Strunk and White: first impressions

Even though the Strunk and White book was a little dry for my taste, I can really appreciate it as a great resource and tool for writing. I actually wish that I could have had something like this at the beginning of my academic career, as it would have answered a lot of my questions about general writing. While I did notice small inconsistencies with what I had learned throughout school, many of them I was taught could have multiple correct possibilities. For example, when he is talking about using commas in a list format, I was taught that you could include a comma after every item but the last, or that it was also perfectly fine to omit the comma after the last two items. For example: “red, white, and blue colors” is just as acceptable as “red, white and blue colors”.
One thing that I did find helpful was the section using semicolons and colons. I typically try to avoid using these at all costs because I’m never sure which is acceptable it what situation. When in doubt, I simply break things up into multiple sentences, which using great connecting words and phrases to help things flow well. One area that I didn’t particularly like was their section on misused words and phrases. I know that as a writer I tend to write exactly how I would say something. This means that I like the informal style, and tend to use a lot of unnecessary phrases leading into my sentences. One example that they use on page 60 is “The fact is…”. I know for a fact that I would use this in my writing, simply because I love leading into my sentences. While I understand that this is not necessary, I don’t believe that it’s altogether horrible to use them either.