Academic Legal Writing - Eugene Volokh [66]
But if your discussion focuses more on the object than on the subject (the actor), you might want to use the passive voice, which has a similar focus. If you're writing about the USA Patriot Act, for instance, the passive sentence “The Act was adopted shortly after the September 11 attacks” may be better than the active “Congress adopted the Act shortly after the September 11 attacks.” The passive voice properly focuses the discussion on the Act, rather than on Congress.
H. Simple Word Choice Mistakes
Poor word choice is especially dangerous, because it undermines your credibility. In some respects, it is worse even than redundant or abstract writing: Though using the wrong word might leave your meaning quite clear, it will lead some readers to think that you are illeducated or inarticulate.
This reader reaction might be unfair, but it's the way of the world. You need to keep it in mind.
Many word choice mistakes will be obvious if you carefully and skeptically proofread your draft. Reread each sentence and ask yourself: Is this exactly what I want to say?
Take two sentences I read in student papers, “the police already have alternate counts to chase criminals,” and “citizens' suspicions of intrusive gun control laws are at a height.” If the writers had reread the sentences, they would almost certainly have seen the errors. (“At a height” might not be technically mistaken, but it's highly unidiomatic, and thus nearly as annoying to readers as an error.)
If you find yourself consistently missing such errors during your proofreading—one sign would be that your teachers keep marking word choice errors on your drafts—try reading the sentence aloud. As one law review editor told me, “Your ear will tell you if things are badly phrased much more quickly than your eyes will.”
I. Inattentiveness to the Literal Meaning of a Word
Consider the sentence “Firearms are one of the most lethal forms of suicide.” It's clear what this means, but if you look closely, it's not literally accurate, for two reasons. First, all suicide (as opposed to attempts to commit suicide) is by definition completely lethal. Second, firearms are a means to commit suicide, not a form of suicide. “Firearms are one of the most lethal means for committing suicide” would be better, though “Suicide attempts with guns are especially likely to succeed” might be more accurate still.
This sort of objection may be pedantic, but many readers will make it. Consciously or not, some people may see such logical errors as evidence of an illogical mind; and sometimes (though not in this example), the errors will make the sentence ambiguous or hard to understand.
True, English is full of illogical idioms: “Ice cream,” for instance, isn't made of ice, and “iced cream” would have been more logical—but “ice cream” is standard and “iced cream” is not. Still, outside these established idioms, you're better off using words as logically as possible.
J. Errors Obscured by Intervening Words
Word choice errors are particularly likely if the two parts of the unidiomatic or illogical phrase are separated by other words. In “crimes done in the heat of passion,” for example, the unidiomatic usage (“crimes done”) is pretty clear; but in “crimes which would have been done in the heat of passion,” it's less obvious. Again, you need to carefully and skeptically proofread your work, looking for such problems.
K. Inattentiveness to How Words Are Normally Used
A more subtle problem is inattentiveness to the way words are normally used. Consider the phrase “the crime is not that serious (it is only negligent).” There's no inherent reason that we can't say “negligent crimes”; after all, we say “negligent homicide” or “negligent misrepresentation.” But people don't normally use this phrase.
Likewise, the phrase “crimes done in the heat of passion” is not logically wrong, but it is unidiomatic—crimes are generally “committed