I thought I’d pass along, in case anyone is interested, a draft of an exercise that I plan to eventually include in the next edition of my Academic Legal Writing book. Many law students tend to phrase things too abstractly; this exercise aims to help them make their writing more concrete and therefore clearer and more effective. (I realize that this is a matter of style, and different people have different views on the subject, but I’m quite confident that a concrete style is usually — not always, but usually — more effective than an abstract one.)
Consider this first paragraph in an article on laws that prohibit the wearing of masks in public:
The existence of antimask laws poses difficult questions of constitutional law. We know that the freedom of speech is one of our most cherished rights, especially when there is a danger that the free expression of unpopular speakers would be deterred by the fear of negative consequences. And yet the prevention of crime, including crime facilitated by the wearing of masks, must surely be ranked as one of the more compelling of the possible government interests. The public understandably wants to avoid the harm to property, persons, and the social fabric that may flow from such crime.
The purpose of the antimask laws, as the paragraph suggests, is to prevent crime: Anonymity can make it easier for people to get away with crimes; masks facilitate anonymity; so therefore banning masks should (at least in some circumstances) help prevent crime. On the other hand, some people will be reluctant to express unpopular views unless they can do so anonymously, so antimask laws deter some unpopular speech.
The grammar and spelling in this paragraph is fine — but the paragraph is too abstract, and too full of unhelpful generalities. Try rewriting it to make it more concrete, clear, and vivid.
(Click here for my proposed rewrite, and an explanation.)
Here again is the paragraph, with the clauses numbered for convenience:
[1] The existence of antimask laws poses difficult questions of constitutional law. [2] We know that the freedom of speech is one of our most cherished rights, [3] especially when there is a danger that the free expression of unpopular speakers would be deterred by the fear of negative consequences. [4] And yet the prevention of crime, [5] including crime facilitated by the wearing of masks, [6] must surely be ranked as one of the more compelling of the possible government interests. [7] The public understandably wants to avoid the harm to property, persons, and the social fabric that may flow from such crime.
Sentence 1 says nothing substantive. It does try to persuade readers that the article is important; but the best way to do that is to describe the problem in a way that will make readers come to that conclusion themselves. Simply asserting the difficulty or importance of the problem doesn’t help much.
Clause 2 is likewise a platitude, and adds nothing to the analysis. Either the reader already believes freedom of speech is important, or he thinks it’s overrated. In either case, the clause is useless.
Clause 3 does add something substantive: It points out that antimask laws can deter some people from speaking. But what “negative consequences” is the clause talking about? Do we usually say “He didn’t want to speak out, because of a fear of negative consequences”?
No, we tend to be more concrete about what the negative consequences were — a fear of being fired, of being harassed by the police, of being ostracized by acquaintances, and so on. Such concrete examples are more vivid and more persuasive than a general statement about “negative consequences.”
A reader who just sees “negative consequences” might not be sure what that means, or might not imagine those consequences that we want him to think about: For instance, he might think of imprisonment, but conclude that this isn’t something to worry about — if the speech is protected, he might reason, the First Amendment law will prevent people from being imprisoned for it, and if it’s unprotected, then it’s good that speakers will be deterred from engaging in such speech. And in any case, the reader will have to do extra work to translate the abstraction “negative consequences” into specific examples that he can visualize and evaluate.
Likewise, “unpopular speakers” is more abstract than it should be. Which speakers do we have in mind? Which speakers do we want the reader to have in mind? Even if the statement is true of all or most unpopular speakers, it would help if we can give some concrete examples that will help persuade the reader that this is a real problem that’s likely to arise fairly often.
Clauses 4 and 6 likewise add something substantive — they suggest to readers that preventing crime is so important that it might sometimes justify even laws that deter speech. But they don’t add much: This point is pretty obvious, and to the extent it’s not obvious, it’s better made by showing readers some crimes that antimask laws can cause, and leading the readers themselves to conclude that it’s important to prevent those crimes. And this is even more true of clause 5 (“including crime facilitated by the wearing of masks”): Of course the paragraph means to include crime facilitated by the wearing of masks, but the best way of showing that is by actually describing how masks can facilitate crime.
Finally, sentence 7 is almost entirely redundant of clauses 4 and 6.
So here’s a possible rewrite, shown alongside the original:
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The existence of anti-mask laws poses difficult questions of constitutional law. We know that the freedom of speech is one of our most cherished rights, especially when there is a danger that the free expression of unpopular speakers would be deterred by the fear of negative consequences. And yet the prevention of crime, including crime facilitated by the wearing of masks, must surely be ranked as one of the more compelling of the possible government interests. The public understandably wants to avoid the harm to property, persons, and the social fabric that may flow from such crime.
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Unpopular speakers, whether Klansmen, civil rights advocates, or anti-globalization protesters, often understandably fear retaliation: social ostracism, firing, government harassment, or worse. If they are barred from wearing masks while demonstrating, the risk of retaliation may deter them from speaking.
Wearing a mask, though, can help people get away with crimes. Masked demonstrators may feel that they can break windows, throw stones, or even attack people with relative impunity, because eyewitnesses will find it hard to identify exactly who did what.
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The general and the abstract have been replaced or supplemented by the concrete and the specific:
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“unpopular speakers” becomes
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“Klansmen, civil rights advocates, or anti-globalization protesters”
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“negative consequences” becomes
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“social ostracism, firing, government harassment”
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“crime facilitated by the wearing of masks” and “harm to property, persons, and the social fabric” become
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“break windows, throw stones, or even attack people”
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One concrete connection has been added: Instead of making the reader figure out how anti-mask laws lead to speech being “deterred by the fear of negative consequences,” the revised version now makes the causation clear — “If they are barred from wearking masks while demonstrating, the risk of retaliation may deter them from speaking.” This might not be strictly necessary, since it should be pretty obvious, but I think it’s helpful.
At the same time, some generalities have been removed: “the freedom of speech is one of our most cherished rights,” “the prevention of crime . . . must surely be ranked as one of the more compelling of the possible government interests.” Such platitudes almost never persuade people. It seems to me that most readers will be much more persuaded by the concrete details in the revised version: the examples of unpopular speakers, and the examples of the crimes that they can cause.(hide)
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