{"id":12881,"date":"2011-02-21T14:56:21","date_gmt":"2011-02-21T19:56:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=12881"},"modified":"2011-02-21T14:56:21","modified_gmt":"2011-02-21T19:56:21","slug":"brevity-in-lincolns-writing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2011\/02\/brevity-in-lincolns-writing\/","title":{"rendered":"Brevity in Lincoln’s Writing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Professor Julie Oseid examines Abraham Lincoln\u2019s writing in her article The Power of Brevity:\u00a0 Adopt Abraham Lincoln\u2019s Habits<\/em>, 6 J. ALWD 28 (2009).\u00a0 Based on her review of Lincoln\u2019s writing, Oseid recommends that lawyers use his \u201chabits of writing early, visualizing audience, and ruthlessly editing.\u201d\u00a0 (page 29)<\/p>\n

Oseid starts with the premise that \u201c[t]he goal of brevity should be clarity.\u201d (29)\u00a0 Lincoln, she says, described the opposite of brevity when he said that another lawyer could \u201c\u2019compress the most words into the smallest ideas of any man I ever met.\u2019\u201d\u00a0 (29)\u00a0 Brevity does not sacrifice precision, however, and a writer must be aware of concepts like the rhythm and sound in phrases like \u201c\u2019[f]our score and seven years ago.\u2019\u201d \u00a0(30)<\/p>\n

Brevity has persuasive power.\u00a0 (30)\u00a0 Oseid quotes Justice Antonin Scalia and Bryan A. Garner on brevity in Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges<\/em>:\u00a0 \u201c\u2019Judges often associate the brevity of the brief with the quality of the lawyer.\u00a0 Many judges we\u2019ve spoken with say that good lawyers often come in far below the page limits\u2014and that bad lawyers almost never do.\u2019\u201d\u00a0 (30)<\/p>\n

Lincoln used brevity to persuade as a lawyer.\u00a0 (33)\u00a0 Oseid describes the language Lincoln used with a jury as clear, simple, and non-technical.\u00a0 (35)\u00a0 He used \u201ccommon language to appeal to the average person.\u201d\u00a0 (35)\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lincoln also used brevity to persuade as president.\u00a0 (36-37)\u00a0 The Gettysburg Address is only 272 words long, and 206 of those words are only one syllable long.\u00a0 (41)\u00a0 Similar to his days as a lawyer, in the Gettysburg Address Lincoln \u201cused ordinary vocabulary to persuade his listening and reading audiences.\u201d\u00a0 (41)\u00a0 Oseid explains that the Gettysburg audience of 15,000 to 20,000 people had been waiting for hours to hear him speak.\u00a0 (48-49)\u00a0 Lincoln\u2019s Second Inaugural is 701 words long; \u201cLincoln delivered it in about six minutes.\u201d\u00a0 (42)\u00a0 In this speech, Lincoln used brevity of language to distill his message of reconciliation for the war weary audience.\u00a0 (44, 49)\u00a0<\/p>\n

Oseid recommends adopting Lincoln\u2019s writing habits.\u00a0 (45)\u00a0 Lincoln started writing his speeches early and diligently and learned to visualize his audience.\u00a0 (46-48)\u00a0 He emphasized those habits to other lawyers.\u00a0 (47)\u00a0 Lincoln himself said that the way to learn the law is \u201c\u2019very simple, though laborious and tedious.\u00a0 It is only to get the books, and read, and study them carefully. . . . Work, work, work, is the main thing.\u2019\u201d\u00a0 (47)\u00a0 \u201cHe knew that diligence in refining his work would pay off with increased persuasiveness.\u201d\u00a0 (47)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Professor Julie Oseid examines Abraham Lincoln\u2019s writing in her article The Power of Brevity:\u00a0 Adopt Abraham Lincoln\u2019s Habits, 6 J. ALWD 28 (2009).\u00a0 Based on her review of Lincoln\u2019s writing, Oseid recommends that lawyers use his \u201chabits of writing early, visualizing audience, and ruthlessly editing.\u201d\u00a0 (page 29) Oseid starts with the premise that \u201c[t]he goal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[97,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legacies-of-lincoln","category-legal-writing","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12881\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}