Legal Writing

Legal writing refers generally to the analysis of fact patterns and presentation of arguments in legal memos and briefs. Legal writing involves the analysis of fact patterns and presentation of arguments in documents such as legal memoranda and briefs. One form of legal writing involves drafting a balanced analysis of a legal problem or issue. Another form of legal writing is persuasive, and advocates in favor of a legal position. Legal writing is usually in the form of an essay.

An essay is a short piece of writing on a given subject. It is a literary composition written usually in prose to reflect a writer’s personal thoughts, ideas, opinions and viewpoints on a particular issue. Both the relevance and currency of any essay and the manner in which such ideas and points are presented are essential to understanding and should be clear to the reader.

Types of essay

An essay may be descriptive, narrative, expository or argumentative in nature. The identifying features in each kind of essay is found in the peculiarities attached to it. The different types of essays are essentially different.

1. Descriptive Essay

An essay is descriptive when it seeks to reconstruct a situation, event or circumstance as to how it looks or feels. It captures the picture of the object being described and the writer’s feeling or opinion about it. The experience of a political detainee, who writes a description of his deprivations and deplorable state of affairs while his detention lasted, may create an impression of hardship, and is a good example of a descriptive essay.

2. Narrative Essay

A narrative essay usually takes the form of a presentation of details about events in the order in which they occurred. Such exactitude as to order lends itself peculiarly to narrations, though reasons may exist for variation in the original sequence and overall arrangement of thoughts in the course of writing.

3. Expository Essay

The thrust of an expository essay is the explanation, clarification and provision of information about a subject. It involves the use of illustrations and analogies that help in the explanation of things or in their definition.

4. Argumentative Essay

The most distinguishing feature of an argumentative essay is that the writer would usually support or oppose a particular topic, while trying to convince others of the truth of the writer’s position.

While this classification has been done for comfort, it should not be assumed that they are islands. A writer will sometimes mix two styles of essay writing, such as the use of exposition in a narrative essay.

Methods and approaches in essay writing

The task of writing an essay will sometimes be an arduous one, and those unwilling to take their time and spare the effort will at best be mediocre writers. There are some guidelines which will help to improve the process of writing an essay and make the task much less complex.

1. Choosing a topic: Before a writer begins, choosing a topic is a very necessary step. The writer must have a subject in mind which such a writer desires to write about. A good topic must have the following features.
   • The topic must be correct by providing adequate information on the subject matter.
   • The topic must be complete by being clearly understandable to everyone in that field.
   • The topic must be concise by being brief, short and comprehensive.
2. Preliminary reading: After choosing a topic, a proper writer should read wide on the topic which has been chosen. Such reading would provide a broader perspective in the writing of the essay.
3. Reviewing or rethinking the topic: After reading wide on the topic, the writer should consider if the topic which has been chosen is a good one to write upon, considering the problems which may be encountered, research materials available, inter alia.
4. Testing the idea: An idea which is to be written on may be tested in four ways.
   1. writing test - by writing down the idea and the things immediately related to it, it should become clear whether or not such an idea is a good one.
   2. the credibility test - in looking at the credibility of the topic, it should be considered whether the topic is still current and not obsolete.
   3. the friendly colleague test - discussing an idea is another great way to test an idea. By discussing the idea with a friend, the idea is opened up to possible criticisms and flaws, and the strong suits of the idea may be pointed out.
   4. the possibility test - this involves considering how possible it is to complete the writing and how much time the completion would take.
5. Prepare an outline: An outline will help to organize and analyze thoughts, which is essential to writing a good essay. An outline may be seen as the roadmap to the topic.
6. Choosing material: Choosing material involves narrowing down the topic. This involves choosing research materials which discuss the chosen topic. The writer must look through books and articles which are related to the subject matter. More so, materials on current happenings are apt in choosing books and articles, as they better contain the current position of the ever-dynamic laws. However, some old books and articles may still be relevant in current study.
7. Examining the sources: After choosing the source materials to be consulted, it is necessary to examine these materials.
   1. Organize your reading time: make a list of the materials you want to use in order of importance and resolve to do daily reading. Assimilate and organize them to create productive use of reading time as you approach the writing stage.
   2. Read selectively: not every material can be read, so it is important to employ discretion in choosing the relevant materials to be used for reference purposes.
   3. Read responsibly: this involves contextual reading so as to understand the topic. Make your reading responsible and incisive.
   4. Read critically: Reading critically involves considering and critiquing the reasoning employed in materials read, and whether the reasoning is good and logical or faulty.
8. Writing stage: This is the point where the actual writing begins, and the ideas are translated into words.
   1. First draft: the first draft is the continuous writing of a topic without any modification. At this point, it is more about getting it done than getting it right.
   2. Second draft/addition: this is the adding whatever might have been left out while doing the first writing.
   3. Third draft/cutting: this is the stage were some expressions are removed, while some others are rephrased to improve the structure and quality of what has been written.
   4. Fourth draft/final draft: in the final draft, content, organization, logic and coherence are of prime importance. This stage is practically a stage of proof reading.

Elements of good writing

The following should be considered in every essay.

1. Introduction: An introduction is to capture the summary of the entire work and tell the reader what the work is about, while doing well to capture the reader’s attention. Every good essay should have an introduction.
2. Element of originality: In addition to using research materials, a proper writer should also express independent views and opinions of issues. This presents a new perspective to the issue.
3. Clarity: Clarity is of prime important. The writer must express himself/herself clearly to enable the audience easily grasp the idea being discussed. Without clarity, no points would have been conveyed.
4. Brevity: Every good essay should be comprehensive. It should be short enough to not lose the reader’s attention, but not so short that it leaves out important details.
5. Grammatical expression: Aesthetic value may be kept into a work by using grammatical expressions like similes, metaphors, idioms, inter alia, to achieve one’s objective.
6. Accuracy: In writing, every fact expressed should be as accurate has possible. Such facts must be devoid of understatements, exaggerations, and embellishments.
7. Organization: Effective organization makes the work less complex and guides the reader through the written work.
8. Use of paragraphs: When sentences follow each other to form continuous pages of a work not divided into parts, it will tend to become boring. Using paragraphs is one way to make the ideas more logical after being presented.
9. Mechanical accuracy: Spellings, punctuation marks, capital letters, punctuations, the proper use of all these add up to the quality of the work.
10. Conclusion: The conclusion is important because it draws the essay to an end and proceeds on the strength and substance of arguments advanced in the course of waiting. A good conclusion points to the writer’s disposition and leaves the reader with a fair idea of the position. Hence, it is best to have a conclusion that bears wholly on the essay so that any impression creating doubts and misapprehension are created.