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Full-Text Articles in Law
Feedback Loops: E-D-I-T, Patrick Barry
Feedback Loops: E-D-I-T, Patrick Barry
Articles
The Keep/Cut Framework we learned about back in the December 2022 Feedback Loops column is, admittedly, a bit of a blunt feedback instrument. When the only feedback you can give is “Keep” or “Cut,” there’s not a ton of room for nuance or gradation. Your comments are restricted to either endorsing what already exists or pushing for something to be removed. hat’s a pretty limited menu.
So in both this column and in the June 2023 column, we’re going to learn about a feedback framework that creates opportunities for a greater range of opinions and recommendations: “E-D-I-T.”
Editing, Vehicles In The Park, And The Virtue Of Clarity, Patrick Barry
Editing, Vehicles In The Park, And The Virtue Of Clarity, Patrick Barry
Articles
What is the optimal amount of advocacy?
My law students and I face that question all the time. We face it when we’re drafting motions. We face it when we’re proposing changes to contracts. We even face it when putting together key emails, text messages, and social-media posts.
In all these situations and many more, we don’t want to oversell our arguments and ideas — but we don’t want to undersell them either. Instead, we hope to hit that perfect sweet spot known as “persuasion.”
We don’t always succeed, but one thing that has significantly increased our effectiveness is the …
Elephant In The Room, Patrick Barry
Elephant In The Room, Patrick Barry
Articles
Over the past several decades, the student population at law schools across the country has become more and more racially diverse. In 1987, for example, only about 1 in every 10 law students identified as a person of color; by 2019, that percentage shot up to almost 1 out of 3.
Yet take a look at virtually any collection of recommended manuals on writing. You are unlikely to find even one that is authored by a person of color. The composition of law schools may be dramatically changing, but the materials that students are given to help them figure out …
Feedback Loops: Keep/Cut, Patrick Barry
Feedback Loops: Keep/Cut, Patrick Barry
Articles
In the first of installment of this new column on feedback in the September Illinois Bar Journal, we began to address the pernicious problem of vague feedback—that unhelpful, empty-calories form of (non) guidance that deprives people of learning what they’re currently doing well and what they need to ix. Without concrete, explicit guidance, it can be really tough to grow and improve.
Errors And Insights, Patrick Barry
Errors And Insights, Patrick Barry
Articles
In Seeing What Other's Don't, the psychologist Gary Klein suggests that only focusing on reducing errors limits our ability to improve. We also need to spend time increasing insights. This short essay applies Klein's approach to writing and editing.
Good Sentences, Patrick Barry
Good Sentences, Patrick Barry
Articles
To write good sentences, you need to read good sentences. Skilled writers and editors know this, so they seek out good sentences wherever they can find them—the short stories of Alice Munro, the political essays of William F. Buckley, even well-crafted cartoons, speeches, and advertisements. They read not just with voracity but also with an eye toward larceny, always on the lookout for moves that they can learn and repurpose.
Paragraphing, Patrick Barry
Paragraphing, Patrick Barry
Articles
Consider treating the word paragraph as a verb. Think of it as something you can do well or poorly, with major consequences for your readers. Good paragraphers, for example, help readers. They make it easy to navigate and absorb information. They don’t flit around, hastily moving on to the next point before fully supporting their first. Nor do they get stuck for too long in one place. Instead, they give a lot of thought not just to the ideas but also to their arrangement—their shape, their balance, their pace.
Editing And Empathy, Patrick Barry
Editing And Empathy, Patrick Barry
Articles
Design begins with empathy.” I recently wrote that on the board during a class for students in the Child Welfare Appellate Clinic at the University of Michigan Law School. I thought it might help them write better briefs. I got the idea from Ilse Crawford, whose work as an interior designer can be seen all over the world—from airport lounges in Hong Kong, to fancy restaurants in London, to pear-shaped stools at IKEA. In Crawford’s view, “empathy is a cornerstone of design.”1 She thinks it is important to understand the spaces and products she creates from the perspective of the …
Good Old-Fashioned Editing, Jason G. Dykstra
Good Old-Fashioned Editing, Jason G. Dykstra
Articles
While not perfect, the spelling and grammar review features of word processing software can prove good editing tools. Similarly, find and replace features can help ferret out any lurking malapropisms. These searches can avert the potential embarrassment of quoting a "statue" in the Idaho Code in a brief filed in "Canon County' However, electronic editing does not supplant the good old-fashioned printing-a-fresh-draft- and-reading-keenly style of editing. This article focuses on a few tips to optimize the effectiveness of editing text in print.