3.3 Ways to make your writing clearer
Clear writing needs clear sentences, but your document needs to be more than a collection of clear sentences. There need to be relationships between your sentences if your writing is to make sense. You need to choose your words carefully to show these relationships. There are many ways in which sentences can be related to each other. We identify some of them below. The key theme is the importance of using the right words to signal to the reader how a sentence relates to other sentences. Remember that a sentence needs to be able to stand on its own, but it is just as important that it fits in with the sentences around it.
3.3.1 Signposting
It will most often help your reader if you provide some ‘signposts’ to help them keep track of where they are going while reading your document. Signposts are words and phrases at particular points that tell the reader what the document is doing or where it is going. Be clear about changes in topic, so that your reader knows a change is being made. If you have finished discussing a topic or issue and are moving on to a new one, it will usually help if you flag this to your reader.
EXAMPLE 3.1
- This paper will consider the importance of signposting, before moving on to examine the most effective ways to signpost in legal writing.
- Turning now to consider the question of whether supervised injecting centres should be established in Victoria, I will argue that …
- The next aspect of the liberal account of religious freedom to be analysed is …
- Having examined the background to the presumption of innocence, we now turn to survey …
- It has now been established that to be defamation, an imputation must damage a person’s reputation. Next, we will explore what damage to a person’s reputation means.
3.3.2 Numbering your points
If you have, say, three arguments for your position that animals should be given legal rights, then it will probably be helpful to your reader to say so.
In this section I will present three arguments in favour of giving animals legal rights. First, animals’ sentience means that … Second, animal rights follow from human duties toward animals … Third, recognition of animal rights will increase the overall welfare of animals …
Here you are telling your reader to expect three arguments, and then you flag each argument as you get to it. This way you clearly deliver what was promised. Sometimes the flow of the arguments will make this flagging unnecessary, but do not be afraid that this sort of thing is prosaic or stating the obvious. Usually, it is very helpful to your reader.
3.3.3 Elaborating meaning
When one sentence elaborates the preceding sentence, it expands, elucidates or explains the meaning of that sentence. That is, it restates the meaning or part of the meaning of the preceding sentence in a different way and builds on it. In other words, an elaborative sentence seeks to draw out and clarify the meaning of the sentence being elaborated. This can be helpful when you are discussing a difficult or dense subject that might need several descriptions for it to become clear. This kind of elaborative sentence can often be flagged by using introductory words such as ‘that is’ or ‘in other words’. (See the second and third sentences of this paragraph for examples.) Such words can help the reader to appreciate what is going on, but they can be overdone, so use them judiciously.
3.3.4 Providing examples
Examples often help to make your meaning clear. If you are presenting an example, say so. Imagine you are writing an essay on whether a compassionate motive should be a defence to murder. You might write:
If a person intentionally kills another person, it is no defence in law that they did so on merciful grounds. For example, if a man is dying painfully from a disease and asks his wife to kill him to put him out of his misery, and she does so out of compassion for her husband, then she will still be guilty of murder.
Other phrases that flag examples include ‘a case in point is’, ‘for instance’ and ‘this is illustrated by’.
3.3.5 Accumulating information
Often in a series of declarative sentences, each sentence will be adding a further, independent statement. The effect of the series is an accumulation of distinct statements. This can be flagged using words and phrases such as ‘moreover’, ‘furthermore’ or ‘in addition’.
Capital punishment is a cruel and barbaric practice that no civilised nation should allow. Furthermore, capital punishment, rather than deterring potential criminals, merely vents the community’s anger. Moreover, it can lead to grave injustice where a person is put to death but later found to be innocent.
However, such linguistic flags are not always necessary, and they can be overdone. Only use them if it is not clear that your sentences are accumulating discrete statements or items of information.
Even though the accumulative sentences are providing distinct items of information, it will usually still be possible and desirable to present them in a meaningful or logical order, rather than just randomly. For example, if you were describing the High Court building in Canberra, you would not just list its features randomly:
The High Court building is asymmetrical. It is in Canberra. It has a café. It stands near a lake. It has three courtrooms. Its interior design is a bit dated now.
Instead, you might start with one aspect, such as the building’s location, and provide all the desired information about that aspect before moving on to another aspect, such as its structure.
The High Court building, standing on the shore of Lake Burley Griffin in Canberra, was built between 1976 and 1980 and was opened by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on 26 May 1980. Though the building is quite dated now, it still has the necessary facilities any courthouse needs. In particular, it has three courtrooms, each with viewing galleries so the public can view the course of justice. Moreover, it provides barristers with rooms in which to prepare for court. In addition to the practical facilities, it also has couches in the lobby and a café for visitors to relax in.
3.3.6 Making a contrast
It can often help to clarify the meaning of a sentence by making a contrast. That is, you can explain or highlight the meaning of one thing by pointing out something different.
EXAMPLE 3.2
- It is a mistake to think each human right is perfectly compatible with every other human right. Nonetheless, many different human rights are mutually supportive of each other.
- Justice Donner supported a liberal interpretation of section 80 of the Constitution. Justice Blitzen, however, argued for a conservative interpretation. In contrast, Justice Rudolph held that section 80 was not relevant to the issue in the case.
- It is difficult to determine whether compulsory voting has improved Australian democracy. On the one hand, it seems very undemocratic to force people to vote. On the other hand, voting can be seen as a citizen’s civic duty and not merely their civil right.
Contrasts like these can be seen as a particular kind of accumulation (see section 3.3.5). Extra information is being provided with each sentence, but the contrastive nature of the new information is being noted by use of words like ‘in contrast’, ‘however’ or ‘nonetheless’.
3.3.7 Drawing an inference
There is a very important relationship between sentences where one sentence follows logically from some of the preceding sentences. That is, one sentence might be the logical conclusion to be drawn from other sentences which form the premises to that conclusion. (The premises and conclusion together constitute a logical argument.) Where one sentence follows logically from the preceding sentences, we can flag that as a conclusion by using words such as ‘therefore’, ‘thus’ or ‘it follows that’.
Some conclusions follow from their premises with certainty, while other conclusions are simply well-supported by their premises.
All Victorian barristers are bound by the Victorian Bar’s rules of professional conduct. Anika is a Victorian barrister. Therefore, Anika is bound by the Victorian Bar’s rules of professional conduct.
In this argument, the conclusion that Anika is bound by the Victorian Bar’s rules of professional conduct follows with logical certainty from the premises.
In contrast:
Only about 10 per cent of Victorian barristers are King’s Counsel. Anika is a Victorian barrister. It follows that she is probably not a King’s Counsel.
In this argument, the conclusion is well supported by the premises, but it is not certain and may yet prove to be false.
When you draw an inference, be careful to note, at least to yourself, how strong the degree of logical support is. Sometimes, if it is important, you should also indicate to the reader what that level of support is. Other times, if it is not central to your discussion or is reasonably obvious, you can leave it to the reader to note.
TIP: KNOW YOUR (LOGICAL) STRENGTH
Be careful not to overstate your case by claiming your conclusion follows with certainty when it does not or is logically well supported when it is not. If you try to present matters as certain when they are merely well supported, it can undermine the persuasiveness of your argument. A persuasive argument presents a realistic assessment of the strength of its conclusions.
Also, avoid adding words like ‘thus’, ‘therefore’ or ‘so’ to your writing for rhetorical effect or to make it seem more logically integrated than it is. Therefore, simply using such words will not create logical connections that are not actually there. (Yes, the ‘therefore’ at the start of that last sentence is an example of this sort of phantom logical connection.)
3.3.8 Justifying a statement
When an inference is drawn, the conclusion is supported by the preceding premises. It is also possible (and often desirable) to present things the other way around: present your conclusion first and then justify it by laying out the premises that support it.
For example, we could present the earlier argument about Anika’s professional obligations the other way around:
Anika is bound by the Victorian Bar’s rules of professional conduct. This is because all Victorian barristers are bound by the Victorian Bar’s rules of professional conduct and Anika is a Victorian barrister.
Here we make the statement and then, by using the word ‘because’, flag that the words to follow will justify that statement.
‘Because’ is perhaps the most common term to use in these situations. Other appropriate terms include ‘as’ and ‘since’.
Anika is bound by the Victorian Bar’s rules of professional conduct, as all Victorian barristers are bound by those rules and Anika is a Victorian barrister.
Anika is probably not a KC since only about 10 per cent of Victorian barristers are KCs and all we know about Anika is that she is a Victorian barrister.
The ‘point first’ approach
It is often a good idea to present your conclusion or main point first and then lay out your justification for it. Presenting all the premises first and drawing the conclusion at the end sometimes risks losing your reader’s attention, especially if the argument is a long one. If you let your reader know right at the start where you are heading, that can help them follow your argument. This is called the ‘point first’ approach to presenting arguments. You tell your reader up-front what your key point is and then provide the detail that explains or justifies that point. This does not ‘spoil the story’ because in legal writing you are not writing a mystery novel in which ‘whodunnit’ is to be revealed only at the very end.
The point first approach is often used by advocates in drafting submissions to courts. Here your audience (the judge) is busy, is professionally required not to sympathise with you and wants to know quickly what your basic position is, so that they can start orienting themselves in the debate between the advocates appearing before them. If at any point the judge is not sure where you are headed, you are losing them. If you lose the judge’s attention and then their understanding, you run a grave risk of losing your case as well.
It can also be useful when drafting legal advice to state your conclusion at the start and then tell the reader why that conclusion is justified, using key words such as ‘because’, ‘since’ and ‘as’.
If you do use the point first approach, you must make sure that you do go on, after stating your point first, to justify or explain that point. Do not just state your point and then move on to the next one. Many students, when writing legal advice, simply state the relevant legal test in general terms and then baldly state that the client satisfies (or does not satisfy) that test, with little or no reference to the material facts that support that conclusion.
EXAMPLE 3.3
Intentional murder is defined as intentionally killing a human being by way of a conscious, voluntary and deliberate act, without lawful justification or excuse. Therefore, Jintana is guilty of murder.
Here the writer is implying that the elements of the crime of murder are met, but there is no reference to the particular facts which satisfy those elements. Writing in a point first style and using terms such as ‘because’ can help you to connect the law to the material facts of the case.
In this case, we could write:
Jintana is guilty of murder. This is because (i) she caused Kevin’s death (by stabbing him in the heart with a kitchen knife), (ii) her actions were conscious, voluntary and deliberate, (iii) she intended to kill Kevin, and (iv) she acted without lawful justification or excuse. These four facts satisfy the four elements for intentional murder.
3.3.9 Flagging a preliminary discussion
Sometimes the point first approach will not work if there are certain preliminary ideas that need to be stated in order to make sense of your ultimate conclusion. Where this is the case, make that clear so that the reader knows you are not yet making your main point, but you are on your way to doing so.
Before presenting the main arguments in favour of abolishing the right to the presumption of bail, it is first necessary to note briefly the origins of the presumption. The presumption was first identified in …
This is a way of flagging for your reader that your main point can only be fully understood with reference to certain preliminary information, without causing your reader to feel like they are being led down the garden path before you get to your main point.
3.3.10 Referring to points already made
Sometimes in a document you will want to refer to something you have already said. It usually helps to be explicit about this. If you are repeating a point you have already made but do not convey to your reader that you know you are doing so, it can weaken your document’s sense of structure.
EXAMPLE 3.4
- The office of Solicitor-General is independent of the government. However, as argued in section 2 above, the actions of the Attorney-General were seen as putting unreasonable fetters on the Solicitor-General.
- The new Victorian provisions create an objective standard. However, as we saw earlier, the creation of an objective form of fault element in the New South Wales version of the offence led to difficulties.
3.3.11 Summarising what you have said
A particular kind of referring involves summarising earlier discussions. In longer documents it can sometimes help the reader if you provide brief summaries of where the discussion has got to at certain points.
EXAMPLE 3.5
We have now completed a brief history of the jury trial. We saw that the jurors were first used in the 12th century as witnesses at trials rather than fact-finders. We also noted that it was only in later centuries that jurors came to be independent assessors of the evidence. We now move on to …
A variation:
We have now surveyed the history of the jury trial. The main points noted were, first, that jurors initially served as witnesses and, second, that juries only slowly became fact-finders.
This sort of recapping can help reinforce your main points and keep your reader oriented as you move on to your next topic of discussion. This can also act as a sort of signposting to help your reader keep up.
3.3.12 Indicating who is saying what
When discussing or referring to other people’s ideas, be clear which ideas are theirs and which are yours. A very common problem in student writing is lack of clarity about who is saying what. It is often not clear if the student, when presenting an idea, is presenting their own idea or expounding someone else’s idea. This can be a major impediment to comprehension of the document.
If you refer to a particular author’s ideas and then go on to say something else, your reader needs to know whether that something else is still the author’s point or whether you have moved on and are saying something of your own, or even from another author. Careful use of signposting words can make all the difference here.
EXAMPLE 3.6
Consider this short passage:
Danowski presents a detailed account of the nature of the legal profession. She argues that as the law is a profession, it is governed by ethical principles and that it is self-regulating and independent of government. The law is also a lucrative profession for some.
Who is saying that the law is also a lucrative profession for some? Is it Danowski or is it the author of the passage? If the author is still expounding Danowski, that third sentence could have been rewritten as:
She further contends that the law is also a lucrative profession for some.
However, if the author is intending to introduce their own idea with that third sentence, then it could be rewritten as:
It can also be argued that the law is also a lucrative profession for some.
Or, even more clearly:
In addition, though Danowski does not say so, the law is also a lucrative profession for some.
This is not (yet) the same problem as plagiarism (which we will look at in Chapter 4), because it does not appear that the student is trying to pass off someone else’s words or ideas as their own. But it can still lose you marks because it is unclear. You might also miss out on marks because you are failing to show that you have original ideas.
Note also that merely providing a footnote does not say who says what. You still need a few well-chosen words in your main text to indicate who is saying what. Your footnote should then simply provide the source of the information.
