Law Commons^™

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]

Connections Count Part I: Generic Transitions, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Transitions serve an important function in any piece of writing: they connect the ideas in sentences and paragraphs and show the reader how lines of reasoning are advancing. These simple words let the reader know when to expect more detail or when to expect a different topic or when to expect a counter-point.

There are three basic types of transitions: generic, orienting, and substantive. We will look at generic transitions this month. [excerpt]

Fairness, Clarity, Precision, And Reaction: Gender-Free And Bias-Free Word Choice, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Every legal problem involves people. You cannot practice law without writing about people. But writing about people in a way that is clear and won’t cause a negative reaction by the reader takes some effort. The language of the law is moving toward gender- and bias-free word choices, but not as [quickly] as other disciplines. Yet, a few simple and easy changes can help move your writing toward being more precise, fair and clear, and help you avoid any negative reaction from the reader. [excerpt]

Know Your Audience: Writing To Non-Lawyers, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

I spend a lot of time in my classroom teaching my students about audience traits and expectations. We learn about how legal readers read and use documents and how we can better prepare our writing to meet the purpose and expectation. This is the norm in the legal academy.

Practically, however, that means many attorneys leave law school with great training for writing to judges and attorneys, but not necessarily great training on writing to clients or non-lawyers.

So this month we will focus on a few tips to help you better craft your writing to meet the non-lawyer’s expectations[--organization, …

Five Tools For Writing Fixes: Stocking The Legal Writer's Toolbox, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Add a desk book, grammar guide, usage dictionary, writing text, and citation manual to your toolbox, and you’ll find that your writing goes much more smoothly. [excerpt]

E-Editing: Time Saving Tips, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

... I don’t trust computer programs to ensure that I have error free documents. I do, however, trust them enough to use them to my advantage. I have, over time, created a series of steps I use to help me proof and edit my work. Use this simple editing checklist with your word processing program to save time and move one step closer to error-free documents. [excerpt]

Laughing All The Way To Court: Avoiding The Humor And Headaches Created By Misplaced Modifiers, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Modifiers can create unintended humor, or hurl unintended insults, when we forget that they need to be near the word they modify and let them drift [elsewhere]. [excerpt]

Creating Separation And Emphasis In Your Writing Part I: Joining Independent Clauses, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Independent clauses each have a subject and a verb and could stand alone as a grammatically correct sentence. For instance, “I enjoy walking on the beach,” “I disliked the hot humid weather,” and “I presented at a legal writing conference in Florida last summer” are all independent clauses. Each idea is a complete package; it has a subject and a verb and can function as a sentence. How I link them together with punctuation, however, can subtly change their meanings and shift the emphasis for the reader. It can also help the reader better understand how my ideas are related. …

Creating Clarity: Careful Use Of Contronyms, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Contronyms were not among the categories of “nyms” I learned as a child. I know all about synonyms, homonyms, and antonyms. So I was surprised when I recently learned about contronyms.

Contronyms are words that are their own antonyms (in fact, they are sometimes called autoantonyms). That’s right, the same word can have two opposing or contradictory meanings. Think of dust. Dust can mean to add fine particles to something:

The plane was dusting the field.

Or it can mean to remove fine particles.

I needed to dust my office after the windstorm.

Because contronyms have contradictory meanings, writers …

Cutting The Clutter: Three Steps To More Concise Legal Writing, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

... [G]ood legal writing should contain no more and no fewer words than necessary to convey the idea to the reader.... I suggest you spend your time removing wordy stock phrases, replacing weak verbs, and eliminating nominalizations to create more concise documents. [excerpt]

Connections Count Part Ii: Orienting And Substantive Transitions, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Last month we began exploring transitions and their usage. We covered generic transitions, their placement, and the importance of using the transition with the exact right meaning. This month, we are turning our attention to other categories of transitions: orienting and substantive. We will then end with a simple editing tip to help ensure "pop" in your writing. [excerpt]

Do Some Spring Cleaning: Throw Out Grammar Myths, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

... [M]any legal writers are bogged down by useless grammar myths: suggestions that they learned as “rules” early in their schooling. We all sat in an elementary school desk long ago and learned how to compose in English. Unfortunately, many students learned what were suggestions-to-help-them-become-more-sophisticated-and- better-writers as rules-never-to-be-broken. Here are my top five “rules” you should throw out as you do your spring cleaning.

Back To Basics: Subject And Verb Agreement, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

For simple sentences, agreement usually isn’t a problem. You can depend on how the sentence sounds to ensure your subject and verb agree. 'The professor requires all students to be in class prior to its start time.' Here the singular subject professor takes a singular verb requires. Easy! That just sounds correct .... Legal writers need to create more complex sentences, so relying on our ears won’t always steer us in the right direction. Agreement becomes trickier when subjects become more complex, and writers need to understand some basic agreement rules. [excerpt]

Attaching People To Their Problems: Eliminating Passive Voice And Vague -"Ing" Words From Your Writing, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Legal writers often unknowingly use the passive voice or vague –“ing” words to create detachment. The problem with this is threefold: it leaves the reader wondering who is doing what, it’s boring, and it’s confusing. Fortunately, getting rid of detachment in your writing is easy if you identify and eliminate passive voice and vague –“ing” words. [excerpt]

Confusing Word Pairs, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Here are [a number of] confusing word pairs explained and some tips to help you use the correct word when writing or editing. [excerpt]

Adding Eloquence To Your Legal Writing With Figures Of Speech, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

While it would be great if the email to a client could be more eloquent, it might not be worth the time. But other types of writing benefit from added eloquence.

Indeed, an eloquent brief is more persuasive. Yes, writing must first be clear, correct, and readable. And yes, the arguments themselves must be persuasive and supported by the law. But presentation matters.

Using rhetorical devises can convey your meaning in a more vivid and meaningful way. Using certain figures of speech can also motivate the decision maker to see the outcome your way. So, this essay will cover simile, …

Back To Basics Iii: Noun-Sense, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

... [T]his month, I bring you noun-sense. Let this column help you better understand both the basics and a little beyond the basics of how nouns function[--cases, participles, phrases, and clauses]. [excerpt]

Back To Basics Ii: Parts Of Speech, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

In English, we classify words into eight parts of speech: noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunction, and interjection. These classifications are based on how a word functions within a sentence, not necessarily on the word itself. Think about the last time you looked up a word in a dictionary— remember how a single word could be both a noun and an adverb, for instance....

When a word trips you up as you write or edit a sentence, you just might have a problem with its usage as that part of speech. So, we will look briefly at each of …

Capitalization Conundrums Clarified, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

The trend in writing in general is to capitalize less, even though as legal writers we tend to capitalize more. This can lead to tension when writing: When should I capitalize certain words? And, many of us learned capitalization rules as children, only to see them thrown out the window when reading opinions. What, then, are we to do when faced with a capitalization conundrum? ... Follow these simple tips to eliminate many of those pesky capitalization questions. [excerpt]

Back To Basics, Part V: Adjectives, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

In grammar terms, an adjective is a word that modifies a noun or pronoun. You might have learned that it’s a 'describing word' back in elementary school.

Adjectives tell the reader what sort, how many, what size or whose. Adjectives can also be used to add more detail to a noun. [excerpt]

A Pro's Woe: Overcoming Writer's Block In A Hurry, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Even though attorneys spend much of their lives writing, we are not immune to writer’s block. Some of us have triedand- true methods for overcoming these slumps, but even then there might be times when the go-to trick that has worked in the past fails to put words on the page. So for this month we are going to look at some tips for overcoming even the worst episodes of writer’s block. [excerpt]

Beyond The Basics: Transitive, Intransitive, Ditransitive And Ambitransitive Verbs, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Here’s a good laugh: Lori walks into the kitchen and says to Greg, “Make me a sandwich.” Greg waives his hands wildly and replies, “Poof! You’re a sandwich.” I know you all love a good grammar joke as much as I do. That one’s worth at least a chuckle, right? But, don’t you wonder what makes that funny? And don’t you wonder if the correct phrasing should be “Please make a sandwich for me”? The answer lies, of course, in grammar. To understand whether “Make me a sandwich” is a correct way to ask someone to prepare a sandwich, you …

Feeling Possessed: The Use Of The Genitive Case, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

"Maybe it’s just the end of the winter, but I always go a little stir crazy this time of year. Not like Jack Nicholson in The Shining, of course. But I do long for a nice long walk in the sunshine with those dogs of mine. Or to do a little gardening with my husband in our yard. Or to get away from my students’ gripes about having to write a 20-page appellate brief in a mere six weeks. Wow — there was lot of possessing in that paragraph! In fact, we tend to do a lot of possessing in …

Confusing Word Pairs Iii: D Words, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

... [T]his month we are going to delve into D words. So sit back (maybe by a nice fire with a cozy beverage) and prepare to be dazzled as we dig into an array of confusing word pairs that all begin with D[--decimate/destroy, deduce/deduct, defective/deficient, definite/definitive, deprecate/depreciate, detract/distract, discrete/discreet, and dominant/dominate]. [excerpt]

Fifth Colonial Frontier Legal Writing Conference Drafting Statutes And Rules Pedagogy, Practice, And Politics (Foreword), Jan M. Levine

Jan M. Levine

Bluebook Bootcamp Spring 2017

Khelani Z.A. Clay

No abstract provided.

"The Hindrance Of A Law Degree": Justice Kagan On Law And Experience, Laura Krugman Ray

Laura K. Ray

No abstract provided.

Breaking Bad Facts: What Intriguing Contradictions In Fiction Narratives Can Teach Lawyers About Coping With Harmful Evidence, Cathren Page

Cathren Page

Abstract: Breaking Bad Facts: What Intriguing Contradictions in Fiction Narratives Can Teach Lawyers About Coping with Harmful Evidence by Cathren Koehlert-Page Walter White is the “nerdiest old dude” that Jesse Pinkman knows. His students ignore him and whisper and laugh during class. They make fun of him at his after school job at the car wash where he is forced to stay late. His home décor and personal fashion could best be described as New American Pathetic. And yet by the end of the hit television series, Breaking Bad, White is a feared multi-million dollar drug lord known as Heisenberg. …