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This eminently practical volume demystifies legal writing, outlines the causes and consequences of bad writing, and prescribes straightforward, easy-to-apply remedies that will make your writing readable. Complete with usage notes that address lawyers' most common errors, this well-organized book is both an invaluable tool for practicing lawyers and a sensible grounding for law students. This much-revised second edition contains a set of editing exercises (and a suggested revision key with explanations) to test your skill. This book is a definitive guide to becoming a better writer—and a better lawyer.
Price: $29.95
Pages: 287
Publisher: University of California Press
Imprint: University of California Press
Publication Date:
13 January 2003
ISBN: 9780520929074
Format: eBook
Preface
Part I. Why Lawyers Write Poorly
1. Does Bad Writing Really Matter?
2. Don’t Make It Like It Was
Part 2. The Process of Writing
3. Ten Steps to Writing
4. Of Dawdlers and Scrawlers, Pacers, and Plungers: Getting Started and Overcoming Blocks
5. The Mechanics of Getting It Down: From Quill Pens to Computers
6. Lessons from a Writing Audit
7. Lawyers as Publishers: Words Are Their Product
Part 3. Managing Your Prose
8. Writing the Lead
9. Form, Structure, and Organization
10. Wrong Words, Long Sentences, and Other Mister Meaners
11. Revising Your Prose
12. Making Your Writing Memorable
Notes
Usage Notes
An Editing Checklist
Editing Exercises
Suggested Revisions to Editing Exercises
Reference Works
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
Index
Part I. Why Lawyers Write Poorly
1. Does Bad Writing Really Matter?
2. Don’t Make It Like It Was
Part 2. The Process of Writing
3. Ten Steps to Writing
4. Of Dawdlers and Scrawlers, Pacers, and Plungers: Getting Started and Overcoming Blocks
5. The Mechanics of Getting It Down: From Quill Pens to Computers
6. Lessons from a Writing Audit
7. Lawyers as Publishers: Words Are Their Product
Part 3. Managing Your Prose
8. Writing the Lead
9. Form, Structure, and Organization
10. Wrong Words, Long Sentences, and Other Mister Meaners
11. Revising Your Prose
12. Making Your Writing Memorable
Notes
Usage Notes
An Editing Checklist
Editing Exercises
Suggested Revisions to Editing Exercises
Reference Works
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
Index