Law Commons^™

Legal Citation Part I: The Basics Of Legal Citation, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Legal citation conveys information succinctly and efficiently by adhering to four principles. Thus, legal citation follows the 1) core identification principles, 2) minimum content principles, 3) compacting principles, and 4) formatting principles. This article looks at each. [excerpt]

Legal Citation Part Ii: Tips & Tricks To Avoid Common Errors, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff, Jason G. Dykstra

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

This article goes over quick and easy tips to help one avoid the most common citation typeface and abbreviation errors often seen in practitioner filings.

Index To Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff's Advocate Articles, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

This document functions as an index to help readers to navigate Professor Fordyce-Ruff's Advocate column articles better.

Beyond The Basics: Lesser-Used Punctuation Marks, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff, Jason G. Dykstra

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Occasionally legal writing can benefit from a few lesser-used punctuation marks. This article focuses on the proper use of the question mark, slash, and parentheses in legal writing. Used sparingly and correctly, these marks can enhance the clarity of your legal writing without sacrificing a formal tone or professional style. [excerpt]

Legal Citation Part Iii: Using Citation To Convey Textual Meaning, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff, Jason G. Dykstra

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Remember, at our core, attorneys are advocates, and one of the purposes of citation is to prove to the reader that she can trust one's research-to prove that the law is what one states it is and that it works the way one stated it does.

In addition to understanding the language of citation and using the correct form, citation can also increase the level of trust one's reader will have in one's positions in two ways: signals and explanatory parentheticals.

To That Or Not To That: When To Use And When To Omit "That", Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Using or omitting that can be confusing. Sometimes a sentence needs a that, sometimes a sentence doesn't need a that, and sometimes using that is optional. This article addresses some tips to help one understand when that is necessary, when it is optional, and when one might want to use that even if it is optional.

Some February Fun: F Words, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

I’ve wanted to write another column on word pairs for a while. 1 I decided that this month is it. Let’s celebrate the shortest month of the year by looking at “F” words[--first/firstly, farther/further, feign/feint, fictional/fictitious, flair/flare, flammable/inflammable, flaunt/flout, forbear/forebear, founder/flounder, forgo/forego, fortuitous/fortunate]. [excerpt]

Ten Steps To Build Better Briefs: Part Ii, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Last month we started the 10 steps to building better briefs. We covered the first five, finishing the sentence level tips and beginning the paragraph level tips. This month, we will continue that discussion, by finishing up the tips for better paragraphs and finally getting to the tips for the entire brief. [excerpt]

Spring Cleaning Part Ii, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

... [I]n the spirit of spring-cleaning, let’s look at some writing “rules” you can jettison to the trash heap.

Ten Steps To Build Better Briefs: Part I, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

... [C]onstructing a better brief can be done in ten (easy) steps — some focusing on sentences, some on paragraphs, and some on the entire brief. [excerpt]

Verbs: The Basics On Tense And Voice, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

... [V]erbs have voice, mood, tense, number, and person. There are regular verbs and irregular verbs; a verb can be linking, transitive, or intransitive, depending on the types of objects or complements it can take; verbs can be auxiliary or main verbs; verbs even stop functioning as verbs and appear as verbal phrases or gerunds. Whew! Covering all that would be way too much grammar for one month. So, here’s a refresher on the basics of verb tense and voice. [excerpt]

Taking The 30,000-Foot View: Seeing What You've Written, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

In thinking about a topic for this column, I took a moment to look back over what I've covered since I started writing for The Advocate. I saw a huge range of topics-- word choice to punctuation to parts of speech to document design. I've even covered proofing techniques. I saw one huge hole, however. I've never written about how to edit to ensure your legal writing is complete. So for this month I'll explore a little bit of why self-editing is so difficult, followed by some discrete tasks each legal writer can use to ensure that a document is …

Typography Matters: Document Design, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

This month, I am turning to what I hope is [a] ... helpful topic: document design. Sit back and enjoy learning more about spaces after periods, cueing devices, point size, justification, and paragraph breaks. [excerpt]

Three Tips For Concise Writing, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

I'm just wrapping up the first unit of my legal writing class. During this time every year, I introduce my students to the 4 C's-four characteristics that should be present in every legal document.' Yes, every legal document should be clear, correct, complete, and concise.

In our class, we emphasize these principles repeatedly. All legal writers should strive to attain the 4 C's. To that end, this month I offer some tips for concision. After all, I don't know anyone who isn't a little too wordy in the first draft.

Let's look at three tips to remove wordiness that I …

Using Quotation Marks Correctly, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Our use of quotation marks should be consistent and take into account reader expectations. We write for American readers, educated in the American style, so we should follow the American rules when using quotation marks. With that in mind, I offer the following tips for correctly using quotation marks in your writing. [excerpt]

Problems With Pronouns Part Iii: Gender-Linked Pronouns, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Recently, a student stopped me in the hall to ask about what to do because English doesn’t have a gender-neutral singular pronoun to refer to people. That reminded me that I hadn’t yet covered all of the pesky pronoun problems in this column. So this month we will continue to discuss problems with pronouns, looking at gender-linked pronouns. [excerpt]

Six Steps To Correct Commas: Achieving Punctuation Peace Of Mind, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

I set out to create a way to prevent my students from cringing when I informed them that they would have to comb over each sentence in their assignments to ensure they had used commas correctly.... The result was six simple steps to correct commas. These steps ensure that your meaning will be clear to the readers the first time they read a sentence and that your sentence will have the commas your educated readers expect. Work through all six simple steps and your readers will be impressed by your mastery of commas, even if you missed the comma class …

The Other Four-Letter Words, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Some struggles in writing come from pesky four-letter words. Not the kind that result from muddy dog prints on the wood floors — the kind that result from not being quite sure of the correct way to use certain words in our writing. So, to celebrate the shortest month of the year, I thought we could learn about some short, four-letter words that tend to give us fits: that, they, whom, data, and none. [excerpt]

Time Savings: E-Editing Tricks And Tips, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

My students have tired of paper editing tricks like reading backwards (so you can concentrate on the words instead of the flow) or out loud. This time, I’m going to work with them on e-editing. I thought many of The Advocate’s readers might also enjoy these tips. So here goes. This month, we will cover ways to prevent mistakes, ways to fix mistakes, and why e-edit isn’t a cure-all. [excerpt]

Writing For E-Readers: Tips And Tricks To Craft Effective Briefs, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

With the second wave of counties in Idaho ready for e-filing, it seemed like a good time to talk about the difference in document design for e-readers versus paper- readers. Put simply, people have different expectations and read differently when they read on a screen...[excerpt]

Pronoun Problems Part I, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Pronouns replace nouns, and the nouns they replace are called antecedents. Readers must be able to logically connect antecedents to their pronoun. And, pronouns need to agree with their antecedent in number, gender, and person. Most legal writers don’t have problems making pronouns agree with their antecedents in gender. Number and person can be a little trickier. If your sentence is confusing, there may be a problem with the antecedent and there may be a problem with the pronoun – so I’ll talk about each. [excerpt]

Words On The Page: Font Matters, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Typography, interestingly, is a bit of a hot issue amongst legal writers right now. Turns out, the way words look on a page affects not only the readability of the document: the believability of the content can change based on font. This month we will explore how the ways that words look on a page can help (or hurt) your argument by looking at fonts. [excerpt]

Robust Writing: Crafting Better Sentences, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

My students have ... learned that legal writing can be difficult to read. Sometimes the difficulty comes from hard concepts or ideas. Sometimes, however, the difficulty comes from difficult sentence structure. The writer has tried to pack too many ideas into one unit. I get to spend part of my time in the spring helping my students work on creating easily readable briefs and developing their own writing style. Part of that help includes editing their writing for more robust sentences. This issue, we’ll focus on crafting better sentences by creating shorter, less cluttered sentences. [excerpt]

Five Tips To Combat Verbosity, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Another member of The Advocate Editorial Board recently sent me a trial court’s order directing the movant to file a new motion that concentrated on eliminating verbosity. While I’m sure the attorney who received this order (which included the judge’s redlined suggestions!) was humiliated, we shouldn’t wait for a judge’s invitation (or humiliation) to combat verbosity in our writing.

Instead, we should take every opportunity to write better sentences. Wordy sentences tend to be filled with poor constructions that break the readers’ concentration, forcing them to stop and decipher our meanings....

The principle to writing better sentences is simple: Legal …

My Inbox: Follow-Up Advice For Readers, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Forsdyce-Ruff answers readers' questions about dashes and colons; en dashes, em dashes, and hyphens; serial commas; sentences beginning with conjunctions; and sentences beginning with 'hopefully.'

Problems With Pronouns Part Ii, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

In the March/April 2012 edition of The Advocate, I addressed the problems created when pronouns and their antecedents don’t match. There are other pesky pronoun problems lurking out there. This round, I will address specific types of pronouns — personal, reflexive, and possessive and how to use them correctly. [excerpt]

Confusing Word Pairs: Part Ii, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Way back in the January 2012 edition of The Advocate I introduced you to my inner grammar noodge by discussing confusing word pairs. Several readers gave me suggestions for pairs that had confused them, and since then I’ve fielded more than a few questions from both students and readers about the difference between certain words.

I recently realized that I had enough material to have a Confusing Word Pairs: Part II. Here are more confusing word pairs explained and some tips to help you use the correct word when writing or editing[--imply/infer, then/than, principal/principle, disinterested/uninterested, if/whether, affect/effect, awhile/a while, and …

Crafting Clear, Correct Sentences, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

We writers tend to make fairly predictable errors, so learning a few simple fixes can greatly improve our sentences. Here are six faults you can eliminate to fix your sentences: redundancy, repetition, subject-verb separation, misplaced modifiers, dangling participles, and unparallel phrasings. [excerpt]

Creating Separation And Emphasis In Your Writing Part Ii: Using Punctuation Within Sentences, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

The ideas legal writers want to express are often complex. Words and ideas within sentences must be defined or explained. Because of this complexity, many sentences in legal writing contain interrupters — words that break from the main idea of the sentence. These interrupters can be set off with dashes, commas, and parentheses. The choice of which mark to use depends on how much emphasis you want to draw to the interrupter. [excerpt]

Conjunction Junction: Making Conjunctions Function For You, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

... [T]o help you better understand how to make conjunctions function, let’s take a look at coordinating conjunctions, correlative conjunctions, and subordinating conjunctions to connect ideas. [excerpt]