[Paul8]

Joseph M. Williams's "Style: Toward Clarity and Grace" is by far the best book on learning HOW to put sentences and paragraphs together. It teaches principles that I've never seen anywhere else -- principles for making my writing easy to read and understand. Then it teaches methods for applying those principles. So instead of teaching rules, it teaches how writing can be clear. Instead of "don't use passives" it shows the only time a passive verb makes the writing easier to read. It teaches how much new information to put in a sentence and where to put it. And then it shows how to connect that sentence to the next for simple flow.