Optimizing Writing Skills
| Publication year | 1992 |
| Pages | 711 |
| Citation | Vol. 21 No. 4 Pg. 711 |
1992, April, Pg. 711. Optimizing Writing Skills
This article offers several suggestions that will help optimize writing skills and make writing a greater asset in your legal practice. Preparation, readable execution and careful review are the three major components to better writing. Legalese has fallen by the wayside. Today's consumers of legal services, as well as the support staff that assists the attorney in delivering those services, expect attorneys to write in a manner that fosters easy understanding.
Every written document requires a certain degree of preparation to be effective. This may involve a brief consideration of the best way to write down a phone message or it may involve the best way to present large quantities of information, such as is required in a brief. Before beginning, it may help to write down ideas and organize them on paper. It also helps to ask the following questions:
1) Who will receive this document?
2) What exactly is hoped to be accomplished?
3) Will the person receiving the written communication understand its meaning or will it require special explanation?
4) Do you understand the subject well enough to write it down adequately?
The most difficult task is the writing itself. The following are good rules of thumb for most documents.
1) Write to the reader, not at the reader, about things of interest.
2) Focus on the objective and make it clear.
3) Keep the text short and to the point, with detail and backup material in attachments.
4) Separate ideas by using headings and subheadings where appropriate.
5) Indent, itemize and use underlining for emphasis to enhance the format and make the text more readable.
6) Begin with a key statement that will catch the reader's attention.
7) Develop a logical sequence of events and use transitions to get from one point to another.
8) Say exactly what is meant---write as you would talk.
9) Avoid wordiness, vagueness, jargon and ambiguity.
10) Use active sentences and keep the subject and verb close together.
11) Vary sentence length, but do not use more than thirty words in one sentence.
12) Use single idea paragraphs and vary their length. Try to avoid paragraphs of more than twenty lines.
13) When closing, recap the...
To continue reading
Request your trial