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Errors and Insights University of Michigan Law School University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository Articles Faculty Scholarship 2020 Errors and Insights Patrick Barry University of Michigan Law School, [email protected] Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/articles/2201 Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/articles Part of the Legal Writing and Research Commons Recommended Citation Barry, Patrick. "Errors and Insights." Mich. B.J. 99, no. 10 (2020): 54-5. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Articles by an authorized administrator of University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Michigan Bar Journal October 2020 54 Plain Language Errors and Insights By Patrick Barry n Seeing What Others Don’t: do that, while also maintaining the still- consistently use to collect and evaluate the The Remarkable Ways We Gain crucial task of reflecting on and learning things you most need to improve. I Insights, the psychologist Gary from persistent errors. I recommend that you divide your errors Klein suggests that two things into two categories: mechanics and process. are required to improve performance: reduc- Errors • The mechanics category should be ing errors and increasing insights.1 He offers filled with errors like being too wordy the following equation as a helpful visual:2 Think about things you have written in and improperly using semicolons. the past year, whether for a client, a judge, a colleague, or any other audience. What are • The process category should be filled Performance some of the most common errors you make? with errors like failing to protect your- Errors Insights Improvements = + self from interruptions when writing 4 • Do you have trouble with commas? and not reading your work aloud be- • Do you struggle with transitions? fore submitting it. Klein’s book doesn’t specifically link this equation to performance improvements in • Do you overload your sentences with To help generate your list, consider doing writing and editing, but its general frame- unnecessary words? at least two of the short tasks below: work seems to apply, as does his concern • Are your professional emails too (1) Read “Top Twenty Errors in Undergrad- that people sometimes focus too much on informal? uate Writing by the Hume Center at reducing errors and too little on increasing Stanford University.” Based on research • Are your personal emails too stuffy? insights. “We tend to look for ways to elim- by Andrea Lungsford and Karen Lungs- inate errors,” he explains. “That’s the down • And how about the time you give ford, the collection can be useful even arrow....But when we put too much energy yourself to edit: do you finish drafts if you graduated from college a long into eliminating mistakes, we’re less likely to when you say you will, or are you time ago.5 gain insights. Having insights is a different constantly missing out on chances to 3 (2) Ask one of your current supervisors or matter from preventing mistakes.” calmly and carefully raise the quality peers for one or two things they would Anyone hoping to become a better writer of your work? and editor might do well to heed Klein’s like to see less of in the written material advice and reserve time not just for spotting Make a list of three to five of your most you submit. common errors and keep it in an easily ac- errors but also for accumulating insights. (3) Ask one of your current supervisors or cessible place, so that you can regularly add Eliminating mistakes will get us only so far. peers for one or two things they would to it. A small journal or diary will work well. To really excel, we need to develop some like to see more of in the written mate- So will a file on your computer or note app insights—a new, more advanced set of com- rial you submit. positional skills, strategies, and intuitions. on your phone. The sections below are designed to help you Your storage mechanism doesn’t have to (4) Take a look at “The Habits of Highly Pro- be fancy. It doesn’t have to be expensive. It ductive Writers” by Rachel Toor.6 Which just needs to be something that you can of these don’t you do? “Plain Language,” edited by Joseph Kimble, has been a regular feature of the Michigan Bar Journal for 36 years. To contribute an article, contact Prof. Kimble at WMU–Cooley Eliminating mistakes will get us only so far. Law School, 300 S. Capitol Ave., Lansing, MI 48933, or at [email protected]. For an in- To really excel, we need to develop dex of past columns, visit www.michbar. org/plainlanguage.” some insights.... October 2020 Michigan Bar Journal Plain Language 55 Patrick Barry is a clinical assistant professor at the University of Michigan Law School and a vis- The nice thing about writing is that you are iting lecturer at the University of Chicago Law not the first to do it....An insight can be as School. He is the author of Good with Words: Writing and Editing, The Syntax of Sports, and simple as finding out that something that the forthcoming series Notes on Nuance. He also recently launched a series of online courses on the somebody else does works well for you, too. platform Coursera. ENDNOTES 1. Klein, Seeing What Others Don’t: The Remarkable Ways We Gain Insights (New York: Public Affairs, (5) Review three or four pieces you’ve writ- the Pen/Faulkner Award in 2004 9 and also 2015), p 4. ten in the past year. These can be briefs, selected by John Updike for the official book 2. Id. I am grateful to Gary Klein for giving me permission to use this image. business memos, contracts, blog posts, club of the Today show.10 3. Seeing What Others Don’t, p 5. important emails—anything, really. But The big issue was cutting. I finally cut as 4. For the effects of interruptions on the quality of written try to find at least two on which you much as I could, about a fourth of the work, see Draheim et al, Combining Reaction Time have received feedback. What errors and Accuracy: The Relationship Between Working story, and actually liked it.11 stand out? What did people consistently Memory Capacity and Task Switching as a Case Example, 11(1) Perspectives on Psychological Science suggest that you change? Other good places to look include these: 133–155 (2016). (1) A list of Zadie Smith’s “Rules for Writers” 5. Top Twenty Errors in Undergraduate Writing, Hume 12 Center for Writing and Speaking, Stanford University Insights published in 2010 in The Guardian. <https://undergrad.stanford.edu/tutoring-support/ In a separate section of your journal or (2) A set of “How I Write” essays published hume-center/resources/student-resources/grammar- resources-writers/top-twenty-errors-undergraduate- diary, start writing down some insights. As in The Scribes Journal of Legal Writing writing> [https://perma.cc/HJ6D-K8B5]. All websites with your errors, shoot for three to five. in 1993. The collection includes pieces cited in this article were accessed August 27, 2020. These can be pithy observations you’ve gath- by Judge Richard Posner, Judge Patricia 6. Toor, The Habits of Highly Productive Writers, ered from other lawyers. They can be indi- Wald, Judge Edith Jones, and Judge The Chronicle of Higher Education (November 17, 13 2014) <https://racheltoor.com/portfolio/1867/> vidual concepts or principles you’ve been Tom Gee. [https://perma.cc/QN5Z-ZVV3]. taught by former teachers. They can even be (3) Your notes from the best writing course 7. Landon, Lecture Five: Adjectival Steps, in Building ideas you’ve come up with yourself—about Great Sentences: Exploring the Writer’s Craft, you took. structure, about word choice, about any- available for purchase at <https://www.thegreat courses.com/courses/building-great-sentences- thing related to writing, including where and (4) A friend’s notes from the best writing exploring-the-writer-s-craft.html>. when you seem to produce your best work. course they took. (Maybe your friend 8. Klinkenborg, Several Short Sentences About Writing To the extent that your errors list may took a different writing course from (New York: Knopf Doubleday, 2012), p 105. sound like warnings and admonitions, your yours, or maybe they just took differ- 9. Past Winners and Finalists, Pen/Faulkner Fdn <http:// insights list should sound more like epipha- ent notes. Either way, the additional www.penfaulkner.org/award-for-fiction/past-award- winners-finalists> [https://perma.cc/59UD-MN2Y]. nies. Here’s an insight from Brooks Landon, perspective could lead to some help- 10. Drinking Coffee Elsewhere, Today (October 14, who has taught creative writing for many ful insights.) 2003) <https://www.today.com/popculture/ years at the University of Iowa: drinking-coffee-elsewhere-1C9015093> [https:// (5) A post called “Timeless Advice on Writ- perma.cc/2FVW-CEMU]. 14 Bad sentences are often long, but long ing” by Maria Popova. The advice comes 11. Marshall, A moment with...ZZ Packer, author, sentences aren’t necessarily bad.7 from writers as different as Ernest Hem- Seattle Post-Intelligencer (March 28, 2003) ingway, Stephen King, Jennifer Egan, <https://www.seattlepi.com/ae/books/article/ Here’s another, by Verlyn Klinkenborg, Isabel Allende, Michael Lewis, Kurt Von- A-moment-with-ZZ-Packer-author-1110896.php> the author of the delightfully quirky book [https://perma.cc/88MZ-V5B7].
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