I hate to do this, since grellas is a very active and valuable member of this community and clearly cares about his wordsmithing, and as a writer myself I bleed personally and profusely at any direct criticism (I heal up, too, but that doesn't mean it didn't hurt).
However, I must say it: I don't think this is good writing.
Writing is like design. It can only be meaningfully called "good" when it achieves a purpose. What is the purpose of this article? It seems to be "to help people (lawyers in particular) to write better".
Does it do that? Well, it's got some tips about writing better, but they are generally hidden underneath the beautiful sentences. Let's take, as an example, one of the clearer paragraphs:
In advocacy, good writing will reflect muscularity, pulling a reader from first to last by force of logical inevitability. This style requires a firm grasp of subject. It requires solid, understated control so as to convey a feel of assured confidence. And it avoids key flaws: it does not strain, or vaunt, or table-pound, or attack the person. It is professional. It has class. It works like a powerful engine under the hood: it does not show itself, but anyone who hears that quiet hum will immediately sense its power. Done right, it projects quintessential vigor: it races along and even leaps off the page on the strength of its own power alone.
That's all very true, but I'm not entirely sure it will help someone who doesn't already understand this point. It is not actionable advice for people who don't already know how to do it.
This article would serve its purpose better if it not only described what good writing is, but also how to achieve it, and if it did so in a way that makes it easier for the reader to extract the information out of it (at the moment, the only way to get the information out of this article is to read through every single sentence, and evaluate each of them to see if it actually brings some new insight).
That said, the prose is beautiful. But this article is like a beautiful design that looks brilliant but isn't functional (either that, or I haven't figured out the purpose of this article).
Ouch . . . but thanks, I always welcome sound criticism and I don't think I disagree with your points. The piece probably is more directed to what might be called "principles of good lawyering as they incidentally touch on writing." There is a short section in which I do touch directly on writing principles (recounting "good writing rules" and then bringing up my pet peeve about how they are not to be applied mechanically) but that is the only direct discussion of that topic. Concerning lawyering principles, I don't think there is anything I would edit or change and so maybe it is an issue of a poor title for the piece (and a theme that needs to be recast a bit).
Thanks again for the honest criticism. That is one of the great benefits of putting one's work out there. It definitely helps you sharpen and refine it as it is appraised by smart people.
If the article's purpose was to teach you how to be a better writer, then I agree. It lacked clear instruction. However, I felt the article was really about why it's important to want to write well, especially if you're a lawyer. This is the affect it had on me. Great article.
I had intended to applaud the author and assert that this was one of the few examples of essays on good writing that I've recently read that is also itself an example of good writing. So your critical comment comes as a surprise and a challenge, especially since I think you are right in a crucial respect: it would take a bit of work to isolate and evaluate specific actionable tips on writing well from the essay. But I read the essay in the first place as an exhortation to others to aspire to write well, to recognize the importance of writing well, to appreciate and confront the difficulty of it, and, indeed, to provide an example of it. In these respects, I think the essay has succeeded admirably, and in these respects, too, it is doing something that most essays on writing, including the ones that would well satisfy the criterion that you invoke, fall short.
I think one of the important, if implicit, ideas of the essay is that it's not possible to learn to write very well without being able to fix in your own mind an ideal representation of what good writing is against which to measure your own real efforts. Reading and recognizing the right examples can go a long way towards reaching that goal, and while the essay emphasizes the hard work of writing over the work of attentive reading, it nonetheless is the kind of essay that contributes, by virtue of its logical development and style, to my idea of what good writing is.
I think I understand your point, but I think you're being a bit harsh.
At the most basic level, good writing does involve ensuring that the reader can comprehend the ideas that are being introduced. However, in my opinion, it also involves knowing something about the intended audience's ability to comprehend the subject being discussed. If someone's studying law, I'd assume that they'd have no difficulty understanding the quoted paragraph. I'd certainly hope that someone studying law wouldn't need to be spoon-fed ;)
"Writing is like design"
Writing is also an art-form. 'Quality' is difficult to define - so sometimes, a full tool-kit of literary devices might need to be used to illustrate a point. Sometimes the reader will be required to infer meaning.
This section of text uses metaphor, it provides itself as an example of the didactic rhythm that the author's discussing, and it does all of this without being patronising or condescending.
I'm a programmer/business owner that once needed several specialist contracts drafted, but couldn't afford to hire a specialist lawyer to draft them. A lawyer friend of mine gave me a load of sample contracts and drafting notes, and I spent the next 6 weeks copying, pasting, and modifying.
I'm not convinced it was the best use of my time, and it's quite possible the resulting documents were a legal disaster (although I thought they were pretty good). But it was certainly an interesting experience.
After a couple of weeks I came to the conclusion that drafting contracts is actually a lot like programming. The aim of both is to specify precisely what should happen in response to various conditions.
if partyA terminates agreement then partyB should get X, Y, and Z. And so on.
One key difference is that, whilst programming languages are built for precise, unambiguous writing, English is not. It's very hard to write English in a completely unambiguous way. It's even harder to write English in a way that can't be intentionally misinterpreted by someone who stands to gain by doing so.
Breaking up a sentence to improve the readability can often add new ways in which the meaning can "reasonably" be interpreted. Often it's easier to be precise in meaning with a 500-word sentence than with five 100-word sentences. And many English words can be interpreted in multiple ways, so you often have to use unusual words that have a precise accepted meaning set by legal precedent. Hence the complexity you often see in legal documents.
I talked to my lawyer friend about this, and he agreed. He also pointed out that, as professional legal drafters improve, they typically write more readable documents with less jargon, but no less precision of meaning. Irrespective of how precise they are in meaning, contracts that are hard to make sense of are often the sign of a rookie. A bit like programming again.
I think you could replace "legal writing" with "technical writing" and the article would still be on the mark. While it focuses on legal writing, many bits of advice the author gives would apply to many situation where you're trying to explain, convince or illuminate with your prose.
A combination of two things: (a) my own failings over the years in trying to learn how to write; and (b) strong beliefs about what lawyers should be doing to serve their clients well when they write things.
As to the first, my first language was Greek, not English, and I spent literally years going through all the resources available (S&W, Zissner, Hugh Blair, many others) in trying to lay a sound foundation for how to write well. Even as I did so, though, I realized that technical rules were insufficient in themselves to help you master the art of writing well. This essay identifies other factors that affect good writing but are not normally discussed as part of technique (thinking for oneself, mastering languages, etc.). I wrote this piece in part to try to give others a broader perspective on why it is important to focus on more than technical rules if they want to write well.
As to the second, I have seen all sorts of ways that those in my profession would mess up in connection with written items, and these often went far beyond writing technique. I wrote this piece in that sense both as a caution to lawyers and also as a guide to clients in what to look for in good lawyer writing.
This, then, was my attempt to articulate a broader perspective on "good writing" (not focused on technique) as it applied to the things lawyers do. I thought it might be useful to the HN community both because many here are keenly focused on the topic of writing and also because many are consumers of legal services.
Off topic a bit, but for help on legal writing I think the work by Bryan Garner is the best I've seen. Simple, direct, full of great advice and examples. Great stuff:
It always bothers me when I read something like this - I strongly disagree. There's always going to be things that are tangential to what can be considered HN's main "scope" - I'll go on a limb and say the main scope here is programming and entrepreneurship. Writing (and communication in general) is a key component of what makes an exceptional coder/entrepreneur (or professional, to generalize). So I do think this is a great post to see on HN. And lets be honest, there's a ton of other good posts to read on the homepage right now if you do not like this one - thats what makes HN pretty darn good.
[+] [-] swombat|15 years ago|reply
However, I must say it: I don't think this is good writing.
Writing is like design. It can only be meaningfully called "good" when it achieves a purpose. What is the purpose of this article? It seems to be "to help people (lawyers in particular) to write better".
Does it do that? Well, it's got some tips about writing better, but they are generally hidden underneath the beautiful sentences. Let's take, as an example, one of the clearer paragraphs:
In advocacy, good writing will reflect muscularity, pulling a reader from first to last by force of logical inevitability. This style requires a firm grasp of subject. It requires solid, understated control so as to convey a feel of assured confidence. And it avoids key flaws: it does not strain, or vaunt, or table-pound, or attack the person. It is professional. It has class. It works like a powerful engine under the hood: it does not show itself, but anyone who hears that quiet hum will immediately sense its power. Done right, it projects quintessential vigor: it races along and even leaps off the page on the strength of its own power alone.
That's all very true, but I'm not entirely sure it will help someone who doesn't already understand this point. It is not actionable advice for people who don't already know how to do it.
This article would serve its purpose better if it not only described what good writing is, but also how to achieve it, and if it did so in a way that makes it easier for the reader to extract the information out of it (at the moment, the only way to get the information out of this article is to read through every single sentence, and evaluate each of them to see if it actually brings some new insight).
That said, the prose is beautiful. But this article is like a beautiful design that looks brilliant but isn't functional (either that, or I haven't figured out the purpose of this article).
[+] [-] grellas|15 years ago|reply
Thanks again for the honest criticism. That is one of the great benefits of putting one's work out there. It definitely helps you sharpen and refine it as it is appraised by smart people.
[+] [-] lbrdn|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pigbucket|15 years ago|reply
I think one of the important, if implicit, ideas of the essay is that it's not possible to learn to write very well without being able to fix in your own mind an ideal representation of what good writing is against which to measure your own real efforts. Reading and recognizing the right examples can go a long way towards reaching that goal, and while the essay emphasizes the hard work of writing over the work of attentive reading, it nonetheless is the kind of essay that contributes, by virtue of its logical development and style, to my idea of what good writing is.
[+] [-] lwhi|15 years ago|reply
At the most basic level, good writing does involve ensuring that the reader can comprehend the ideas that are being introduced. However, in my opinion, it also involves knowing something about the intended audience's ability to comprehend the subject being discussed. If someone's studying law, I'd assume that they'd have no difficulty understanding the quoted paragraph. I'd certainly hope that someone studying law wouldn't need to be spoon-fed ;)
"Writing is like design"
Writing is also an art-form. 'Quality' is difficult to define - so sometimes, a full tool-kit of literary devices might need to be used to illustrate a point. Sometimes the reader will be required to infer meaning.
This section of text uses metaphor, it provides itself as an example of the didactic rhythm that the author's discussing, and it does all of this without being patronising or condescending.
[+] [-] bromley|15 years ago|reply
I'm not convinced it was the best use of my time, and it's quite possible the resulting documents were a legal disaster (although I thought they were pretty good). But it was certainly an interesting experience.
After a couple of weeks I came to the conclusion that drafting contracts is actually a lot like programming. The aim of both is to specify precisely what should happen in response to various conditions.
if partyA terminates agreement then partyB should get X, Y, and Z. And so on.
One key difference is that, whilst programming languages are built for precise, unambiguous writing, English is not. It's very hard to write English in a completely unambiguous way. It's even harder to write English in a way that can't be intentionally misinterpreted by someone who stands to gain by doing so.
Breaking up a sentence to improve the readability can often add new ways in which the meaning can "reasonably" be interpreted. Often it's easier to be precise in meaning with a 500-word sentence than with five 100-word sentences. And many English words can be interpreted in multiple ways, so you often have to use unusual words that have a precise accepted meaning set by legal precedent. Hence the complexity you often see in legal documents.
I talked to my lawyer friend about this, and he agreed. He also pointed out that, as professional legal drafters improve, they typically write more readable documents with less jargon, but no less precision of meaning. Irrespective of how precise they are in meaning, contracts that are hard to make sense of are often the sign of a rookie. A bit like programming again.
[+] [-] rmah|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jcr|15 years ago|reply
What spurred you to write this?
[+] [-] grellas|15 years ago|reply
As to the first, my first language was Greek, not English, and I spent literally years going through all the resources available (S&W, Zissner, Hugh Blair, many others) in trying to lay a sound foundation for how to write well. Even as I did so, though, I realized that technical rules were insufficient in themselves to help you master the art of writing well. This essay identifies other factors that affect good writing but are not normally discussed as part of technique (thinking for oneself, mastering languages, etc.). I wrote this piece in part to try to give others a broader perspective on why it is important to focus on more than technical rules if they want to write well.
As to the second, I have seen all sorts of ways that those in my profession would mess up in connection with written items, and these often went far beyond writing technique. I wrote this piece in that sense both as a caution to lawyers and also as a guide to clients in what to look for in good lawyer writing.
This, then, was my attempt to articulate a broader perspective on "good writing" (not focused on technique) as it applied to the things lawyers do. I thought it might be useful to the HN community both because many here are keenly focused on the topic of writing and also because many are consumers of legal services.
[+] [-] hesitz|15 years ago|reply
http://www.lawprose.org/bryan_garner/books.php
[+] [-] lwhi|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] achompas|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fredoliveira|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
[deleted]