Postcard from the ledge

Dropping in on Wayne Schiess of Legalwriting.net

then I'm off to see Allision C. Shields of the Legal Ease blog

Having lots of fun on my blog tour. Wish you were here--oh, you are!

Raymond Ward Gets It

Today I am visiting Raymond Ward's the (new) legal writer.

Check out both Ray's legal writng blog and Minor Wisdom where he explores modern culture and the blues.

Keeping the faith

At some point in her life, every woman --as a member of the Sisterhood-- (even a presidential candidate) must host a Tupperware party.

On Saturday, July 26, 2008, every member of the Glitter Power Sisterhood must post a photo of her glitter toes. These are mine.

We'll always have Paris

My current stop is with Terry Kaufman of Your English Success. Terry's approach to improving communication in the English language is exemplified in this graphic from his website:



Thanks for the visit, Terry. I am honored to be a member of your advisory board.

A few stops along the way

Golly! I am having some kinda fun on my blog tour. Here are some blog stops I've made today:

The regularly scheduled stop,
at Lawsagna where Anastasia Pryanikova explores the world.

And a couple other stops:

Writers Editing Workshop

Library
Boy

Stop 3 on my tour--Steve Matthews

Steve has posted the interview with me. His interest is very much appreciated. Steve writes the Vancouver Law Librarian blog.

An addenda to the interview, my book is also available in paperback.

Cheryl

Day 2 of my blog tour

My world-wide blog tour continues:

Helping Clients Who Have Language Challenges (Personal Injury and Social Security)
Robert A. Kraft blog
http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/367487/31371718

Plain Language Wizard on blog tour

Here is the Plain Language Wizard, all set for her blog tour.

Well, this is it. Today is the start of my blog tour with an interview by Jennifer N. Sawday.

I'm honored to be invited to such terrific blogs, like Anastasia Pryanikova's Lawsagna, and Terry Kaufman's Your English Success. See the whole list on my itinerary at http://plainlanguage.com/tour

And, if I have not mentioned it, my contest ends July 28. If you haven't got your entry in, now is the time. http://plainlanguagelegalwriting.com/contest

Calls to action

One of the features of a letter is (or should be) the "call to action" at the end. This is one of the things that I discuss in my newly-released book that focuses on legal correspondence.

Today Allison C. Shields at Legal Ease Blog explores the role and offers examples of these calls in different types of writing.

Enter my contest

Want to try plain language on impenetrable law? Now’s your chance. Tackle a section of U.S. Copyright law that ordinary people hate to ponder.

Enter the Plain Language Legal Writing Contest, and rewrite the Fair Use section of the U.S. Copyright law. To see the law and get contest info, go to http://plainlanguagelegalwriting.com/contest

I am sponsoring this contest to mark the release of one of my Plain Language Wizardry books in paperback. See more at http://plainlanguagelegalwriting.com

And coming up…

Ever heard of a blog tour? I hadn’t… Apparently it’s a virtual book tour, and I’m going on one!

Starting next Monday, I’ll be promoting Plain Language Legal Writing, being interviewed by — and writing guests posts for — bloggers who’ve been kind enough to host me. Watch for more news, and my itinerary, at http://plainlanguagelegalwriting.com/tour

Finding the right voice

On occasion, I hire a ghostwriter to produce a first draft that I can "personalize".

Last week, Ace Ghostwriter raised with me the issue of "voice". A new client (that I referred) was concerned whether Ace could write in "newclient voice". Ace told me she had not realized she had been "channelling" my voice, but now was certain she could channel another.

This got me thinking. "Voice" is a well-explored concept in professional writing, but in plain language work we focus so much on being "reader-centered" that we don't talk much about voice.

It occurs to me that I have been hiring Ace whenever I feel that I have not got the internal resource to achieve the voice that is required for a particular reading audience.

I am still pondering this, and into my email box pops a great article on voice from Ragan Communication.

Check out How to find the right voice in your writing by Jim Ylisela.

Keep it short and simple, silly

Decision by U.S. District Court Judge Ronald Leighton:

"Plaintiff has a great deal to say,
But it seems he skipped Rule 8(a).
His complaint is too long,
Which renders it wrong,
Please rewrite and refile today."
...

Lawyer’s complaint is too long
From CNN’s Bill Mears

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Keep it short, keep it simple. That was the brief message from a federal judge, who ordered a private attorney to go back and refile his overly “redundant” legal complaint.

U.S. District Court Judge Ronald Leighton of the Western District of Washington resisted dealing with a 465-page initial statement of the claims in a civil lawsuit over alleged consumer racketeering. GMAC Mortgage, the company being sued by attorney Dean Browning Webb’s clients Presidio Group, said the epic complaint made it hard to figure out what wrongdoing was actually being alleged.

The Tacoma-based judge agreed, noting in an order that the title of Webb’s complaint alone was eight pages, that it took 18 pages to list the six defendants and included a 37-page “pit stop” to quote e-mails. And it was not until page 30 that the real facts of the case were first alleged. Leighton called the whole document an “odyssey” of “useless repetition” and suggested the attorney go back and read a basic style manual read by law students.

hat tips:
Professor Rachel Croskery-Roberts
Professor Ken Chestek
and the Legal Writing Prof blog

http://cnnwire.blogs.cnn.com/2008/07/07/lawyers-complaint-is-too-long/

Have you been puzzled by the garbled words that appear in some conversations on the Internet--especially on photo captions? Me, too. Well, today I came across an explanation.

Since you must be into the use of language--you are reading this blog--learn about the relatively new language LEET, or l33t.

Here is a short explanation from "Silly Internet Traditions: A Concise History":

"Leet" is essentially a form of Internet slang that has been developed haphazardly over the years by both the hacking and online gaming communities. Short for "elite," Leet has slowly migrated over the past 13 years from small hacker groups to mainstream Internet language (see also: LOLCats). While the language's intentional misspellings and grammatical idiosyncrasies are too numerous to list in this space, here are some general rules to remember when trying decipher Leet messages: first, most vowels (a, e, i, and o) are changed into corresponding numbers (4, 3, 1, 0). Second, the suffix "-xor" is often used to replace the suffix "-er" - thus, the word "hacker" is frequently translated into "haxxor" or "h4xx0r."

And some detail at the BBC, An Explanation of l33t Speak.

The Whodunit Rule?

Dr Rosemary Camilleri of Writing at Work offers up a new name for the sentence based on Sentence-Verb-Object order: The Whodunit Rule. I like it.

Dr. Camilleri also reports on new research to support the value in this sentence structure.

5 benefits of adopting plain language

David Siecker calims to be America's best communicator... Well, he does a fine job of explaining the good in plain language:

5 Benefits of adopting plain language:

* Reduce the amount of time it takes for individuals or organizations to comply with your instructions. With plain language, your customers can understand your message and instructions the first time they read your documents.
* Cut down on the number of customer service phone calls, inquiries, and complaints. When people don’t understand the information we provide, they contact your front-line staff, hotlines, or government contracted service providers to understand how to act on the information we provide.
* Increase the likelihood that we get the response we are seeking. Some people who receive confusing letters or unclear public documents may not do anything at all. Your letters or pamphlets may end up in the recycling bin or trash.
* Become accessible to more people. Accurate and high quality translation starts with easy-to-read English-language documents. Translators will make fewer mistakes and better convey your message when they are translating plain language documents.
* Increase company/department transparency and hold yourselves accountable for the messages we send the public.

See the full article here.