{"id":22747,"date":"2014-06-09T09:13:02","date_gmt":"2014-06-09T14:13:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=22747"},"modified":"2014-06-09T09:19:34","modified_gmt":"2014-06-09T14:19:34","slug":"cut-it-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2014\/06\/cut-it-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Cut It Out"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Editing\"<\/a>Know how and when to cut words from your sentences during the editing process?\u00a0 Here are some links to help.<\/p>\n

Bryan Garner\u2019s April 2014 ABA Journal magazine article<\/a> provides a good list of unnecessary phrases.\u00a0 Garner recommends \u201caxing\u201d words like \u201cherein\u201d from legal documents.<\/p>\n

WordRake<\/a> is an editing program that allows you to upload a document and receive line edits on concision and clarity.\u00a0 This blog<\/a> tested the program on some sample Supreme Court authority with favorable results.\u00a0 Also check out the WordRake blog<\/a> for editing advice.<\/p>\n

One easy starting point for editing is to look for and eliminate \u201cthere is\u201d and \u201cit is\u201d from your sentences.\u00a0 These phrases add meaningless fluff at the most important point of a sentence\u2014the beginning\u2014and often signal the passive voice and nominalizations.\u00a0 This blog<\/a> suggests ways to streamline your writing by eliminating \u201cthere is\u201d and \u201cit is\u201d (or the past tense version) or phrases like \u201cgiven the fact that\u201d or \u201cin light of the fact that.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Another starting point for your edits is to review the verb in your sentence.\u00a0 Aim for strong verbs\u2014those verbs that describe an action.\u00a0 Using strong verbs helps you to reduce adverb usage.\u00a0 This blog<\/a> explains the benefits of strong verbs, among other tips, and offers strategies for the global editing process.\u00a0 Aim to put the subject and verb at the beginning of the sentence.\u00a0 Doing so will make your sentences more direct and active and reduce clutter.<\/p>\n

This Economist blog<\/a> explains the problem of front loading a sentence when you are handling complicated legal concepts.\u00a0 The blog focuses on a key problem in legal writing:\u00a0 that the concepts you\u2019re writing about are so complex that you need to write simply, directly, and plainly to aid reader comprehension.\u00a0 Adding complexity to your writing\u2014legalese\u2014exponentially increases the chances the parties (or the judge) may miss your point.\u00a0 Eliminate strings of prepositional phrases like \u201cof the\u201d or \u201cby the.\u201d\u00a0 Replace the prepositional phrase with an apostrophe<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Purdue University OWL (Online Writing Lab)<\/a> has exercises with answer keys on eliminating wordiness.\u00a0 The OWL is a comprehensive online writing resource.<\/p>\n

Want to gain a historical perspective on why legal writing has traditionally been so wordy and convoluted?\u00a0 This blog<\/a> offers the conventional theory that wordiness resulted from the Norman conquest of England, when lawyers apparently felt the need to use both English and French words in legal documents.<\/p>\n

The ability to edit efficiently and effectively is a skill all lawyers need, whether you\u2019re a litigator or a transactional attorney.\u00a0 Keep a checklist of words and phrases, tips and techniques, and resources.\u00a0 Use your word processor\u2019s \u2018find\u2019 feature to look for wordy phrases like \u201cthere is.\u201d\u00a0 Read sentences that are more than three lines long out loud to yourself to hear where you can divide up the sentence.\u00a0 You can skim the beginning of each sentence to see if the subject and verb begin the sentence; if not, then consider editing the sentence.\u00a0 With a bit of practice, these editing techniques can become second nature.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Know how and when to cut words from your sentences during the editing process?\u00a0 Here are some links to help. Bryan Garner\u2019s April 2014 ABA Journal magazine article provides a good list of unnecessary phrases.\u00a0 Garner recommends \u201caxing\u201d words like \u201cherein\u201d from legal documents. WordRake is an editing program that allows you to upload a […]<\/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":[36,42,122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal-practice","category-legal-writing","category-public","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22747","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=22747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22747\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}