In general, typographers try to avoid ending a page with a short fragment of a paragraph or starting a page with the last small part…
A sign on a churchyard gate, seen on a walk at the weekend, reads: Please be aware of rabbit damage to the grass to the…
The format of a lot of advocacy, both written and oral, is to propose a conclusion and provide evidence or explanation to support that conclusion.…
The phrase ‘I refute’ has started to show up a lot in submissions and witness statements. People use it to mean ‘I deny such and…
Sleep on it. The problem with editing something you’ve just written is that you are too close to it. You will tend to see what…
In Is this the best you can do? we emphasised the important of rewriting and editing. It’s easy to say that rewriting is important, but…
Winston Lord was an aide to Henry Kissinger during the Nixon administration. Once, after Lord had written a draft report, Kissinger asked “Is this the…
I’ve just read the best advice I’ve ever seen on this subject in Bryan A Garner’s book The Elements of Legal Style (2nd ed., OUP…
The opposite of ‘unfair’ is ‘fair’. Not ‘not unfair’. So write “The Respondent has not shown a fair reason for the dismissal”, rather than “The…
Often, while writing, you will leave gaps to fill in later. It is useful to have a standard bit of text, such as ‘xxx’ to…