"Hurry slowly," writes
Italo Calvino in Six Memos for the Next
Millennium. "A writer's work has
to take account of many rhythms:
Vulcan's and Mercury's, a message of
urgency obtained by dint of patient and
meticulous adjustments and an intuition
so instantaneous that, when formulated,
it acquires the finality of something
that could never have been otherwise."
I love this quotation by Calvino because
it opens up a world of possibilities for
writers, especially lawyers. It
sanctions having fun with writing:
allowing yourself to use flourishes
where necessary, to be straightforward
and concise when it would be better to
do so, and to trust the good judgement
honed as a lawyer to know just what
voice will work for each particular
client or situation.
Lawyers are professionals who require
language as their most important tool.
They write with it, argue with it, win
or lose by it. A highly educated group,
most lawyers are good writers who have
been writing for all of their
professional lives. The more seasoned
ones (older!) will probably have had the
advantage of a fairly rigorous
background in the principles of English
grammar and syntax. The younger ones,
for the most part, may not have had this
advantage but will have learned through
practice.
So why do so many lawyers sign up for
the writing courses offered by the
Writing Consultants (http://www.writingconsultants.com)? I believe it is because they
are ready to change an age-old trend.
For centuries lawyers have donned, with
their robes, a cloak of discourse that
is "lawyerly." Certain that statements
such as "It is our recommendation to you
as regards the course of action that you
can probably pursue that all money is
drawn out of the trust fund by the
executors of the said fund" are
essential when giving their professional
opinions, they often lose touch with the
simple mortals who read this language.
These "mortals" include layman like me
who approach legal documents with much
trepidation. By very definition, any
time I would require a lawyer would
probably be a stressful time. And
research shows (yes, you can begin a
sentence with a coordinant conjunction
for emphasis) that as soon as readers
are stressed, their reading level drops
to about a grade six! Other mortals
include judges, who beg us to instruct
lawyers that they, too, appreciate
accessible, plain language for even such
a complex document as a factum. Lawyers,
themselves, admit that in the course of
a busy day, they do not have the energy
to decode lawyerly language.
The word "decode" is critical. Stanley
Fish, maverick academic that he might
be, writes that "there is no single way
of reading, only 'ways of reading' that
are extensions of community perspectives
[giving the reader] the central role in
the production of meaning." That's scary
theory, for it means that the reader's
decoding is up for grabs.
We have found that a quick course is
best for lawyers. We are certain that
lawyers will reduce their unbillable
hours by reducing the reviewing time of
their own work and the work of their
associates, admin staff, clerks, and
students. A one-or two-hour module is
usually enough to illustrate the
importance of writing from a
reader-focused philosophy. We start with
what we know readers appreciate:
• a narrative
line
• focus before
detail
• an up-front
conclusion (point-first writing)
• "eye candy"
such as readable fonts, good margins,
plenty of white space
We illustrate the Readability or "Fog"
Index, showing how the sentence above,
"It is our recommendation to you as
regards the course of action you can
probably pursue that all money is drawn
out of the trust fund by the executors
of the said fund," registers well over
the acceptable Flesch Grade Level of
"12" (the Globe is 10 or under). A
rewrite in plain language reduces the
passage to an acceptable level of 9 or
10, "We recommend that it is probably
best for the executors to draw all money
out of the trust fund."
No matter what the length of a document
might be, strong paragraphs and focused
sentences are the backbone of dynamic
writing. Here's a checklist lawyers can
use to test their writing skills at the
paragraph and sentence level:
1. Do the paragraphs include
• a control
sentence that relates to your main point
(thesis, argument, opinion)?
• support
details to make your ideas focused and
persuasive?
• transition
words to give coherence to your
thoughts?
2. Are the sentences an
appropriate length (about 12 to 20
words) and varied in pattern?
3. Is legalese avoided wherever
possible?
4. Are most sentences constructed
in the active voice?
5. Are tabulated (bulleted) lists
parallel in their design?
6. Has the document been
thoroughly (unequivocally) checked for
spelling, grammar, and punctuation?
In the millennium, our jobs have become
more demanding of our communication
abilities. Law firms who invest in
writing seminars report not only
improved skills, but also heightened
staff morale. More confident in their
writing, speaking, and overall ability
to articulate well, lawyers and staff
develop the personal confidence and
self-reliance to match their
professional expertise!
Confronting the Everyday
Challenges of Everyday Writing by Jane
Griesdorf
In my more jaded
moments, I like to quip that my first
teaching career as a high school
teacher guaranteed me a clientele for
my second career as a writing
consultant! What really happened was
that following the school boards'
de-emphasis on grammar and composition
in the 80s and 90s, few students
learned anything about writing for the
business or professional world. Class
time that might have been available
for writing was filled with literature
classes or forays into "creative"
work. Thus the basic principles of
clear, coherent, and concise writing -
not to mention correct grammar,
punctuation, and pleasing style - were
never addressed.
The policy-makers
somehow hoped that basic rudiments
would seep into students' writing by
exposure to good literature. But this
miracle did not always happen and we
teachers thus graduated almost two
decades of students who did not have
the experience necessary to write well
in their chosen professions. Indeed,
even some of you may find that though
writing is essential to your business
day, it is not one of your favourite
tasks. Little wonder, when you are
faced with the obfuscation so
prevalent in business writing today.
Several years ago, an
engineer friend approached me with a
problem. He feared that the work of
his staff (graduate engineers and
MBAs) was just ambiguous enough to
make him subject to libel if one of
their memos were to be introduced in
court. My friend, who specialized in
quality control in the consumer
industry, documented his findings on
all aspects of an operation, including
safety. What he worried about most was
an accident that his staff might have
foreseen and forestalled had they
reported the possibilities clearly
enough. He wanted me to teach them
this clarity.
And thus the Writing
Consultants was born. We specialize in
custom-designed writing seminars for
consultants, engineers, accountants,
lawyers, and support staff. We believe
that writing, though often a seemingly
formidable task, is a skill that can
be learned. The courses are designed
to ease writers into the writing
assignment and to provide guidelines
that will allow them to produce
well-organized, unified, coherent, and
correctly edited documents. Our
approach is almost entirely
reader-centered. We know, for example,
that it is rarely the writer who
controls the interpretation of his or
her writing. Though as writers we
would hope to be in charge, once the
word has left our finger tips or has
been uttered by our voices, it is the
reader of that text who interprets its
meaning. That's rather scary stuff to
consider!
So what can we do to
decrease the gap between reader and
writer?
When approaching a
writing task, you might begin by
considering earnestly the following:
- Who will be
reading this document? Don't be
naive here. Many pieces of writing
are forwarded to readers you might
never anticipate. This is especially
true of email!
- What does your
reader want to know?
- What does your
reader already know?
- How will your
reader be using the
information?
- How will it affect
your reader? Readers have emotional
responses to writing. Think of how
you might respond to a government
tax letterhead in your daily mail!
- How does your
reader feel about you?
- What is your
reader's attention span?
Most people begin with the
background of a topic. It's an easy way
to start, but not always the best way
since the one thing readers often know
is the history or background of an
issue. What they are interested in is
the new information. If you begin with
the old material, readers will skim, and
that opens your text to misreading.
Here's a good trick to
try to ensure that your beginning has
substance. Begin with these seven
words: "Today I want to tell you
that . . .." Finish off the
sentence and you will be left with a
strong purpose statement, a statement
that will allow both you and your
reader to know immediately what you
are going to focus upon. Make sure
that you begin each ensuing paragraph
with a similarly clear topic sentence
and you will have a coherent piece of
writing. Massage the sentence a little
if it sounds too abrupt. Here's an
example:
Today I want
to tell you that because of a strike
at the factory, we will be three weeks
late with your delivery >>>
Because of a strike at the factory, we
will be three weeks late with your
delivery >>> I regret to tell
you that because of a strike at the
factory, we will be three weeks late
with your delivery.
Notice that I am not
stressing what type of document you are
creating. I am often asked to teach a
specific genre to an organization. One
firm might want to learn how to write
winning proposals; another might want to
focus on reports or letters. But no
matter whether you are writing memos,
email, letters, proposals, reports,
journal articles, or speeches, good
writing begins at the sentence and
paragraph level. Only the template or
the length changes according to the
document. Even when the tone of a
particular piece of writing demands more
or less formality, it still boils down
to audience awareness and clearly
focused sentences and paragraphs.
Consider the time an
editor or reader might spend decoding
this sentence:
Receipt of
this notice prompted me to make new
inquiries, making use of Internet
technology which had not previously
been available, in a new attempt to
locate the company profile.
Conversely, consider the
reading ease if the sentence had been
written like this:
When I
received this notice, I tried again to
locate the company profile. This time
I used Internet technology previously
unavailable.
Here's another:
Turning now to
the next question to be discussed,
there is in regard to the subject of
customer development activities one
basic principle when attempting to
formulate a way of approaching
decisions as to how to regain client
accounts lost or diminished over the
last five-year period that we have not
addressed up to the current and
present time. (59 words)
And here's its rewrite:
The next
question concerns client development.
We have not yet addressed one
important principle: deciding how to
regain client accounts lost or
diminished over the last five years.
(28 words)
Many writers today
underestimate the importance of good
formatting. In fact, often a change in
the amount of white space, the addition
of some spiffy point-form tabulation, or
scanning headings to act as a "roadmap"
through the document can do wonders.
Here, for instance is a passage that is
difficult to access:
The
performance returns in all three
summaries are calculated as of
December 31 in each year; assume all
distributions made by the Fund are
reinvested in additional units without
charge; and are not reduced by any
redemption charges, optional charges
or income taxes payable by you.
Here's a rewrite in point
form that is somewhat easier to read,
but still rather heavy looking:
The
performance returns in all three
summaries are:
- calculated as of
December 31 in each year;
- assume all
distributions made by the Fund are
reinvested in additional units,
without charge; and
- are not reduced
by any redemption charges,
optional charges or income taxes
payable by you.
Here's the final rewrite,
lightened up as befits millennial
writing:
The
performance returns in all three
instances are
- calculated as of
December 3 in each year
- assume all
distributions made by the Group
are reinvested in additional
shares, without charge
- are not reduced
by any redemption fees, optional
charges, or income taxes payable
by the investor
Many of my course
participants express their frustration
over not having learned how to organize,
write, or edit their written material.
Because they have no background in the
grammar or mechanics of our language,
they are wholly reliant on whether or
not something "sounds right." But having
been exposed to so much poor grammar in
their daily lives, what "sounds right"
is often wrong! In any given group of
ten, for instance, at least eight will
choose "I" as the correct pronoun case
to follow the preposition "between" in a
construction such as "between you and
I."
But because they do not
know what a "preposition" is, or what
"case" means, they cannot understand
that a preposition requires the
objective case of the pronoun and the
resulting correction to "between you
and me."
Grammar has a bad
reputation. For years students have
found it difficult, boring, and not
hip. The Grammar Brush-Up and Grammar
Booster courses offered by the Writing
Consultants bring grammar to an adult
level that is stimulating,
enlightening, and fun. Participants
are amazed at how much they can learn
or relearn in a three-hour period.
In the millennium, our
jobs have become more demanding of our
time and our communication abilities.
Research work can require difficult
reporting as we cull through, select,
and synthesize the material.
Frequently, we do not even have the
luxury of proofreading or editing this
work as thoroughly as we would like.
But the steps to good writing and
editing can be learned and the process
will become more natural and automatic
with practice and time.
Organizations who have
invested in writing seminars report
not only increased office
productivity, but also heightened
staff morale. Employees are more
confident in their writing, speaking,
and overall ability to articulate
well. They gain the personal
confidence and self reliance to match
their professional expertise!
On Grammar
and Its Discontents by
Jane Griesdorf
In the 15 years that I’ve been
operating the Writing
Consultants, I never cease to be
astounded at how the participants in my
courses yearn for grammar! I usually
finish each session with a “Grammar
Tease,” and if there’s time, a “Grammar
Brush-Up.” Inevitably the course
evaluations request more grammar. Not
one to say no to a new gig, I’ll return
to the client with a “Grammar Booster”
course.
Though as children most of my course
participants had disliked the subject,
now that they are in the work world they
are anxious to catch up with what they
missed. They tell me that their work,
both written and oral, is undermined by
their fear that it is error-ridden. They
want the skills to write and speak with
confidence.
All that most students remember of their
grammar classes is their English
teachers drawing lines and scribbles
over the board in a desperate attempt to
show them how to parse a sentence. But
this happened when students were young
and unable to understand the fine
discipline that grammar entails. English
grammar is a sophisticated discourse;
its rules are far more nuanced and fluid
than teachers conveyed or than young
students were able to grasp.
Understanding grammar, that is
understanding how our language works, is
essential to good communication. Taking
the time to learn more than the basics
pays dividends in our facility to write
sentences with variation, rhythm, and
aplomb. Proofreading becomes easier
because we are able to spot errors and
correct them with certainty. We are able
to risk eccentric sentence structures
because we have the confidence to know
that they are grammatically correct even
if somewhat stylistically off-beat.
There’s a bonus, too: once we understand
the rules, we are able to break some!
Both H.W. Fowler and Joseph Williams
list as “superstition” or “mythology”
many of the rules we cling to. Here are
a few:
1. Don’t split infinitives.
2. Don’t start a sentence with a
coordinate conjunction such as “And,”
“But,” or “So.”
3. Don’t start a sentence with
“Because.”
4. Never end a sentence with a
preposition.
5. Don’t use “which” in a
restrictive clause
So next time you’re anxious about such
rules, try not to fret. Pick up a
grammar book, go on the web, or ask a
colleague; you’ll probably be pleasantly
surprised at the liberty you can have
stylistically when unhampered by
“superstitious” rules. Understanding the
grammar that allows you to use these
structures is the key.
Here’s a quick test. Each sentence has a
grammar error (or two). Most of us will
be able to find and correct the error.
The real test, however, is to be able to
explain the rule underlying the
correction. Try your luck and email me
for the answers:
janegriesdorf@writingconsultants.com
1. Everyone was asked
to turn in their results.
2. The group of
protesters are approaching.
3. There is no one as
experienced as her.
4. I feel sick,
however I will still try the test to see
if I make less errors this time.
5. Fortunately,
Audrey and myself can do it.
6. Irregardless of
what you think, none of the performers
were trained.
7. It was me who you
spoke to.
8. Neither John nor
Brenda know the answer.
9. Because it was her
fault, she felt badly about the
accident.
10. He is a real fast
runner.
Email by Jane
Griesdorf
Email is one of the
many challenges facing us in our daily
writing. Because of its speed and
broadcasting ability, it is
fundamentally different from
paper-based communication. More
conversational-like, it can easily
become sloppy and ambiguous. Thus,
though the advantages of a virtual
workplace are many, and essential, we
must make sure that our ability to
communicate well remains a high
priority within this framework.
Email is not as rich a
method of communication as a
face-to-face or telephone
conversation. Your correspondent may
not be able to tell if you are serious
or kidding, frustrated or euphoric.
Sarcasm, for example, is particularly
dangerous in email dialogue. While the
medium itself would seem to encourage
writers to disclose personal
information, tell jokes, pass on
gossip, and pitch incomplete ideas,
you should always be wary of doing so.
Courts have consistently ruled that
workplace email is not the property of
the sender but rather the property of
whoever owns the system. Anything you
say via email might be used against
you!
Here are some tips I
found on one of the many OWLs (On-Line
Writing Labs) available to students of
writing. You can connect to these OWLs
via my website through "Links." There
is lots of interesting material to
browse through on those sites, so do
have fun!
Context: In a
conversation, there is usually some
form of shared context. With email,
however, you can't assume anything
about your correspondent's location,
time, frame of mind, health,
affluence, age, or gender. Be sure,
therefore, that you give some context.
Short Paragraphs:
Frequently the mail will be read in a
document window with scrollbars. This
makes it harder visually to track long
paragraphs. Consider breaking up your
paragraphs to only a few sentences
apiece.
Line Length: A good
rule of thumb is to keep your lines
under 75 characters long. Why 75 and
not 80? You must be sure to leave a
little room for the indentation or
quote marks your correspondents might
want if they are going to quote a
piece of your email in their reply.
Terser Prose: Try to
keep everything on one "page." In most
cases, this means twenty-five lines of
text.
FYI: If you are
offering non-urgent information that
requires no response from the other
person, prefacing the subject line
with "FYI" (For Your Information) is
not a bad idea. For time-critical
messages, typing "URGENT" is a good
idea.
And finally, the
following important principles of
effective writing apply as much to
email as to any other form of written
correspondence. Be certain always that
your work is well organized, natural,
courteous, concise, clear, correct and
jargon-free. Your readers will be able
to access your messages easily and
look forward to hearing from you
regularly!
The Importance of Being
Eloquent by Jane Teng, 3rd
Year Co-op Student
The room was already
packed and it was only ten to nine. I
managed to find a spot in the last
row. Silently, I surveyed the
classroom. I spotted her right away,
Jane Griesdorf, the instructor.
Standing in a corner, she was handing
out some purple binders and packages.
"Suave" and "imperturbable"; these two
words surfaced in my mind. This
usually means that she will be a hard
marker. I was right. The class began
and she said: "I am the high school
English teacher whom you thought you
would never see again!" I thought of
Mrs. Ancans, whom my essays could
never satisfy. That was my first day
of MGTC36 Management Communications.
Being the brave soul
that I am, I stayed, along with some
thirty-odd others. We wrote e-mails,
reports and proposals; we stood up in
front of the entire class and gave
presentations; we endured the
merciless critiquing of our papers,
and we improved. Did you know that
there is "trend" in English writing?
Well, the "as per our discussion" is
passé, passive voice is ugly, and "in
these tough economic times" is too
much of a cliché. Instead, "as we
discussed" is in vogue, active voice
is hot, and "defog" those long
sentences if you want to be a trendy
writer. As if all that was not enough,
we were painfully reminded of the most
horrible part of the GMAT: grammar! A
terrifying word, yes, good practice
for those aptitude tests though. Every
Tuesday morning we took another step
towards becoming the confidant,
articulate, and sophisticated
professionals we were destined to be.
The reality is that
almost every job today emphasizes
written and oral communication skills.
For students who are aware of the fact
that their skills need to be improved
or those who just want to add some
pizzazz to their writing, this is the
ideal course. Of course, it also helps
to have an instructor who has been
teaching English for nearly all her
life: more than fifteen years in high
school and another twelve years
teaching professional adults as a
consultant. Ms. Griesdorf's approach
is practical, realistic and
job-oriented. Upon completion of this
course, students are expected to speak
and write with style in a more focused
and grammatically correct manner.
And I began to say:
"This is she."
THE
STAR: January 20, 2001 IN PURSUANCE OF
PLAIN ENGLISH FORTHWITH
by Bob Aaron
It's time for lawyers
and contracts to use plain English
One of the worst
examples of outdated legal writing
style today is the document most
familiar to the home-buying public -
the standard form "Agreement of
Purchase and Sale" used by the Toronto
Real Estate Board and the Ontario Real
Estate Association. It must have been
written by lawyers because no real
estate agent or broker could ever
write this badly.
What's wrong with this
type of legal writing today? Recently,
I met with Jane Griesdorf, owner of
"The Writing Consultants" (http://www.writingconsultants.com).
A
former English teacher, she devotes
her career now to teaching lawyers and
other professionals to write clearly
and effectively. She tells lawyers to
avoid the use of "lawyerisms," which
create a cloud of fog around the
meaning of the document.
Several weeks ago,
Griesdorf presented a program called
"Write This Way" to a sold-out seminar
at the Law Society of Upper Canada.
Here are just a few of the worst
examples of lawyer writing she cited:
- Use of meaningless
doubles, such as any and all, first
and foremost, full and complete.
- Redundant
modifiers, such as completely
finish, past history, final outcome,
terrible tragedy, period of time,
end result.
- Throat clearing -
unnecessary words such as basically,
actually, virtually and doubtlessly.
- Overly long
sentences and paragraphs.
- Heavy language
with mouthfuls of unnecessary words,
such as pursuant to, at your
earliest convenience, in all
probability.
- Stacking numerous
prepositional phrases in the same
sentence
- Archaic vocabulary
- words nobody uses anymore, except
lawyers.
By these guidelines, the
standard sale agreement is a textbook
example of how not to write a contract.
Its longest sentence, for example, is
207 words, followed in the same
paragraph with another sentence of a
mere 140 words. How a lay person, never
mind a lawyer, is supposed to understand
this awful prose is beyond me.
Purchaser's
deposits in this contract are not
merely attached - they are "submitted
herewith."
If the offer is not
accepted within a time limit, it
becomes "null and void." Not just
null. Not just void. But null and
void.
The parties
"acknowledge and confirm" broker
representation, presumably because
one of these words alone is just not
enough.
The purchaser's
deposit is not held in trust until
completion. It is held in trust
"pending" completion.
One paragraph begins with
the words, "it is understood that. . ."
The real estate associations must be
afraid that removal of those totally
unnecessary words will mean that the
parties to the agreement do not
understand what follows.
At the bottom of the
agreement, the purchasers and vendors
cannot simply sign the agreement.
Breaking numerous rules of writing
clarity, the document's turgid prose :
"In witness whereof I have hereunto
set my 'hand and seal.'"
The style of the
standard condominium resale agreement
is somewhat better, if only because
its longest sentence is a mere 138
words instead of 207. It repeats many
of the style problems with the
freehold offer, but goes on to use
many others.
If the condominium
board must consent to the sale, for
example, the vendor must apply
"forthwith." Immediately, or even
right away, is probably not soon
enough. Deadlines in the agreement may
be amended by lawyers "who may be
specifically authorized in that
regard."
Builder agreements for
new homes and condominiums are many
times longer than the resale forms
used by the real estate boards.
Typically, they are much worse in
terms of writing clarity and
simplicity of terminology. In other
fields of law, ordinary contracts
written by lawyers often begin "This
indenture witnesseth. . ." Leases are
written "in pursuance of" the Tenant
Protection Act.
It is not just
contracts that are filled with
"legaldegook" (a combination of
legalese and gobbledegook). In their
daily correspondence, many lawyers
still persist in writing like they
think lawyers are supposed to write.
The real estate
industry, and those responsible for
the creation of its contracts, should
be leaders in the area of making
consumer contracts user-friendly and
readable in plain, everyday language.
It's time to scrap the old contracts
and use plain English to say the same
thing.
Bob Aaron is a Toronto
real estate lawyer