My apologies. I thought I had provided this at the beginning of the semester (or that you might carry them over from Civ Pro(). Put these to use for the final.
Good Writing
See this piece on good writing. See this post from Eugene Volokh at UCLA, which provides great tips for making your writing more concise and with less hedging--I am a huge believer in # 4. Finally, see this Twitter post; some of this is advanced--where you get when you have mastered the law and can focus on style. But you can put much of this to work in miniature in your student writing--especially about letting details (rather than subjective characterization) do the work and focusing on your arguments rather than repeating the other side. Note how the suggestions reduce the number of words needed.
I will add a few more:
• Go easy on transitions. Every sentence should not have a transition word at the beginning.
• Adverbs are not your friends and adjectives are not really your friends, either. Unless part of the legal standard (e.g., "substantially similar"), stop using them. Saying the evidence is "directly relevant" does not strengthen your conclusion that it is relevant. Instead, give me facts showing why it is relevant. This becomes more essential when your adverb changes the legal meaning. If a rule says "with particularity" and you add "reasonable particularity," you change the legal standard in an incorrect way.
•
Do not list a series of random and disconnected rules in one paragraph
and apply them the next. REA--state one rule (or related rules), explain
them (including why these are the applicable rules and how they
connect), then apply to the specific facts. When you discuss multiple
rules, explain how they relate. I saw a lot of improvement on this point compared with last semester.
• Do not use rhetorical questions. Do not use first-person ("I would say") or second-person ("you must do ___'). Third-person only ("A plaintiff must do ____").
• No italics, other than case names. Do not italic or bold words for emphasis--trust your reader to know what words matter.
• Go easy on quotations, especially if you are omitting words. If you have multiple ellipses and changed capitals, find a different way to write it. Be especially careful when the words you omit in the ellipses actually change the meaning of the rule.
Good Citations.
Full and complete bluebooking is not necessary on these papers. But pay close attention
to how you cite provisions (this is a repeat of Civ Pro)--this is important in a code class.
Constitution: "U.S. Const. art. [Roman] § [#], cl.[#]" (e.g.,
U.S. Const. art. III § 2, cl.2). Can shorten to just "Article [Roman] §
[#]" (e.g., "Article III § 1" or "Article III").
Statutes:
Most statutes are framed this way: "§ #(lower case letter)(#)(Upper
Case Letter)(romanette)" (e.g., § 1332(b)(2)(C)(ii)). Some are "§
#lowercaseletter(lower case letter)(#)(Upper Case Letter)(romanette)
(e.g., § 78a(b)(2)(A)(ii)).
Rules:
FRE #(lower case letter)(#)(Upper Case Letter)(romanette) (e.g., FRE
404(a)(1)(B)). The hearsay rules will be an exception to this.
• You must take the time to identify and properly name whatever rule or statutory provision you discuss.
• In citing rules and provisions, you must number to the most precise portion of the rule you containing the language you are discussing. If you are talking about FRE 404(a)(2)(C), don't just say FRE 404(a) or 404(a)(2); get precise.
