Academic Legal Writing - Eugene Volokh [58]
I. Conquer Your Fear
It's natural to be afraid of reading your own work critically. What if your claims are all wrong? What if you find the killer counterargument? What if you have to start over?
The fear is understandable, but nearly always unfounded. If your claim is flawed, you can correct it. Most counterarguments are answerable, and if you find one that isn't, you can amend your claim without throwing everything out. Your draft represents a lot of research and thinking. Even if you have to revise it dramatically, you'll still be able to use the bulk of what you've written.
And if you figure out that your claim is wrong, then your readers—including those who will grade your work—will too. Better fix the claim before you turn in the article.
J. There Are No Lazy Readers—Only Busy Readers
Many writing tips stress simplicity, clarity, and brevity. Avoid unnecessary long words and complex sentences. Get to the point quickly. Keep paragraphs short. Make things easier for your readers, and keep them from losing interest.
Some writers think this advice assumes that readers are lazy or stupid; those writers feel they're being told to “dumb down” their prose for dumb readers. After all, smart, industrious readers wouldn't mind long paragraphs filled with long sentences and long words—they would focus on the substance, not the form.
No. Your industrious and smart readers are busy people, precisely because they are so industrious and smart. They can spend only limited time and effort reading your article—not because they're lazy or dumb, but because they have other things to do.
They can parse complex words and sentences; but this parsing takes more work than reading simpler, clearer prose. Why waste my time wading through this morass, they'll ask themselves, when I could be working on something else? You can keep their precious attention only by making things as easy for them as possible.
X. EDITING: GETTING HELP FROM YOUR FACULTY ADVISOR
A. Ask Your Advisor for Especially Detailed Advice
Once you've gone through several drafts, your faculty advisor may be willing to read your work and give you advice. Different professors operate differently: Some may be reluctant to read any rough drafts, especially for seminar papers, while others will be willing to read at least one such draft, or even more. Some may give you only general comments about the substance, while others may also edit your writing, at least in one or two sections.
But whatever advisor you have, you're likely to get more if you ask for more. Ask the professor up front (1) whether he will read over a rough draft, and also (2) whether he will give you suggestions about your writing as well as about the substance. Sometimes, if you ask nicely enough—in a way that makes it clear that you really want to improve your writing—the professor will agree to more than he might have otherwise offered.
B. Give Your Advisor an Already Closely Proofread Draft
Don't ask your advisor to read a first draft, or even a third draft. Instead, proofread several times before handing in your rough draft (and many more times before handing in the final draft).
First, you want the professor to identify the problems that you wouldn't have found on your own—the problems that remain after several edits that you yourself did.
Second, badly written prose is hard to read, and the harder the draft is to read, the less closely the professor will read it.
Third, the professor may feel that you're wasting his time by asking for comments on material that you haven't already edited yourself. You don't want your editor, or your future grader, to think that.
C. Give Your Advisor a Rough Draft as Quickly as Possible
Give your advisor a rough draft as quickly as possible. This is in some tension with the preceding suggestion, but you need to keep both goals in mind.
It will take time for the professor to read your draft and give you thorough comments—and this won't be the only task on the professor's schedule. The earlier