Writing Tips

"in"

As I learned in the third grade, a preposition is, "anything the little bird can do to the house." It can fly over the house, around the house, to the house, through the house.

"Comprise," "discrete," and "infer," when they mean "compose," "discreet," and "imply."

Hit the brakes before you hit the cliff.

Many of our sentences hit the cliff and keep on going into free fall, ending in a pile of useless or already understood information. Examine the last few words before every period and ask yourself if they are necessary. Often the answer is no; if they form a prepositional phrase (or two), the odds increase you can delete them.

“Adverse,” “anxious,” and “peak,” when they mean “averse,” “eager,” and “pique.”

“Adverse” refers to a thing, like a judge’s ruling. “Averse” refers to a person, like you. “Averse” is always followed by “to” (or a period).

“of”

• Headhunters in the Mist
• Two Furcates and Half a Nary
• A Hacksaw to the Ear
• Hanging with Criss and David
• Sun Valley Serenade
• L.A. and Confidential
• Green Cherries in the Fruitcake
• Eeyore Halfheartedly Hung His Tail
• Alice in Law-Law-Land
• Flaubert's Pickles
• Parrot Skewers at Vilcabamba
• A Melody for the Eyes
• No Word Left Behind
• Sasquatch on Noah's Ark
• Low-Flying "Ls"
• Back to School with Her and I
• The Modality of Lady Gaga
• Emenem (Part III of III – The Hyphen)
• Emenem (Part II of III – The En Dash)
• Emenem (Part I of III - The Em Dash)
• Gone with the Email (Act IV of IV)
• Close Encounters of the Email Kind (Act III of IV)
• Guess Who's Coming to Email (Act II of IV)
• The Good, the Bad, and the Email (Act I of IV)
• You Insane Steaming Pile of Horsehockey
• Houston, No Problem
• Barbra and the Woolly Mammoth

• The Condiments of Style
• Pickle with That Corned Beef
• Kluber's Head Rolls into Right Field
• Whether Pigs Have Wings
• Ford. Go Figure.
• The Most Important Thing—in Our Professional Lives—We Do Every Day
• Face Plants
• The Neighbor's Dog Knows Jay Leno?
• “I Can’t Hardly Believe Miami’s Gone!”
• The Million-Dollar Comma
• The Story of Y'all
• Ticks on a Dog's Belly
• Beat the Rake with Fergus and Juanita
• The Importance of Being Ernie
• Little Burnt, Corkscrew Hairs
• Draft II – Return of the Curse
• Curse of the Blinking Cursor
• A Very Good Sign
• To He or Not to He
• None But Fools Do Wear It
• Barking up the Wrong Tree
• Comma Coma
• Happy New Year with a Twist
• The Law of Billy Wilder
• What Position My Condition Is In
• Join Team Boring and Defeat the British (Again)
• Fishing and Renal Services
• Matt Has a Big Damon Smile on His Face
• The Borg Blog
• Nor Man
• A Doppelgänger in Argentina
• New Federal Word Limits - How WordRake Can Help
• Bow Hunters Stalking Wild Turkeys
• Because We Haven’t Done Vampires – An Exercise in Editing
• “Hallelujah!” in the Hallway
• Protasis Up the Apodosis
• We Talk on the Road We Argue the Necessity of Periods When We Come to a Stop We Must Let Our Readers Know Jack Wants Mine
• American Style
• DEAR JUSTIFIABLY HOMICIDAL
• Particularly Nasty Whether
• A Leech on His Tongue
• Thomas and the Boys
• Bloody-Minded Tarantulas
• Possessed
• Among the Soapsuds
• Extra! Extra! Jack London Tries WordRake!
• From Russia With Scarves
• Doing Good and Doing It Well
• Participles for My Men, Prepositions for My Horses
• Pig Latin Pop Quiz
• Who Knewed? The Blue Nude
• In Havana Hating Like
• Beautiful to the Bone
• Your Honor, You Are Stupid, You Suck, and Please Decide for Me
• Rufus Among the Dandelions
• No Joke
• No Two-Drink Minimum
• Unrelated to Experimental Flights
• A Back as Blue as a Sword Fish's
• The Myth of However
• In the Land of Not
• Perfect Orbits Once Again
• Ham Knuckle and Buttered Spuds
• And Now, the Oscar for Best Supporting Honey Wagon Driver
• I Can't Hardly Believe It's Thanksgiving
• Happy Anniversary to Us, and Thanks to You!
• One of the Top Three No-Nos
• On or About "Or"
• The Warm Glow
• On Behalf of Myself
• A Most Sacrilegious Suggestion
• The Worst Writing Advice You Ever Got
• How to Confound Judges, Clients, and Colleagues
• Never Confuse a Fact...
• How to Irritate Clients (Part 3 of 3)
• How to Irritate Clients (Part 2 of 3)
• How to Irritate Clients (Part 1 of 3)
• One Question Few Lawyers Ask
• If You're Doing This, Your Documents Are Too Long
• One Easy Way to Weaken Your Point
• The Best Way to Open a Client Letter (Part 3 of 3)
• The Best Way to Open a Client Letter (Part 2 of 3)
• The Best Way to Open a Client Letter (Part 1 of 3)
• The Longest Word You Need to Know
• One Simple Way to Enliven Your Writing
• Six Questions ...
• A Secret Writing Weapon
• Of Lawyers, Sharks, and Hemingway
• Two Excellent Ways to Tell a Judge You Have No Case
• The Most Annoying "Words" Lawyers Use
• The People v. Redundancy, et al.
• The 10 Myths of Legal Writing
• The Best-Kept Writing Secret of All Time
• How to Enliven Dull Sentences
• One, Often Fatal, Mistake
• Ten Ways to Make a Judge Chuckle
• Six Sentence Openings That Irritate Judges
• The Windup Before the Pitch
• One Thing Judges Never Read
• What Were They Thinking?
• The Answer Is, 'Yes, always!'
• One Thing Perfectly Clear
• Sleeping Lawyers Don't 'Lay'
• Between/Among -- Two Things You Don't Know
• One Word That Changes Everything
• Another Writing Secret Right in Front of You
• Two Abbreviations Many Lawyers Misuse
• Three Words That Aren't
• Still Another Three Words Many Writers Misuse
• A Unique Problem
• Farmers Market Syndrome
• The #2 Sign of Verbiage
• Three More Words Many Writers Misuse
• The Thelma and Louise Sentence
• Three Words Many Writers Misuse
• The #1 Sign of Verbiage