📚✨ Discover the 11 Deadly Sins of Legal Writing! 🚨📝
Tenth sin: Excessive emphasis in texts stuns the reader
Author: Andrés Felipe Rivas
in collaboration with WOW Legal Experience and Copernico
The Easy Reading Bill has enormous potential to impact both the legal field and those who practice it.
However, its conversion into law from a practical perspective could prove unfeasible, as despite efforts to establish accessible reading formats, it is likely that judicial and administrative officials may not comply.
This is because, as Diego López Medina mentions, we continue to commit eleven cardinal sins that hinder the understanding of legal texts.
The appropriate use of technology, Legal Design, and education are key tools to address this challenge and turn these cardinal sins into applicable principles. It is not necessary to turn this initiative into law to generate a significant impact in the legal field.
Tenth sin: Excessive emphasis in texts stuns the reader Diego López Medina highlights a crucial aspect in the drafting of legal texts: the excessive typographic emphasis. In his research, he has found that legal professionals overly rely on tools such as continuous capitalization, underlining, italics, or changing font size, which negatively affects the quality of communication.
López Medina found in a sample of 212 legal writings that 91.7% of legal professionals used these typographic resources excessively to emphasize ideas. Therefore, he concluded that lawyers resort to emphasis at some point in our writings as a rhetorical resource.
However, he noted that when the writings are also affected by other “sins of writing” (uni-sentential paragraphs and poorly structured) it adds unnecessary shouting, making us lose control of the ideas.
The professor points out that in legal texts there are specific places where emphasis is appropriate and effective, such as titles, subtitles, the statement of the legal issue, the beginning of each section, or in the conclusion.
These points are “natural habitats” where emphasis integrates organically and contributes to the understanding of the content. However, the abuse of emphasis outside of these “habitats” has negative consequences. Not only does it result in an aesthetically displeasing impact for the reader, but it also affects the clarity of the text.
Precisely, when emphasis is exaggerated, its effect is diluted and all parts of the text seem equally important. This stuns the reader and makes nothing truly stand out.
Therefore, López Medina invites us to perform emphasis through simple and well-structured writing. Precisely, a well-used word within the text stands out more than any typographic emphasis.
This is why when a text is well written it is not necessary to “shout” (emphasize) for the reader to understand our idea. For this reason, by having control of the text, ideas are controlled and noise is kept away to guide the reader.
Together with WOW Legal Experience, we want you to remove the noise from your writings so you control your ideas and they are transmitted clearly. Therefore, we recognize the importance of turning the “sins” from our series into principles. Proper legal due diligence starts with good writing and promoting clarity in legal communication within your organization.💼🌟 💡
Join us to improve legal writing and promote clarity in legal communication!
La versión en español del artículo pueden encontrarla aquí: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/descubre-los-11-pecados-capitales-de-la-redacci%C3%B3n-rivas-cardona-8kuhc/
English version can be found on this link: https://lnkd.in/dtuQeqaj
#LegalWriting #ConnectAndWrite #EasyReading #WOWLEGAL #TaxLitigation #LegalDesign #LegalDrafting 🌐👩⚖️👨⚖️
