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Legal Writing

Manage Your Writing

By Kenneth W. Davis

Post Frequency: 2.8/day

Last Entry: March 28, 2011 at 17:03:57

This week: Draft quick and dirty

Posted on August 31, 2010
The great editor Maxwell Perkins once said, "Just get it down on paper, and then we'll see what to do with it." This week, take that advice. Draft quick and dirty. If you don't know how to spell a word,...

Take as much time as you want others to take

Posted on August 24, 2010
Bill Jensen, in his book Simplicity, writes: When people are in need of communication, they want others to take the time to listen, and then to take the time to create meaning, clarity, and connections between ideas. But when they...

This week: Separate rules from tools

Posted on August 16, 2010
When we first learned to write, we had to learn a lot of rules. So we sometimes believe that writing consists entirely of following rules. If we learn the rules, we'll be better writers. Actually, writing has few rules, and...

This week: Use "readability" formulas wisely

Posted on August 02, 2010
A number of "readability" formulas, both manual and computer-based, have been developed to measure the difficulty of written text. Perhaps the most widely used is part of the grammar checker built into Microsoft Word. It and some others claim to...

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This week: Be economical

Posted on July 20, 2010
Norman R. Augustine, president and CEO of Martin Marietta, once calculated the relationship between thickness and dollar amount of government contract proposals. After reporting the result, he wrote, "If all the proposals conforming to this standard were piled on top...

This week: Don't be ridiculous

Posted on July 12, 2010
Daniel Defoe, author of Robinson Crusoe, also wrote of the first business how-to books in English: The Complete English Tradesman, published in 1745 (!). In that book, he wrote: A tradesman's letters should be plain, consise, and to the purpose....

This week: Check your organizational culture

Posted on June 30, 2010
My late friend Kitty Locker, in her book, Business and Administrative Communication, wrote: If you think your boss doesn't want you to write simply, ask him or her. A few bosses do prize flowery language. Most don't. You may think...

This week: Kick the props away

Posted on June 14, 2010
In their book You Send Me, Patricia T. O'Connor and Stewart Kellerman note: Some puffed-up writers use long words, techie talk, trendy terms, and convoluted sentences to cover up or deceive or sound important or go along with the crowd....

This week: Wake up your verbs

Posted on June 08, 2010
Ruth Walker, writing in The Christian Science Monitor, said: Look what's happening to verbs--the "muscles" of language. They're being crowded out by more sedate linking-verb constructions. . . . "He lost his job" often loses out to "He became unemployed...

This week: Organize before you do something (says Winnie the Pooh)

Posted on June 01, 2010
It's sometimes possible to reorganize a piece of writing at the revising stage of the process. But that's a little like changing the floor plan of a house after you've built it. Yes, you could conceivably cut the garage off...

This week: Write without thinking

Posted on May 17, 2010
Don Marquis, American journalist and creator of the characters Archy and Mehitabel, said, "I never think when I write; nobody can do two things at the same time and do them well." That's a good practice to follow. This week,...

This week: Check out the "100 Best Business Writing Resources"

Posted on May 10, 2010
Cate Newton, at BusinessDegreeOnline.net, has posted a great list of "The 100 Best Business Writing Resources Online." I'm proud that Manage Your Writing is among them. This week, check the list and find at least five sites that look interesting...

This week: Take as many swings as you need

Posted on April 26, 2010
Playwright Neil Simon has written, "In baseball, you only get three swings and you're out. In rewriting, you get almost as many swings as you want and you know, sooner or later, you'll hit the ball." OK, we business writers...

This week: Leave out the parts that readers skip

Posted on April 19, 2010
Elmore Leonard, author of Get Shorty and other hugely successful books, was once asked why his books were so popular and easy to read. Leonard answered, "Simple. I just leave out the parts that readers skip." This week, when you...

This week: Don't be afraid

Posted on April 12, 2010
Journalist Gene Fowler once said, "Writing is easy; all you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until the drops of blood form on your forehead." What Fowler is describing is, of course, writer's block. We've all...

This week: Pay attention to subject lines

Posted on April 05, 2010
A participant in a writing workshop I once led taught me something. (That almost always happens.) The hardest thing about writing messages, she said, is "filling in the subject." "So you just throw something in there," she continued. "When the...

This week: Write to express, not to impress

Posted on March 22, 2010
Great writers have always known that they are communicating to express, not impress. Ultimately, writers must impress their readers with their ideas, not their vocabulary, and a simple, direct vocabulary gets those ideas across more effectively. Malcolm Forbes said it...

My latest book, edition 2

Posted on March 22, 2010
The second English edition of The McGraw-Hill 36-Hour Course in Business Writing and Communication is now available. The revision benefits greatly from four years of readers' comments on this blog. On the book's Acknowledgments page, I especially thank Mohammed Al-Taee...

This week: If you want an answer, ask a question

Posted on March 17, 2010
Politeness is good. But it can cause us to lose focus. I've seen many messages--paper and e-mail--that ask for information in an excruciatingly polite way: I am considering buying 500 of your widgets. Could you please let me know whether...

This week: Take "the liberty of writing poorly"

Posted on March 11, 2010
Comedy writer Larry Gelbart, best known for his work on the TV series M*A*S*H, wrote, You have to allow yourself the liberty of writing poorly. You have to get the bulk of it done, and then you start to refine...

This week: Be your own writing department

Posted on March 01, 2010
In a cartoon I saw once, a Hollywood producer summons his secretary. ?I want to send a memo to the parking-lot attendant,? he bellows. ?Get me a couple of writers.? I sympathize. Writing is not often easy or fun, and...

This week: Stop at "fish"

Posted on February 15, 2010
Brian Clark at Copyblogger asks, "Do you know when to stop writing?" He tells the story of a director pitching the concept of the film Finding Nemo to John Lasseter, chief creative officer at Pixar. After an hour, the director...

This week: Use your eraser

Posted on February 08, 2010
Once we've drafted a piece of writing, we've invested quite a bit of time and effort in it. Thus, as Rabbi Israel Salanter has said, "Writing is one of the easiest things; erasing is one of the hardest." We're reluctant...

This week: Predict your reader's attitude

Posted on February 01, 2010
Some writing is like rowing a boat downstream, with the current of your reader's attitude. Some is like rowing upstream, against the current. This week, before you draft each piece of writing, ask yourself, "How is my reader going to...

Thanks!

Posted on February 01, 2010
Thanks to Universities and Colleges.org for including Manage Your Writing in their list of Top 100 Blogs to Improve Your Writing in 2010. We're honored to be in such great company.

This week: The last shall be first

Posted on January 27, 2010
Famed sports agent Mark H. McCormack, who has been credited for inspiring the film Jerry McGuire, once wrote, "A lot of memos would be more persuasive if their first and last paragraphs were switched." This week, when you've finished drafting...

This week: Pick any one of a hundred ways to improve your writing

Posted on January 18, 2010
The Online Colleges site has published a terrific list of "100 Little Ways You Can Dramatically Improve Your Writing." This week, scan the list, pick one, follow its link, and try it.

This week: Remember that Brazilian butterfly

Posted on January 11, 2010
Almost everyone has heard of that butterfly whose flapping wings can affect distant weather. It's often labeled as Chinese, though Edward Lorenz's 1972 introduction of the concept was titled "Does the Flap of a Butterfly's Wings in Brazil Set Off...

This week: Write a one-minute outline

Posted on December 14, 2009
When many of us were in school, outlining had a lot to do with Roman numerals, Arabic numerals, capital letters, and lower-clase letters. As a result, when someone mentions outlines, we run away fast. Outlining can be much easier than...

This week: Cut when you revise, not while you draft

Posted on November 16, 2009
In the early nineteenth century, British author C. C. Colton wrote, "That writer does the most who gives his reader the most knowledge, and takes from him the least time." Most of us know that in theory. We know that...

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