Writing style

In literature, writing style is the manner of expressing thought in language characteristic of an individual, period, school, or nation.^[1] Thus, style is a term that may refer, at one and the same time, to singular aspects of an individual's writing habits or a particular document and to aspects that go well-beyond the individual writer.^[2] Beyond the essential elements of spelling, grammar, and punctuation, writing style is the choice of words, sentence structure, and paragraph structure, used to convey the meaning effectively.^[3] The former are referred to as rules, elements, essentials, mechanics, or handbook; the latter are referred to as style, or rhetoric.^[4] The rules are about what a writer does; style is about how the writer does it. While following the rules drawn from established English usage, a writer has great flexibility in how to express a concept.^[5] Some have suggested that the point of writing style is to:

• express the message to the reader simply, clearly, and convincingly;^[6][7][8][9]
• keep the reader attentive, engaged, and interested;^[10][11]

Some have suggested that writing style should not be used to:

• display the writer's personality;^[12]
• demonstrate the writer's skills, knowledge, or abilities;^[13][14]

although these aspects may be part of a writer's individual style.^[15][16]

While this article focuses on practical approaches to style, style has been analyzed from a number of systematic approaches, including corpus linguistics,^[17] historical variation,^[18] rhetoric,^[19][20] sociolinguistics, sylistics,^[21] and World Englishes.^[22]