Legal Writing

Less is More

. . . especially when it comes to the number of words you require your readers to read.

Consider this opening line to a recently published client alert:

On April 17, 2009, the Obama administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (?EPA?) issued two proposed findings regarding the following greenhouse gases (?GHGs?): carbon dioxide; methane; nitrous oxide; hydrofluorocarbons; perfluorocarbons; and sulfur hexaflouride.

That stands like a giant warning to readers: be wary ? “the author is garrulous; he doesn’t value your time. If you value your time (and you’d like the news when it’s new), you’d be better off reading this article.”

What would a skilled and experienced editor do with that intro?

Why, he’d start by cutting the fat:

On April 17, 2009, the Obama administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (”EPA“) issued two proposed findings regarding the following greenhouse gases (”GHGs”): carbon dioxide; methane; nitrous oxide; hydroflourocarbons; perflourocarbons; and sulfur hexaflouride.

If the audience for this alert consists of people interested in “federal efforts to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions,” then it’s downright silly to tell them what EPA stands for, or who it belongs to. Why waste their time?

For that matter, why write the alert like it was a brief for a court? Why use semicolons, rather than commas, in the list of gases?

Client alerts are not briefs, and they shouldn’t be written as such. (Unless, of course, your goal is to attract the tiniest audience you can.)

Full post as published by Set in Style on May 07, 2009 (boomark / email).