Editor’s note: When this column first appeared in the March/April 2010 edition of North Carolina Lawyer, the magazine was a bimonthly tabloid and Writing that Works was a “new, occasional feature designed to give practicing attorneys a ‘refresher’ on how to write effectively for their legal audiences.” The initial column is republished here in appreciation for the author, Laura Graham,…
“No wonder feelings run high about the comma. When it comes to improving the clarity of a sentence, you can nearly always argue that one should go in; you can nearly always argue that one should come out.” – Lynne Truss, Eats, Shoots & Leaves I often find myself wishing that my students’ feelings about the comma did run high! …
As a legal writing professor, one of my goals is to inspire my students to strive for excellence in their work. But this month, as I thought about what to say in this column, it was my students who inspired me. In late February, they turned in their rough drafts of their final assignment, and as I was reading, I…
North Carolina Lawyer magazine has been recognized for the second year in a row as best in class among the nation’s largest bar organizations.
Avoiding ‘Zombie Nouns’ (Nominalizations): One Way to Bring ‘Blah’ Legal Writing to Life Recently, a friend asked me to look at a document she was preparing to submit to a court. She thought the document was substantively strong and well-organized, but she felt it was “blah,” and she wasn’t sure why. As I skimmed through the document, I spotted the culprit:…
Using the ‘Find’ Feature to Improve Your Polishing and Proofreading As I’m writing this column, my first-year legal writing students are putting the finishing touches on their final memos of the semester. In recent classes, we’ve been discussing strategies for effectively polishing and proofreading their work. I’ve emphasized to my students that polishing and proofreading are tasks that require focused…
I can’t count the number of times in my twenty-four years as a legal writing professor that I’ve had the following exchange with new acquaintances: “So what do you do for a living?” “I teach legal writing at Wake Forest Law.” “Oh, so you’re the one who teaches law students how to write so that no one can understand it.”…
Does Anyone Really Care? (Spoiler: Yes) Over my years of teaching legal writing, I’ve struggled to carve out time to cover grammar and usage. I don’t think it’s the highest and best use of class time, and it certainly isn’t the most interesting. I do require my students to buy a good legal writing style manual,[i] and I encourage them to…
“Use parallel structure here, for greater readability.” I don’t know how many times I’ve written that comment on students’ memo and brief drafts. I do know that the majority of those times, I’ve gotten this follow-up question: “Can you explain exactly what you mean by parallel structure?” It’s a hard writing technique to explain, which is why I thought this…
I’m not a fan of neologisms—newly developed or coined words that fall into mainstream usage and gain a foothold. (Think “mansplain” or “staycation” or “bromance.”) As someone whose bread and butter comes from teaching students to use words thoughtfully and precisely, I find neologisms distracting and annoying, especially when I see them in writing. But sometimes, there is simply no…