Legalpro systems is fully operational and ready to weather the current crisis. There are two different kinds of dashes, the em dash, and the en dash. Enforce the legal writing and style rules you know, from the sources you trust. Stuart silk, principal, stuart silk architects i was dumbfounded when the software quickly provided an embarrassing number of.
Were not quite ready to make this available to everyone but that doesnt mean you cant be first in line. It usually involves writing down every choice youve made between hyphens and dashes, and then comparing that choice to your text in every single location that hyphens or dashes are used. In 1836, samuel morse began developing a code using dashes and dots to. Learn to write your legal documents in clear english by using stylewriter on your contracts, agreements and letters to your clients. Good legal writing should be written in plain language that is easy to read and understand and that clearly and directly communicates its intent. Two tips for punctuating interrupted dialogue keli gwyn. If you mean the latter, then youd write fivedollar bills. En dashes should not be confused with hyphens, which are used in compound words e. The em dashcreated on microsoft word by two hyphens and a spaceis a versatile punctuation mark that can replace parentheses, commas, and colons. Clarence thomas, would be harder to understand if it were written, on the. They insert information into a sentence and introduce lists. Use dashes in business writing to interrupt sentences and show ranges of numbers. Legalese definitely has no place in non legal writing.
For both en dashes and em dashes, do not put any spaces before or after the dashes. Note that dashes are rather informal and should be used carefully in writing. In formal writing you should use the bracket rather than the dash as a dash is considered less formal. The editor browser extension checks for grammar and spelling mistakes, and it makes suggestions for refining your writing, like addressing passive voice or wordiness. Note how dashes subtly change the tone of the following sentences. Dashes are used to separate groups of words, not to separate parts of words like a hyphen does.
Best legal writing programs top law schools us news rankings. The en dash is shorter, named after the width of the letter n, and the em dash is longer, named after the width of the letter m. Stylewriter software to edit your legal documents the uk law society and the american bar association now recommend all legal writing should be in plain english. That problem is discussed in the section principles of clear writing. French legislative counsel have been using them since the french versions of the acts were modernized, at the time of the 1985 statute revision. For over a decade, weve been writing about and advocating for lawyers to adopt better legal writing and typography practices.
The elements of legal writing 2 offers the rules set out below for the use of dashes in legal drafting. A dash is a horizontal line that shows a pause or break in meaning, or that represents missing words or letters. Jun 26, 2015 if youre under time pressure or even if youre not, spotting differences between hyphens and dashes can be extremely difficult. Sentences such as this one call for a pair of em dashes. With briefcatch, not only can you have the nations premiere legal writing expert as your own personal copyeditor, but you can receive his invaluable feedback instantaneously. A good rule is to use parentheses, commas, semicolons, and colons instead of em dashes in formal writing. Today ill explain the difference between dashes, commas, and parentheses. Well be here to continue offering support and developingupdating the software. A hyphen is produced by a simple keystroke on your keyboard. Apr 06, 2011 overall, i suggest using double dashesif they are appropriate to your field of studyin moderation and replacing single dashes with colons, commas, or even periods, if only in your formal writing. Mar 09, 2020 upload a brief or other document in word format and brieflink.
Sage pastel legalwrite software sage pastel accounting. If you find yourself wanting to throw in a little extra information about a. Many people were not even aware of the distinction between the en dash and the em dash until the advent of word processors, when software programs enabled us to use marks of punctuation that once had been available only to professional printers. Jan 20, 2016 whether this will be your first time using dedicated writing software, a chance to buckle down and write more, or you just want to try the best of what the market has to offer, this one is for you.
If you want to draw attention to the parenthetical content, use dashes. One reason that writing can seem informal is a lack of precision. Through these courses, students learn to perform legal analysis and to write clearly and persuasively. Legal checking perfectit proofreading software for. Appellate advocacy blog law professor blogs network typepad. But if im going to be making recommendations, first i have to clear up what a piece of great writing software can offer its user.
Do not overuse the em dash in formal writing, such as business letters, research papers, and articles. Sign up by clicking the button below, and well make sure you know when citesmith is available. The webs most comprehensive guide to american punctuation. Just in case anyone is still reading, i am now going to talk about using dashes in your writing.
We use our own and thirdparty cookies to improve your experience of our website. Mar 08, 2019 bryan garner, for example, says in the winning brief 3d ed. When you want to generate strong emotion in your writing or create a more casual tone, use em dashes. Wordrake tightens, tones, and clarifies your writing. We do a lot of teaching about legal writing and communications issues in our lawyerist lab program and include questions about these issues in our small firm scorecard. Use the government printing office style manual as a guide to punctuation, capitalization, and typography. Aug 15, 2016 punctuation, capitalization, typography and spelling. A pair of em dashes can replace a pair of parentheses. Modern legal writing style dictates that legal documents should be clear, uncomplicated, and consistent. It can replace commas, parentheses, or colons, depending on the context of the sentence. The em dash is mostly used in informal writing such as friendly letters, emails, and journals. There is a serious question whether legalese should even be used in legal writing. Colons enable a writer to introduce a clause that amplifies whatever came before the colon. Use commas in your business writing instead of dashes to insert information into the sentence because commas maintain the flow of information.
Good legal writing should be written in plain language that is easy to read and understand and that clearly and directly communicates. Its also important that when you set off a phrase using emdashes that you used one emdash immediately after the noun the phrase is describing and one immediately after the phrase. It is used in writing or printing to indicate a range or connections. Certainly, this way of styling dialogue was new to me, but i never had any issues knowing who was talking in this format. Em dash this is the dash that was used all throughout the dash section of this packet. Its longer than a hyphen and is commonly used to indicate a range or a pause.
Style writer stylewriter software to edit your legal documents. For more on hyphens and dashes, you can consult the online chicago manual of style. In this segment of copyediting with keli im discussing how to punctuate two different cases of interrupted dialogue using the em dash. The most annoying hyphenation mistake that i see in legal writing could very. Letterdash demand letters cease and desist letters. Legal checking perfectit proofreading software for professionals. Punctuation is one component of writing that people seldom think about or notice. Dashes are often used informally instead of commas, colons and brackets. Dashes can be used to create emphasis in a sentence. For instance, the sentence on the supreme court, the federal governments highest judicial body, one justice virtually never asks questions in oral argument. Punctuation, capitalization, typography and spelling. Those interested in a quick, inexpensive tool to help them unclutter their. In word, click on fileoptionsproofingwhen correcting spelling and grammar in wordwriting stylesettingsrequire. Free practice questions for act english errors involving hyphens, dashes, and parentheses.
Drafting legal documents, punctuation national archives. Commas or parentheseswhile grammatically acceptablesimply dont do the job. Use a pair of emdashes to mark off an abrupt break in a. It seems excellent lawyers do not always produce excellent legal writing. Overusing dashes can break up the flow of your writing, making it choppy or even difficult to follow, so dont overdo it. Hyphens and dashes look similar, but theyre not interchangeable.
Tips for effective punctuation in legal writing georgetown law. Arken provides high quality legal documents, mitigates the risks of inaccuracies and improves your teams productivity. He told me that his birthday wish would be for me to do a show to help him understand the difference between dashes, commas, and parentheses because it keeps coming up in his writing. Hopefully, this secondary blog will explain the rules of dashes. Errors involving hyphens, dashes, and parentheses act english. Citesmith legal citation software professional document. Nor should they be confused with em dashes the subject of next weeks post. When using dashes and em dashes, there are a few instances where university style diverges from ap. Apr 17, 2017 within most legal documents, the dashes used within the text seem to intentionally stand out to most readers. Dec, 2003 writing letters and numbers using dots or dashes i am trying to teach my child how to write letters of the alphabet by typing them in microsoft word using dots or dashes and then print them so that she can trace and learn. Recently, this writers last blog attempted to explain dashes, then found that there was extensive research on dashes that was quite confusing.
You are hereby notified that a default judgment has been entered. Sep 15, 2016 we use emdashes to add emphasis to the size of the car. The single dash can be replaced by a comma, a colon, or a semicolon, each of which gives the reader more precise information about the relationship between what comes before and after. This explanation is not intended to be exhaustive for much more, see chapter 6 in cmos, but i do hope that it helps to frame the different potential of each length of dash. Dashes are considered less formal than parentheses. Leading style guides, such as the red book, the elements of style, and bluebook, give us the rules. A sentence should contain no more than two em dashes. Newer versions of word will generally connect them into one dash. The first is to separate parts of a sentence where they can be used to create a pause or to lead on to the next clause. Sage pastel legalwrite for windows legal document templates and information software. Hyphens can be used between two words that function together to modify a subsequent word in the sentence, as in wellpled complaint. A dash is a little horizontal line that floats in the middle of a line of text not at the bottom.
Dashes and hyphens, including em dashes to set off phrases, en dashes in open or hyphenated compound words and with numbers, and hyphens in words and spelledout numbers. Not everyone is a lawyer but that doesnt mean that you shouldnt have access to legal documents and information. Legal writing is a vital skill for any practicing lawyer. Avoid using dashes to replace more than one kind of punctuation in a single sentence. Software to edit your legal documents stylewriter software. Even though dashes and hyphens are used regularly in many different types of writing, two specific dash types the en dash and em dash play significant roles in legal writing. Jan 09, 20 it seems excellent lawyers do not always produce excellent legal writing. Cory andrews lawyer briefcatch is an excellent tool. When used appropriatelyand sparinglythe emdash is an easily implemented, powerful visual rhetoric technique for legal writing. This post referenced three modules yum, template, and service which installed a software package and a software repo. How to use long and short dashes in your writing dummies. Dasher is an input method and computer accessibility tool which enables users to compose text without using a keyboard, by entering text on a screen with a pointing device such as a mouse, touch screen, or. For over a decade, weve been writing about and advocating for lawyers to adopt better legal writing. Citesmith legal editing software demonstration from ed cottrell on vimeo.
Its also important to distinguish between dashes and hyphens. The leading authorities on american legal writing wydick, garner, and kimble agree that em dashes are an excellent way to set off parenthetical or explanatory material. Long dashes what grammarians call em dashes are dramatic. Whether due to a lack of time, of mental energy, of colleagues available to proofread, or of awareness of just how bloated a legal document can get, good lawyers sometimes canand dosend out bad documents full of extra, meaningless words. The dash is a handy device, informal and esentially playful, telling you that youre about to take off on a different tack but still in some way connected with the present course only you have to remember that the dash is there, and either put a second dash at the end of the notion to let the reader know that hes back on course, or else end the sentence, as here, with a period.
Cookies remember your preferences and track site usage. In many software programs, an emdash is created by typing two. Dashes, like commas, semicolons, colons, ellipses, and parentheses, indicate added emphasis, an interruption, or an abrupt change of thought. Hyphens, en dashes, em dashes the chicago manual of. Apr 23, 2019 like many people, i first encountered dialogue set off with emdashes sometimes called quotation dashes by reading james joyces portrait of the artist as a young man. Em dashes there is no space between the words and the em dash. Dont fear the em dashit can add energy and much needed variety to your prose. Short dashes technically, en dashes arent as showy as their wider cousins, but theyre still useful. Whether due to a lack of time, of mental energy, of colleagues available to proofread, or of awareness of just how bloated a legal. Dashes can be used to indicate an interruption, particularly in transcribed speech. Celebrating thousands of clients and counting since 2018. In word, click on fileoptionsproofingwhen correcting spelling and grammar in word writing style settingsrequire. Hyphens the general rule is to use a hyphen to join words that together make a single adjective.
You are the friend, the only friend, who offered to help me. Constructing a playbook is easy, and a lot can be done with a little. I feel much more confident with what im sending out when i use wordrake. The most frequent problem in drafting is punctuation for a list. Those long straight lines draw your eye and hold your attention. The em dash is the long dash that used to be shown. It is the longest dash, compared to a hyphen or an en dash. Heres a good strategy to use when trying to decide whether to use emdashes or parentheses in your writing. Arken is comprehensive will writing software built specifically for the private client sector. The first thing to know when talking about dashes is that they are almost never required by the laws of grammar and punctuation. Em dasheswhy writers should use them more sparingly. Dont replace the second emdash as some tend to with a comma or semicolon.
Ross guberman is the president of legal writing pro llc and the founder of briefcatch llc. The chemistry student began to say, an organic solvent will only work with when her cell phone rang. The en dash is slightly wider than the hyphen but narrower than the em dash. Editor flags misspellings with red underlines, grammar mistakes with blue doubleunderlines, and style issues with purple dashes. It alsoand this might be its worst sindisrupts the flow of a sentence. Stever robbins, the host of the getitdone guy podcast, has been writing a book, and his birthday is today. A dash may or may not have a space on either side of it. Wordrake is the first and only automated in line editing software. Also, the em dash may serve as a sort of bullet point, as in this todo list. There are two similar but distinct punctuation marks called dashes. Lets take a look at the different types of dashes you can use in your writing, and when and when not to use a hyphen. An em dash may be used to indicate omitted letters in a word redacted to an initial or single letter or to fillet a word, by leaving the start and end letters whilst replacing the middle letters with a dash or dashes for the purposes of censorship or simply data anonymization. Not everyone is a lawyer but that doesnt mean that you shouldnt have access to legal documents and information to help you in your daily business. If its the latter, return the dashes to your punctuation tool bag and use a comma, colon, or semicolon instead, or revise the sentence so that you can omit the dreaded dash.
Effective punctuation handout 1 columbia law school. That problem is discussed in the section principles of clear writing, convention 20. Experienced writers know that these marks are not interchangeable. For more detail on the use of hyphens, en dashes, em dashes. Check grammar and spelling with the microsoft editor browser. The information provided is for informational purposes only and should not be considered financial, tax, or legal advice.
But modern wordprocessing programs can directly insert an em. Jun 20, 2019 many students have trouble identifying the right time to use a dash or a hyphen. From alaska and hawaii to paris and hong kong, ross has conducted thousands of workshops on three. Ask yourself if your parenthetical remark will add nuance and insight to your writing or just confuse the reader. Inserts lexis links to the citations in the uploaded document courts are encouraging this, also convenient for a law firm memo, or you can upload opposing counsels brief to easily access the cited documents. Dashes are used in more or less the same way in both french and english. However, commas and parentheses are better punctuation marks to interrupt sentences. Knowing how to punctuate properly is essential to good legal writing. Here is one of garners before and after examples showing how a piece of legal writing can be improved by replacing commas with emdashes.
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