Joseph M. Williams (18 August 1933 in Cleveland, Ohio – 22 February 2008 in South Haven, Michigan) was a professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Chicago where he promoted clarity in writing for many years.
To meet these ends Williams laid out streamlined steps to help writers first make their sentences and paragraphs clear and then graceful.
Beyond clarity, graceful sentences and paragraphs are concise, shapely (uninterrupted and coordinated), and elegant (balanced in syntax, meaning, sound and rhythm).
In later editions, he discussed ethics of writing understood as a social act between writer and reader and offered steps to produce coherent documents.
Together with Gregory G. Colomb, Francis X. Kinahan, and Lawrence D. McEnerney, Williams developed innovative instructional materials for advanced writers in the academy and the professions known as "The Little Red Schoolhouse".