On Writing Well
On Writing Well by William Zinsserby William Zinsser
Ranked 3 of 6 writing guides by recommenders
Recommended as a good book about writing, praised as dense, informative, enlightening and funny.
Recommended as a good book about writing, praised as dense, informative, enlightening and funny.
5 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 4
- criticize it
- 1
- approval share
- 80%
Recommended in 3 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 4 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 4 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 3 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Good book about writing
“One of the good book about writing I read was William Zinsser's "On Writing Well"”
Comment from 1 Mar 2026 in “AI Made Writing Code Easier. It Made Being an Engineer Harder” “This is basically the main argument of On Writing Well”
Comment from 6 Sep 2026 in “Your intellectual fly is open when you use an LLM to author a post (2025)” Informative and enlightening content
“Hilarious, enlightening, affirming of everyone's need and ability to write well.”
Comment from 27 Dec 2025 in “Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?” “Dense and quite informative.”
Comment from 29 Dec 2025 in “Show HN: Vibe coding a bookshelf with Claude Code” Focus on every word
“This is basically the main argument of On Writing Well”
Comment from 6 Sep 2026 in “Your intellectual fly is open when you use an LLM to author a post (2025)” “Is every word doing new work?”
Comment from 27 Mar 2026 in “Anatomy of the .claude/ Folder”
Other writing guides people recommend
The four most recommended other writing guides, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Elements of Styleby Strunk and White | 12 | 10 | 55% | 8 | — | — |
| On Writingby Stephen King | 9 | 0 | 100% | 4 | — | — |
| On Writing Wellby William ZinsserThis page | 4 | 1 | 80% | 3 | — | — |
| The Sense of Styleby Steven Pinker | 3 | 1 | 75% | 2 | — | — |
| Writing for Developersby Scynthia Dunlop | 2 | 0 | 100% | 3 | — | — |
What people said
All 6 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“This is basically the main argument of On Writing Well”
“Is every word doing new work?”
“I've had it happen with one that had a noticeable print defect (On Writing Well)”
“One of the good book about writing I read was William Zinsser's "On Writing Well"”
“Dense and quite informative.”
“Hilarious, enlightening, affirming of everyone's need and ability to write well.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.