Questions

Just doing a simple survey. How many of you would take the time to read a non-fiction book that was about the juvenile antics of two best friends? The book ranges from grade school years through adult life. It basically lays out the different pranks, gags, and other jokes played on others and each other.
- Nate D

Any skillful writer will tell you that at the beginning his text looked clumsy, too. He’ll say that when he now reads his first writings, he can’t help a smile. But he will also tell you that now he feels absolutely comfortable when writing, and the only mistakes that leave him unsatisfied refer to content or main idea, as it happens to a lot of writers, and some editing job has to be done to eliminate them.

If you plan to become a writer or journalist, or simply want to improve your academic writing in order to receive a better grade, there’s the only way out – write, write, and write. The secret is very easy. The thing is that the more you practice, the better you get acquainted with your typical mistakes. The better you know them, the more you will look for the ways to correct them. And this leads to the only possible result – successful writing. A sense for text comes with time, but once you get it, nothing will go wrong about your stylistics. With time you will also notice (and this is surprising to a lot of writers) that when reading a newspaper, you subconsciously edit the news story the way it should’ve been written, or mark good passages of an item.

There are several ways to improve your writing. One of them is by using online blogs. They have become very popular recently. The reason why you should use one is clear: independent critics will leave comments concerning your writing. You can even ask them to do it. However, don’t try to narrow it down to writing exercises. Express yourself. Write about something that bothers, surprises, inspires, or upsets you. Try to make your blog interesting to read. This is also a good option for those who are afraid of the fact that someone may find their papers with “clumsy writing”. Blogs leave you relevantly anonymous.

Pictures can be a way to practice, too. Make an album where you will have a separate page for every picture. Write comments, short stories, or jokes. Pictures are a good way to practice satire. It is a very valuable skill that is not commonly found today. With a practice like this who knows, maybe you will be the next famous satirical writer?

Some of you might be used to diaries; therefore, it’s a good idea to make a feedback diary, where you will leave your impressions of the day. Every day. Put it in whichever form you prefer, but avoid using simple language, or abbreviations. Instead, draw bright and colorful pictures. Usually days in a regular life don’t differ much, and sometimes it’s even hard to remember what happened last Friday. Imagine that in two years you will find your writing diary, read any note, and remember in details what happened that Wednesday in January.

If you don’t feel like committing yourself to everyday writing, make a writing journal. Use it whenever something significant happens to you. You can write in a style of a novel – with some prehistory, background details, and a vivid description of an event. Don’t put limitations like, “I need to write five pages on this event”. Try to avoid brevity, but make yourself comfortable with what you have to do.

If you feel more or less confident, but you know that there still has to be some practice, you can start compiling your own essay volume. It differs from both a diary and a journal, because here you let your imagination go wild and untamed. Create topics, make up stories, work on characters, and conduct researches. You can choose an issue that bothers you, and work on it systematically. Big projects are good for they teach you to organize notes (to keep track of all descriptions and characters), and to finish stories.

Whatever you choose – blogs, pictures, diaries, journals, or essay collections – remember that practice makes perfect. Something that sounds clumsy will look better with time. You will see that your style of writing and shaping the texts will change dramatically. Who knows, maybe some day you will switch blogs for editors and start earning money on writing books? You will probably want to publish a book called “How I Managed to Become a Successful Writer”.


- Jennifer Burns

You’ve probably been baffled by all of the different texts and articles telling you how to write and in what way in the legal community.  One source telling you one way and another leading you down another route, well below are the top ten tips to adapt your style and meaniong of writing if you are writing for the legal community:

1. Always write short sentences because they are better than long ones. Remember that the topic sentence is the first sentence in each paragraph.

2. Do not use the passive voice because passive voice verbs are used without a subject and hence give the impression that you are not sure about it yourself. Moreover, they lack the punch. This means that the sentence “Donald did it” has a more impact than “the theft had been committed”.

3. Your writing should be like your speech: simple, direct, unpretentious. Think about the flow of logic. Never try and write like the courts because Judges write badly - like most other legal writers. However, avoid contractions (don’t use “don’t”), slang, and jokes — even if you talk that way, because the use of them opens up a certain amateurish aspect in writing. Never use pretentious legalisms such as “the case at bar” or “the instant case”.  Call it the Angelina case.  The use of long words should be avoided when short ones will do.

4. Do not try and sell too hard. If you cannot persuade, do not bludgeon.  Avoid using violent adjectives.

5. Have the courage to be dull if this is the price of being clear. If your ideas are interesting, they will carry the paper far better than a turn of phrase. Legal writing is essentially technical writing so do not try and be verbose.  Suspect the use of the fine phrase or the fancy word. Use the same word to express the same meaning and use simple sentence structure.

6. Always be specific.  Instead of “in recent years” try, “since 1980″.

7. If you are using a specific tense then stick to it.  Do subjects hold, or have they held? I do not care, so long as they only do one of those things.  Of course, tenses can be used to reinforce a temporal sequence: courts had begun, developments ensued, the result will be.

8.  I really believe in the use of a comma, whatever form of writing it may be. I believe that the use of a comma is very important in legal writing because legal writing is after all a form of technical writing. A penultimate comma works like this: “The four factors that affect good writing are lucidity, strong belief, construction, and attention to detail.” The last item in this list is “attention to detail”; without the comma after “construction” it would be unclear whether the final clause, joined with and, was one item or two (maybe the author cannot count and there are really five items on the list?).  The comma makes it clear.

9. Try and avoid the use of “etc.” Using that is a crime.

10. If one wants to use quotes one can use them but should not probably more than one every five or ten pages unless doing close textual analysis of a particular case, statute, or regulation, in which case it may be essential to quote it at greater length.  Remember that the average reader SKIPS the inset quote–so you need to provide a little summary of it afterwards which will allow.

Remember that it is always best to have a professional proofreader take a look through your work, checking that there are no mistakes, hiccups or grammatical errors when you submit it.  Least you will want is your reputation damaged by having a huge mishap in your work that everyone else has noticed but you haven’t.


- Nick Sanders