology of professional prose stylists. Three stylistic guidelines—relevance, proportion, and clarity—link revision strategies to everyday conversational practice. Mini-anthology of 7 selections analyzes stylistic decisions of authors in various fields, showing how they follow, or flout, the stylistic guidelines. Section on metaphor shows readers how to generate new and related ideas from previous drafts. Three new readings including Carol Clover's essay on gender in the modern horror film, a model of academic writing. A new section on pronoun choice helps writers avoid sexist language. More “real-world” examples and exercises illustrate how pragmatic decisions of style are applied. Includes more emphasis on alphabetic literacy, both as a technology and as it relates to speech. For those seeking a clear and concise style book to enhance their writing skills.

Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Peter Richardson has written critically acclaimed books about Hunter S. Thompson, the Grateful Dead, Ramparts magazine, and radical author and editor Carey McWilliams. He is currently completing a book about the first decade of Rolling Stone magazine.

Richardson's essays have appeared in The Nation, The New Republic, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Review of Books, Literary Hub, Guernica, California History, and many other outlets. Excerpts of his work have appeared in the New York Times, Mother Jones, and Bookforum. A busy book reviewer, Richardson received the National Entertainment Journalism Award for Online Criticism in 2013.

From 2006 to 2023, Richardson taught courses on California culture at San Francisco State University. His cultural commentary has been featured in major newspapers and magazines in North America and abroad, and he has appeared in several documentary films and television programs. He is regular guest on radio programs and podcasts, and he speaks occasionally at universities, museums, book festivals, and historical societies.

Richardson's professional experience includes editorial stints at the University of California Press, PoliPoint Press, the Public Policy Institute of California, and Harper & Row, Publishers.

In the 1990s, Richardson was an associate professor of English at the University of North Texas, a Fulbright Senior Scholar in Iceland, and an NEH Summer Seminar fellow at Harvard University. He also wrote a textbook on stylistic revision, now in its second edition. Before that, he earned a Ph.D. in English from the University of California, Berkeley, and a B.A. in economics at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Born and raised in the East Bay, he now lives in Sonoma County.