I had an amusing weekend – and on Sunday a very enjoyable long lunch with @BabyBarista and @Oedipus_lex (Twitter monikers) – with an old friend, Johnny Biltong, arriving later. This made it impossible for me to do my usual weekend Postcard from The Staterooms. Be that as it may… my attention a few moments ago was taken up with two pieces of writing raising law issues.
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: The stench from the blogosphere
Independent: Think of them as the worst end of the press, disreputable and increasingly intrusive, and all in the name of what, exactly
and then…this…..from US law website Law.com
Tips on becoming a More Effective legal Writer
Tips on Becoming a More Effective Legal Writer ?
Lawyers are famous for redundant writing and using long words where shorter words would suffice. In today’s practice, the written word is a lawyer’s prime currency. For the firm, its written work is its face to the world, and its reputation could hang on a phrase in any brief, memo or even e-mail. Thus, there can only be one answer to the question, “does good lawyering require good writing?” — a definitive and emphatic, “yes!”
The problem with lawyers writing, in a professional context, in a clear and concise fashion is that it could give some people the idea that lawyering is fairly easy – and that would not be a good thing in these dark and difficult times. Mystery is all… The Royal Family knew this – unfortunately several members of the Royal Family appear to have run amok over the last forty years and the rest is history.
I particularly enjoyed this…from the same article. I’m just glad that I was told the meaning of ‘elucidate’ some years ago …and I did like ’emblematic of the legal profession’. I shall lose no time at all in shoehorning that phrase into a conversation in a bar near me, soon.
CLEAR AND CRISP THINKING
Good writing is a reflection of clear thinking, and it elucidates its conclusion with clear statements in logical progression. Good legal writing uses the simplest possible language and does not hide behind acronyms. That does not mean that all sentences have to be short, simple declaratory affairs — often, that is not possible. However, sharp, crisp writing can often convey complex ideas in an orderly and straightforward way, avoiding the rambling sentences that resemble paragraphs so emblematic of the legal profession.
Too many professionals use convoluted language to make their thoughts seem more impressive. As a result, lawyers believe they need unnecessary redundancies in order to make their writing “sound” legalistic. Don’t believe it. While flowery language might impress a client here and there, it will alienate, not impress, your most important and educated readers.
The first person to tell me in the comments section what *unnecessary redundancies* are… will get a round of applause from me!
While I admire *skeptics* I am NOT one…. I have found that *skepticism* can be a tool for kicking other people’s ideas without coming up with ideas… I would rather encourage debate… enjoy a wide range of perceptions and accept that some people are not persuaded by debate and discussion… and then go on twitter to see what the next bandwagon is 🙂
Hence my tweet earlier….
Nor… @Humphreycushion….am I a *septic* – I accept that I can be *peptic*. 🙂
But the good news is that Liberals / Lib-Dems are measured… nice people and not buffoons… I never thought they were!
I think it might have something to do with putting dramatic-pause-commas everywhere. I know, I know, but they’re the ones giving the writing advice.
Stephen – I employ all manner of devices to make a blog post…
…. but I don’t feel the need to write a book or give advice on how to write…
I have noticed a few punctuation errors in their article – at least one above.
My typos / punctuation errors are entirely due to the new Coalition government…… natch!
In many branches of engineer (and IT), redundancy is a means of increasing the reliability of a system by, for instance, doubling up key functional components. Any unnecessary redundancy would be one that failed to add any more resilience.
You can also find the following definition of redundancy as it applies to messages :-
“Repetition of parts or all of a message to circumvent transmission errors”.
So one might argue that if the repetition goes beyond what is required to achieve reliable communications, it is, indeed, unnecessary.
Now I’m not quite sure what an unnecessary redundancy might be in a less technical sense. One could argue that Arthur Scargill’s famed three times repetition of key phrases in his speeches was redundant in the sense that it didn’t convey any more meaning, but necessary in that they helped gain emotional appeal. A fourth repetition might add no further to that, so could be considered and unnecessary redundancy.
Of course the scholars of such things would no doubt point out that the repetition wasn’t redundancy as it served a purpose.
Perhaps “unnecessary redundancy” is just a particularly clumsy way of using the reinforcement by repetition and a therefore an “unnecessary redundancy”.
Nb. on the subject of standards, I was dismayed to see two things in the Metro’s lead story. The first was the statement that the position with regards to use of pawn shops and “pay day” loans is worse than the 1930s, but more importantly, they stated that only three years agoe banks were “literally throwing money at people”. Perhaps that explains the random confetti of bits of coloured paper and metal disks that the local branch of Nat West were endlessly aiming at passers-by. There was me just thinking it was a quaint custom, but all along, it was what really gave cause to Alastair Darling to write a big cheque for most of RBS.
Before Mr Jones’ enjoyable discursion, I was just going to say ‘a tautology’.
But what do I care? I have the chance to use ‘Snook’ repeatedly in a post that I’m currently writing. With full justification! Life holds few greater pleasures.
Steve – Wonderful – really enjoyed reading that comment *Applauds*
NL – *Snook* ? – naughty step job?
No no, really proper law. The word sham may creep in as well…
snook – as in cock?
unnecessary redundancies – putting someone other than a member of this government out to pasture?