Law Review Lara loves contractions. She thinks they make articles seem more colloquial and thus accessible. She also loves other locutions that she hopes add verve and punch to her articles, for instance starting sentences with “But”‘s, and a bunch of other little things. (Talking about herself in the third person is an affectation that she loves only for this column, not for her other work.) She may, of course, be entirely wrong — maybe instead of getting clarity, she’s sacrificing credibility. But she’s written quite a few law review articles, and if she hasn’t changed her mind by now, she’s not terribly likely to.
So ask yourself: If you decontract 100% of her contractions, what will Lara do? She’ll probably stet or otherwise reject all those changes. It’s her article, and she likes it her way. Other authors who are committed to their styles will do the same.
But if you decontract 50% of her contractions, she’ll probably accept most, perhaps nearly all, of the changes. She’ll assume that you’ve actually invested real thought into the matter, rather than just applying a flat rule with which she disagrees. She’ll think you’ve found those contractions that seem excessive, distracting, or otherwise inapt, even from the viewpoint of someone who is following her style. And since she realizes that outside editors often have a better sense of future readers’ reaction than the author does, she’ll often defer to your editorial judgment.
In fact, Lara wants you to suggest changes. (She doesn’t like commands, unless her work is genuinely mistaken, but she likes suggestions.) It’s just that she wants you to suggest changes that will be useful. “Here’s how we’d rewrite your article in our writing style” is not useful. “Here are the particular places where we think your writing style, which we know you generally want to stick to, doesn’t work and should be revised” is very useful.
So if you see that an author is deliberately and repeatedly using some locution, feel free to ask her up front whether she’d be willing to have you systematically remove it. If she says yes, great. But if she says no — or, more likely, if you don’t ask her — then decontracting every single contraction is wasted work for you (and needless work for her). Use your judgment to decide where you think this usage works and where it doesn’t, rather than just applying a flat rule that you suspect the author has no interest in following.
UPDATE: Reader Greg Schwinghammer writes:
As a former editor-in-chief of the University of Miami Law Review, I loved your advice to editors on keeping with the author’s writing style. Dead on.
When I took over at Miami, there was an ingrained culture — certainly not exclusive to Miami — in which the student editors treated the authors as adversaries. I heard a lot of complaining about the articles, and suggestions the authors were stupid. At the time, we were about 18 months behind in our production schedule. I think the complaining was partly to justify our inability to move articles through the process.
I was elected not because of intellect (by a long shot!), but because I had been an Army officer and managed people. The first step to demand respect for the authors as customers. We were blessed with three students who had each spent ten years as journalists, so were gifted writers and appreciated careful editing.
For the articles in the worst shape, we just powered through and got them done. We caught up (publishing the April 1996 edition in April 1996). Part of the reason for success was working with the authors, rather than resisting them and avoiding open communications with them.
It always amazed me that students considered themselves so superior to the authors just because the students made law review. Especially at U/Miami. Don’t get me wrong — I am proud of my degree and would put the top students at Miami against students from anywhere, but the students with the attitude seemed never to notice that the authors were not exactly 1Ls. Most were accomplished and successful.
I hope law review editors take your advice.
FURTHER UPDATE: Just to make it clear, Lara doesn’t think that her correspondent’s story reflects standard operating procedure at all law reviews (or is intended to reflect it). Most law reviews are quite respectful of authors. Lara’s regret is that even those law reviews that respect authors still sometimes categorically apply inapt stylistic rules that change an author’s voice, and thus make the cooperative author-editor endeavor less effective than it might be.
Comments are closed.