leXpeak – legal research & writing

Punctuation is really powerful

parthaonlrw — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 11:38:40 +0000

Punctuations change the meaning of a sentence sometimes it could be dangerous, like the example in the court. I came across one more example which happened in a class room.

An english teacher wrote the words:

“A woman without her man is nothing”

on the chalkboard and asked his students to punctuate it correctly.

All the boys in the class wrote:

“A woman, without her man, is nothing.”

All the girls in the class wrote:

“A woman: without her, man is nothing.”

Aint this a perfect example for “Punctuation is powerful”

How to address President Bush henceforth?

parthaonlrw — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 13:04:28 +0000

I read a post from Grammar Girl about – How to Address a Former President?

According to the U.S. Geological Survey Correspondence Handbook, when you address a letter to a former president, it is still correct to use the title President. For example, after the inauguration in January, you would still begin a letter to George W. Bush with the salutation Dear President Bush.

If, however, you are writing a news story about a former president, it is appropriate to use the word former. For example, current news stories refer to former President Clinton and former President George H.W. Bush.

Courtesy: Grammar Girl

Too many Words, too much confusion

parthaonlrw — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 10:40:07 +0000

I was reading set-in-style, a good online resource on legal writing, they had posted about Google chrome’s EULA, by the way EULA is end user license agreement.

Please read the post availabe at http://misterthorne.org/set_in_style/2008/09/03/lawyers-gone-wild/

If you see this is not the problem only with Google it’s everywhere, they try to copyright or take the ownership of everything.

Plain English

parthaonlrw — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 11:18:40 +0000

Sorry folks, I did not post from long time as I was not well all these days.

Anyways, I was looking at a very intersting site http://www.ualr.edu/cmbarger/, Barger has posted interesting thoughts on Legal Writing in a very simple way, in fact the Plain English which I always stress on has few good links from where you can download pdf docs to read about Plain English.

A Plain English Handbook http://www.sec.gov/pdf/handbook.pdf

Just think once, why do you have to show-off (dont show more than you have, dont talk more than you know) write what ever you write clearly in a simple english, clarity wins over intelligence

Law Firm to Law School: We’re not hiring your grads until you improve your legal research (and legal writing) program

parthaonlrw — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 10:53:43 +0000

This was the post-heading in Legal writing professors blog today.

They wanted to show that the Legal Research & writing is not taught properly in the Law Schools, no one knows the important of Legal writing (especially In India). Only during my recent visit to US, I infact go this idea of creating a blog in the same processs that I learn about this beautiful subject more and more.

Coming to point, I found this interesting link to westlaw which talks about using their database more efficiently and also about LRW here n their. http://west.thomson.com/pdf/llnm/LLNMMayJune08.pdf

Delete group hyperlinks in Microsoft Word

parthaonlrw — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:28:25 +0000

Remember, when you paste text from other source which has hyperlink in it, even the hyperlinks will be pasted and if the text is big!!! what else remove each hyperlink one after the other.

There is no solution for this is it??

I have found out a simple solution,

Select the entire block of text, then press Ctrl-Shift-F9

How to write, inner talks

parthaonlrw — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 10:02:10 +0000

Here is a very good article from Grammar Girl…..who is she I wanna meet her…

Formatting Thoughts

Colette is a sports writer and asks how to deal with players’ thoughts: “It seems that tennis players talk to themselves during a match, and if you ask them what they were thinking at a certain critical point, they will usually respond with, for example, ‘I said to myself, keep fighting; don’t give up.’ How should these comments be quoted, if at all, and punctuated?”

The most common recommendation for dealing with such unspoken discourse is to use quotation marks just as you would for spoken discourse.

“I said to myself, ‘Keep fighting; don’t give up,'” Smith said.

According to Smith, she struggled to stay in the game, rallying herself with the thought, “Keep fighting; don’t give up.”

When you’re showing in fiction that characters are thinking to themselves, no special formatting is typically needed, but a writer can choose to use quotation marks or italics if it seems appropriate.

No Special Treatment

Squiggly looked at the horizon in despair.

Nobody is coming to help.

Quotation Marks

He counted his remaining chocolates.

“Nobody is coming to help,” Squiggly thought to himself.

Italics

Squiggly looked at the horizon in despair. Nobody is coming to help. He counted his remaining chocolates. I’m going to die. He tried to remember where he’d last seen water. I’ve heard thirst is a terrible way to die. Panic was beginning to set in. I don’t want to die! Delirium would soon follow if he didn’t get out of the sun.

Comprise

parthaonlrw — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 10:33:38 +0000

What does the word comprise means?

Something that formed to make one (its my definintion thats why) or Consisting of, composed of

I have been reading an article from Grammar Police, who in turn refers the usage from the freedictonary.com which says……

Usage Note: The traditional rule states that the whole comprises the parts and the parts compose the whole. In strict usage: The Union comprises 50 states. Fifty states compose (or constitute or make up) the Union. Even though careful writers often maintain this distinction, comprise is increasingly used in place of compose, especially in the passive: The Union is comprised of 50 states. Our surveys show that opposition to this usage is abating. In the 1960s, 53 percent of the Usage Panel found this usage unacceptable; in 1996, only 35 percent objected.

Its certainly chaotic

parthaonlrw — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 18:09:41 +0000

Oh my gosh!! look at this poem it goes miles. But, the author surely has spent a lot of time & offcourse brains. I cannot put the content but I’ll sure give the link click here n enjoy……

Semicolon

parthaonlrw — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 17:18:22 +0000

I’m a big fan of Slate.com, this time they have published a good article on semi-colon. When I attended a seminar in AMA on drafting in English at New York, I was adviced by the instructor not to use semi-colon often. But, this article clears my doubt, WHY

“a colon appears in the previous sentence because the second part exemplifies the first. If the second part had been a contrast, something like “but others thought the subject far too serious for jokes” then a semi-colon would have been necessary.”

read the full article……..