Writing that Works: Creating a Legal Writing ‘Hit List’

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 effort and a significant investment of time. In my class, I can build in the necessary time to focus on these skills; but as I know from my days in practice, it’s much harder to find that time out in the “real world” of law practice. Yet it’s vital to do so, because errors in our final product can diminish our credibility in our reader’s eyes.

In this column, I’m sharing one simple strategy to help you polish and proofread your work more efficiently and effectively: using the “Find” feature. With a few easy searches, you can identify and correct all kinds of problems — grammar, punctuation, and spelling errors; wordy constructions; and imprecisions. You can even develop your own “legal writing hit list” of the errors that you tend to make most often.

Make a hit list of commonly misspelled words that Spellcheck won’t catch. Here are some examples:

  • Search for trail. Should it be trial?
  • Search for statue. Should it be statute?
  • Search for judgement. It should be judgment.
  • Search for pubic. Should it be public? (I’ve seen this one too many times to count, and it’s one of the more embarrassing spelling errors you can make.)
  • Search for _________. (You fill in the blank—what word do you frequently mistype? For me, it’s fir instead of for. So fir is on my hit list.)

Make a hit list of frequently confused words. Here are some common culprits:

  • Search for effect. Should it be affect?
  • Search for found. Should it be held or ruled? (I find that my students often use these words interchangeably to describe what a court did in a particular case.)
  • Search for prescribe. Should it be proscribe?
  • Search for principle. Should it be principal?
  • Search for reign. Should it be rein? (In a recent brief, I saw several instances of the phrase free reign when the writer meant free rein—as in, “Landowners would have free rein to ignore dangerous conditions.”)
  • Search for council. Should it be counsel?
  • • Search for _________. (You fill in the blank—what words do you frequently confuse? If you’ve been reading my column for a while, you know that I struggle with flaunt and flout. So those words are on my hit list.)

Make a hit list of common punctuation errors. Here are some good candidates:

  • Search for it’s. Should it be its? (It’s is a contraction of it is. Its is possessive.)
  • Search for apostrophes.
  • Is the word containing the apostrophe a contraction? If so, consider eliminating the contraction.
  • Is the word containing the apostrophe showing possession? If not, don’t use an apostrophe. Example: Your search reveals this sentence: The Smith’s filed a complaint alleging breach of contract. Because Smith’s does not show possession, the apostrophe should go.
  • Search for opening quotation marks. For each one, make sure there is a closing quotation mark to match it.
  • Search for opening parentheses marks. For each one, make sure there is a closing parentheses mark to match it.
  • Search for __________. (You fill in the blank—what punctuation errors do you tend to make? For me, it’s overusing semicolons. So that mark is on my hit list.)

Make a hit list of words that introduce clunky phrases, then edit for conciseness.

  • Search for it is. Does it precede a word-waster like It is important to note that or it is clear that?
  • Search for there is (there are). Does it precede a word-waster like There are many courts that hold or There is no way Defendant can successfully argue?
  • Search for by. Is it part of a passive construction? If so, can you change the construction to an active one? (Not every passive construction contains a by clause, but many do.)
  • Search for __________. (You fill in the blank—what wordy phrases do you tend to use? For me, it’s In the present case, so that phrase is on my hit list. I usually change it to Here.)

Make a hit list of intensifiers that add no persuasive value and annoy readers.

  • Search for clearly. Then delete it!
  • Search for obviously. Then delete it!
  • Search for beyond (as in It is beyond dispute that or It is beyond obvious that). Then delete it!
  • Search for _________. (You fill in the blank—what intensifier do you tend to overuse? I once had clearly on my hit list, but I’ve broken myself of the bad habit of overusing that word.)

The legal writing hit list has many advantages. First, you can personalize it to account for your own writing and typing “bugaboos.” Second, you can share it with colleagues who assist you with your writing (your administrative professional or your paralegal, for example) so they can search for the errors you make most often. Third, you can easily add items to and remove items from the list. (One day I hope to be able to remove flaunt and flout from my hit list!)

I’ll conclude with one caveat about using the “Find” feature: I don’t recommend that it be your only method of polishing and proofreading. After I go through my hit list, I still print out my document and proof it manually, for a couple of reasons. First, when we’re actively engaging with a hard copy, we’re more likely to spot errors. Second, the “Find” feature won’t enable us to catch every error. But it’s one more helpful tool to put in your legal writing toolbox; and if you’re like me, you’ll take all the help you can get!

Laura Graham serves as Professor of Legal Writing and Director of Legal Analysis, Writing, and Research at Wake Forest University School of Law. She is a graduate of Wake Forest University and Wake Forest University School of Law, where she received the 1994 Outstanding Woman Law Graduate Award. She was also the first recipient of the Graham Award for Excellence in Teaching Legal Research and Writing, which is named in her honor. She welcomes emails from readers at [email protected].

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ENDNOTES

i The Aspen Handbook for Legal Writers (my go-to legal writing style manual) has a terrific Appendix called “Glossary of Usage” that is worth the cost of purchasing the book.

ii Purdue’s excellent Online Writing Lab (OWL) discusses this aspect of proofreading and provides many other helpful hints for the proofreading process. See https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/the_writing_process/proofreading/index.html.