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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: Try five W's and an H

Posted on April 13, 2009
This week, before you start drafting each writing job, list six questions on a piece of paper: Who? What? Where? When? Why? How? Briefly answer each question, even if only in a word or two. You may find that after...

This week: Write for just one reader

Posted on April 06, 2009
I always recommend picturing your readers as completely as possible, using the "PACK" acronym: What's their personality? What's their attitude? What circumstances are they in? What's their knowledge of the subject? But what if you're writing to someone you don't...

This week: Put first things first

Posted on March 30, 2009
This week, after you draft each piece of writing, look at the first few words of each sentence. Ask yourself, "Do most of my sentences begin with the main point?" If not, try revising at least some of them to...

This week: Put first things first

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This week: Try numbers and bullets

Posted on March 23, 2009
This week, after you draft each piece of writing, try to find places where a numbered or bulleted list could be substituted for an ordinary sentence or paragraph. You may find that your writing becomes much easier to read.

This week: Try numbers and bullets

This week: Turn off your monitor

Posted on March 09, 2009
This month marks the third anniversary of the Manage Your Writing blog. Because only a few current subscribers were with us in our first few months, I'm occasionally going to recycle what I think are the best early posts. This...

This week: Persuade

Posted on March 02, 2009

This week: Try "TK"

Posted on February 23, 2009
Cory Doctorow has published a great article, "Writing in the Age of Distraction." Though he's a science-fiction writer, his advice is good for us business writers as well. For example--Researching isn't writing and vice-versa. When you come to a factual...

This week: Say it in one sentence

Posted on February 16, 2009
A VP at 3M, legendary for its innovation, told Tom Peters, "We consider a coherent sentence to be an acceptable first draft for a new-product plan."This week, choose one message that you need to send, and write a one-sentence first...

This week: Add up the cost

Posted on February 09, 2009
At his blog Writing, Clear and Simple, Roy Jacobsen has a great post on figuring the cost of a piece of writing and balancing that cost against the value to your reader. He writes:Assume you?re writing an email message that...

This week: Try managing your writing

Posted on February 02, 2009
This week, take a big-picture look at managing your writing.Start with the very next writing job you have to do. Instead of diving right in and working on the first sentence, stop for a couple of minutes and do some...

This week: Write your way out of "voice mail hell"--and talk your way out of e-mail hell

Posted on January 26, 2009
At the blog Writing Matters, Leslie O'Flahavan shows us a great 61-word e-mail message she received from a client, a message that prevented a week of "voice mail hell."This week, read Leslie's posting. Then during the week, look for ways...

This week: Form a subversive cell

Posted on January 20, 2009
I often advise writers to read, and revise, their drafts as though they were written by someone else. Such objectivity makes for better revision.But what if someone else really did write the draft?This week, think about setting up an underground,...

This week: Follow Iacocca's Rule

Posted on January 12, 2009
One of former Chrysler chairman Lee Iacocca's "Eight Commandments of Good Management" is "Say it in English and keep it short."This week, as you revise, ask yourself two questions: (1) Is this in English? (the English that people speak, not...

This week: Use the same word twice

Posted on January 05, 2009
In school, most of us were taught to avoid repetition in our writing. In some circumstances, that's not bad advice. But we business writers need to learn that repetition can make writing more readable and more effective.One of the best...

This week: Make a resolution

Posted on December 29, 2008
If you're reading this blog, you probably would like to become a more effective business writer in 2009.So be specific. What would you like to improve most about your business writing this year?Jot down your answer, and make it a...

This week: Give yourself a gift

Posted on December 22, 2008
Those of us celebrating important holidays the next couple of weeks are probably thinking about gifts. Gifts are wonderful--to give and to receive--but one kind of thinking about gifts may be getting in the way of becoming a more effective...

This week: Give yourself a gift

This week: Keep your lists parallel

Posted on December 15, 2008
The most frequent grammatical problem I encounter in clients' writing is nonparallel lists. Here's an example: This item is a complete sentence A noun Ends with a verb phrase The best short discussion of parallelism I've seen lately was written...

This week: Censor your e-mail

Posted on December 08, 2008
Roger Matus's blog Death by Email lists "10 things never to put in email," phrases that can have serious legal implications. They include2. Delete this email immediately.6. We're going to do this differently than normal.10. Is this actually legal?This week,...

This week: Ask "so what?"

Posted on December 01, 2008
A post on the Stepcase Lifehack blog recommends the book Economical Writing, by economist Deirdre McCloskey, and lists five of McCloskey's points. My favorite:1. Always ask "so what?"Don???t assume that your topic is important just because you think it is,...

Web resources list updated

Posted on November 26, 2008
I've just finished a long-overdue update of "Web Sites for Managing Your Writing" (about three screens down in the left column of this blog). If you haven't looked at it for a while, you may find something new and useful...

This week: Send fewer envelopes

Posted on November 24, 2008
Suppose that next Monday you arrive at your office and find an envelope from me. Inside is a $10 bill. On Tuesday and Wednesday, the same. By Thursday, you're thinking about me during your commute, looking forward with pleasure to...

This week: Disturb the peace

Posted on November 17, 2008
In her book Leadership and the New Science, Margaret J. Wheatley wrote:For a system to remain alive, for the universe to move onward, information must be continually generated. If there is nothing new, or if the information that exists merely...

This week: Take a 24-hour break

Posted on November 10, 2008
According to famed sports agent Mark H. McCormack, "whenever President Harry Truman wrote an angry letter, he would put it away in his desk for 24 hours to see if he felt the same way the next day."Even with nonangry...

A thank-you to legal blogs

Posted on November 04, 2008
In the United States, it's Election Day, a day to celebrate the rule of law and the law-governed transfer of power. So it's a fitting day for me to thank the legal bloggers (not as opposed to illegal bloggers) who...

This week: Be kind

Posted on November 03, 2008
To be effective, a piece of writing must be organized. It must present its information in the order that best serves the writer's purpose and the reader's needs.A friend of mine, Lee Wood, a writer at Resort Condominiums International, once...

This week: Have a conversation

Posted on October 27, 2008
In his book The Postmodern Organization, William Bergquist argues eloquently for the importance of conversation in an organization. "Goods and machines," he writes, "are parts of the organization, whereas conversations are the essence of the organization...

This week: PACK your bags

Posted on October 20, 2008
A writer and reader have to be alike in some way (even if it's just in knowing the same language), or communication isn't possible. They also have to be different in some way, or communication isn't necessary.This week, as you...

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