On Writing Well

I was recently perusing Bryan Garner's Garner's Modern American Usage (Oxford, 2003) for some editing that I was doing, and I ran across his entry entitled "Superstitions." (Bryan Garner also wrote the section on grammar in the most recent edition of the Chicago Manual of Style.) He lists some of the usual superstitions, like the following:

1. "Never end a sentence with a preposition."

2. "Never split an infinitive."

3. "Never begin a sentence with because."

I very much appreciate Garner's demonstrative quotations from past grammarians and highly respected writers that show statements like those listed above to be false. But when it comes to breaking the superstitious rules listed above in my own writing, I think twice before I do it. People that have usually read my work are people who learned writing in a different era, so they sometimes view rules like those mentioned above as errant. Moreover, if I did need to correct such readers on a matter of grammar, they might think that I am nitpicking.

As a result, I've taken on two styles of writing in the past: one writing style for the work in my discipline and the other style for work outside my discipline. I am trying more and more, though, to write the way I feel is best.

Justin