Legal Writing

?Access? and ?access to?

By Maeve Maddox

The following excerpt is from an article on telephone fraud:

The senior citizen, a man in his late 70s, is embarrassed and doesn?t want to talk about it. And, relatives are scrambling to make sure the crook doesn?t access to his bank account.

When access is used as a verb, it does not require a ?to? after it.

access: verb. To gain access to (data, etc., held in a computer or computer-based system, or the system itself)

access: noun. The state or faculty of being approached; accessibility.

As a verb, access is transitive; it has a receiver. It should be followed by the noun or pronoun that is its direct object:

Children can access the internet at school.

In this way you can access the database.

We want to make sure that the crook cannot access the old man?s bank account.

When used as a noun, access is followed by a prepositional phrase beginning with ?to.?

The students have access to all the film databases.

This ticket grants access to the flower show.

Full post as published by Daily Writing Tips on March 23, 2010 (boomark / email).