STRATEGY AND STYLE II cause we want to 'join our lives.'")At the same time the sentences are sufficiently varied to achieve a strategy funda- mental to all good prose-to get and hold the reader's attention. Remember several things about strategy.First,it is many- sided.Any piece of prose displays not one but numerous strategies-of organization,of sentence structure,of word choice,of point of view,of tone.In effective writing these reinforce one another. Second,no absolute one-to-one correspondence exists be- tween strategy and purpose.A specific strategy may be adapted to various purposes.The question/answer mode of organizing,for example,is not confined to persuasion:it is often used in informative writing.Furthermore,a particular purpose may be served by different strategies.In our example the student's organization was not the only one possible.An- other writer might have organized using a "list"strategy: People get married for a variety of reasons.First...Second... Third...Finally... Still another might have used a personal point of view,or taken a less serious approach,or assumed a more formal re- lationship with the reader. Style In its broadest sense "style"is the total of all the choices a writer makes concerning words and their arrangements.In this sense style may be good or bad-good if the choices are appropriate to the writer's purpose,bad if they are not.More narrowly,"style"has a positive,approving sense,as when we say that someone has "style"or praise a writer for his or her "style.More narrowly yet,the word may also designate a particular way of writing,unique to a person or characteristic of a group or profession:"Hemingway's style,""an academic style."STRATEGY AND STYLE 11 cause we want to 'join our lives.' ") At the same time the sentences are sufficiently varied to achieve a strategy funda￾mental to all good prose—to get and hold the reader's attention. Remember several things about strategy. First, it is many￾sided. Any piece of prose displays not one but numerous strategies—of organization, of sentence structure, of word choice, of point of view, of tone. In effective writing these reinforce one another. Second, no absolute one-to-one correspondence exists be￾tween strategy and purpose. A specific strategy may be adapted to various purposes. The question/answer mode of organizing, for example, is not confined to persuasion: it is often used in informative writing. Furthermore, a particular purpose may be served by different strategies. In our example the student's organization was not the only one possible. An￾other writer might have organized using a "list" strategy: People get married for a variety of reasons. First. . . Second . . . Third . . . Finally . . . Still another might have used a personal point of view, or taken a less serious approach, or assumed a more formal re￾lationship with the reader. Style In its broadest sense "style" is the total of all the choices a writer makes concerning words and their arrangements. In this sense style may be good or bad—good if the choices are appropriate to the writer's purpose, bad if they are not. More narrowly, "style" has a positive, approving sense, as when we say that someone has "style" or praise a writer for his or her "style." More narrowly yet, the word may also designate a particular way of writing, unique to a person or characteristic of a group or profession: "Hemingway's style," "an academic style