Four Easy Pieces: Organization

It’s the beginning of another academic year, and therefore it’s a good time to discuss the mechanics of writing and research. These are topics I cover briefly with students who take seminar classes from me, but I thought they might be useful to a broader audience. In a series of a few posts, I’m going to cover three topics about writing — organization, paragraphs, and persuasion — and one about research: hitting the books.

  1. Organization

Lawyers, judges, clients — pretty much everyone who is not reading while sitting on a beach — are busy people. They have limited time. Very limited time. It’s crucial that you give them some sort of sense immediately (1) why you are writing to them, and (2) what your message is. This applies to memos, letters, briefs, complaints, law review articles, essay exams, letters to the editor, even (or most especially) emails. Business documents often do this with an “executive summary,” but most of the executive summaries I see are mealy-mouthed mush. Be clear and concise; time is most definitely not on your side. You do not want your reader to get to the second paragraph and be wondering, “Who is this idiot and what is he/she prattling on about?”

This means that you must get to the point immediately. A MEMO/BRIEF/EXAM IS NOT A MYSTERY NOVEL.

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George Orwell on Writing Well

George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm are familiar reading for many of us. A few years ago a student suggested I also read his essays, and in particular, “Politics and the English Language.” George Orwell, A Collection of Essays 156-71 (10th ed. 1981).

In this essay, Orwell claims that the English language is in decline, and that the decline has “political and economic causes.” (156) Orwell asserts, however, that the “bad habits” in written English can be avoided. (157) He reasons that in getting rid of these habits, “one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers.” (157)

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Brevity in Lincoln’s Writing

Professor Julie Oseid examines Abraham Lincoln’s writing in her article The Power of Brevity:  Adopt Abraham Lincoln’s Habits, 6 J. ALWD 28 (2009).  Based on her review of Lincoln’s writing, Oseid recommends that lawyers use his “habits of writing early, visualizing audience, and ruthlessly editing.”  (page 29)

Oseid starts with the premise that “[t]he goal of brevity should be clarity.” (29)  Lincoln, she says, described the opposite of brevity when he said that another lawyer could “’compress the most words into the smallest ideas of any man I ever met.’”  (29)  Brevity does not sacrifice precision, however, and a writer must be aware of concepts like the rhythm and sound in phrases like “’[f]our score and seven years ago.’”  (30)

Brevity has persuasive power.  (30)  Oseid quotes Justice Antonin Scalia and Bryan A. Garner on brevity in Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges:  “’Judges often associate the brevity of the brief with the quality of the lawyer.  Many judges we’ve spoken with say that good lawyers often come in far below the page limits—and that bad lawyers almost never do.’”  (30)

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