A Guide to Style in English

by Ray & Chris Sparkes

Creative writing is studied in school and college, and practised by many in their spare time. This informal book will assist those writers who wish to improve their talent and to achieve success. It encourages them to become aware of good style in the work of past and present authors, and to recognize jargon and bad writing in everyday life. This book is a revised edition of the late Ray Sparkes’s book A Question of Style, published in 1986.

Contents: Clarity; What is Style? Jettisoning Jargon; Keeping to a Theme; Other Writers’ Styles; Letters – A lost Art? A Consideration of What Makes a Text Literary; What Makes Poetic Language? Writing Exercises at the End of Each Chapter.

The Authors: Ray Sparkes taught English and Drama for twenty-three years in Warwickshire and Hampshire secondary schools. He reviewed poetry for The Teacher and wrote a column regularly for the East Hampshire Post. He ran a small bookshop in Petersfield for several years after retiring from teaching, but later devoted his time to writing when not playing cricket and tennis. Ray died in 1993.

Chris Sparkes, Ray’s son, revised this book in the light of his experience in teaching linguistics and creative writing at further and higher educational levels. He was educated at University College, Chichester, and has a BA in English with Related Arts and an MA in Creative Writing. He is married with two children and lives near Petersfield, Hampshire.

Date of publication: 24/9/2004.
ISBNs: (10) 1 85341 119 1; (13) 978 185341 119 9 (paperback only).
Pages: 96; Dimensions: A5 (210 x 148 mm).
Price: £6.99 paperback only.