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law notses

1. Crafting Excellence: The Art and
Science of Writing for Legal Journals
Subramanian S
Indagatus Solutions Inc.
Chennai
School of Law
Vel Tech University
Chennai
16-07-2024

2. THE CONTEXT

3. High Country Crags and Moon, Sunrise, Kings
Canyon- Ansel Adams
Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico- Ansel Adams
“Writing Like a Photographer Thinks: When the light, shadow and stars
align”

4. Depth of words
- what should words kindle
"The apple pie was golden and fragrant, its crust delicately browned and
sugar-crusted, with the faintest hint of cinnamon wafting up. The apples
inside were tender but not mushy, each bite offering a balance of sweet and
tart that made my mouth water. The warmth of the pie, coupled with a
scoop of melting vanilla ice cream, made each mouthful a little piece of
heaven, evoking memories of long, lazy autumn afternoons."
– John Steinbeck, East of Eden

5. The Purpose of Writing
•Thinking and writing are continuous processes that occur together
•Writing connects the knowledge dots and creates the big picture
•Writing is thinking with clarity- “If you can’t write about something clearly,
it means that you haven’t understood that clearly in the first place”
•Writing is essential to competent, ethical, legal representation and
formulation of thesis
•Structuring the problem, polishing the details and clearing the fog of
vagueness- our mind is a tangled mess of interconnected ideas

6. The purpose of writing is not to reveal what is in your mind
but to change what is in the readers mind
•Creating value with words- value to the readers
•The purpose of communication is not to impress but to express- Is that
so? Does ‘just express’ makes the purpose?
•By expressing- you are challenging the readers’ perspective

7. Why is writing inherently hard?
•We have been trained in ‘student writing’
•To open out our knowledge
•Expert writing- What we perceive as good
•Friction between Writers and readers
•What writers mean through their text
•What readers interpret from the writing
WRITER
READER
TEXT

8. “Writing is inherently hard because we have to use it as a tool to
develop and structure our knowledge of a subject in a clear way so as to
change the readers’ perspective on that subject”
•Drafting- Editing- Reediting and so on
•It demands not too fast and not so slow pace
•Great writing is neither expert writing (writers perspective) nor student
writing (No value)
•Academic writing is extremely hard because the comparison is not with
peers but with the industry standards

9. Reading- An energy intensive task
•Readers have finite amount of energy
•They should not struggle with identifying purpose and context
•Keep the friction points low
•Thermodynamic moment (Words-interpretations-readers- possible
interpretations-infinite possibilities)
“Bad scientific writing is simply a writing that requires a
disproportionate amount of readers’ energy to figure out what this is
about”

10. Why is good writing extremely important?
“It is the single most important parameter that defines
success in an academic setting”
•Writing is not a mean to the end. It is THE GOAL
•It is the value that a knowledge worker creates
•You are not measured by what your writing has produced- you are
measured by what your writing is
•Good writing inculcates good teaching

11. What constitutes good writing?
CLEAR
ORGANISED
PERSUASIVE
VALUABLE

12. THE INTRICACIES

13. Structure and Substance
-Two important aspects that define your writing
•Principles of structure- what guides the reader
•Narrative structure- response to a problem, question or need
•First structure- then details
•Just writing- bad for structure
•It trains you to avoid problems
•It doesn’t help to develop skills
•The more you just write, the harder it is to edit

14. A well developed structure shows the substance in a
wonderful way
What they say 20% 80%
Structure Substance
How it should be 80% 20%
Structure Substance

15. Emphasis
Knowing when and where to put words that matter
•Play with the main clause
•Save the best for last (End placement)
•Length
•Repetition
•Semantics (words)
•With the same data, by changing emphasis you can channel your readers
attention to where you want

16. If you give too many ‘this is important’ sign, nothing becomes
important
•Stress position: End of sentences will always have a stress- Use it wisely
•Short sentences vs long sentences
•Long sentences: Uses intensifiers to elevate the stress at the end
•Short sentences: simple and give emphasis to the point

17. Introduction and Conclusions
-some insights
•A concise interesting introduction will hold reader’s attention than a long
drawn one
•Why should I read this?
•Hook the reader
•Connecting to thesis statement and arguments
•Roadmap to the entire paper

18. •Is the entire introduction concise and short enough to hold the reader’s
attention?
•Are the first few sentences interesting?
•Does the introduction provide context for the thesis statement?
•Does the introduction clearly state the thesis?
•Does the introduction provide a roadmap paragraph?
•Does the roadmap paragraph accurately reflect the large scale
organization of the paper?
Recap: Introduction

19. Conclusions
•Short in legal writing texts
•Invoke the introduction and wrap it nicely
•Give your readers a sense of closure
•Effective conclusions show why your thesis is right

20. Recap: Conclusions
•Does the conclusion remind the reader of the problem the paper sets out
to solve?
•Does the conclusion incorporate aspects of the introduction to give the
reader closure?
•Does the conclusion’s organization parallel the paper’s organization?
•Does the conclusion re-state the thesis?
•Is the conclusion short (one to two paragraphs)?

21. AI

22. AI tools: Can we use it?
•Sony ZV-E10 II Vs Iphone 15 pro
•AI texts are increasingly difficult
to identify
•Articulation can be obtained with
continuous interaction
•It is not universal black and
white- also definitely not grey
•It is specific to what and why?
Can you identify which is taken by an iPhone?

23. AI writing vs Conventional writing
•Abundance vs Scarcity
•Staring at a blank page and begin-
are you up to it?
•Editing is easier than drafting
•Know the structure well
•Make a very good first draft
•Can avoid just writing
AI
Conventional

24. TYPESET IO
•To summarise
•To list out the arguments
•To paraphrase
•To cite references
•To build a structure
•To check for errors
•To have a count of your
words and to arrange

25. THE BIG PICTURE

26. Selecting the journal
“ It’s not something you do at the end of your writing- Instead,
it’s the first thing before writing the draft”
•Know your audience
•Know your editorial team
•Know the scope and decide if it is the right one
•READ A LOT of it and figure out the structure
•Find out the hot topic- the buzz

27. Know the code
“Identify the people with power in your community and give
them what they want”

28. Challenge existing knowledge
“Knowledge is permeable- Know the gatekeepers of it”
•Use flow words
•Use tension building words
•Use the language of experts and refer them
•Think a lot on writing process and writing pattern

29. Learn to collaborate
•Experts produce texts
•Expert texts are mostly multi author documents
•Collaborate from beginning
•Follow the curiosity and shoot mails

30. WRITING LESSONS

31. Writing lessons
“To know that writing is incredibly hard and yet it can be
mastered over time is a good start”
•To embrace the difficulty of writing
•Just work
•The right way is the hard way

32. FULL FOCUS- NO DISTRACTIONS- DO IT EVERYDAY
•There is no such thing as writer’s block
•You gotta time box
•Commit to a writing time

33. Set small goals- achieve- celebrate- up the ante
•Don’t break the chain
•Showing up consistently and not breaking the chain gives you
compounding rewards

34. •Distraction is the enemy
•Saying ‘NO’ to a lot of things other than working/writing
•Fail doing exactly what you want to do
•If you are not careful, world will suck the oxygen out of you
•Not doing things in a way true to you

35. GOOD WRITING

36. How do you make your writing good?
•The work never stops
•Right brain (Intuitive)- Left brain (Analytical)
•Look for the torture you are comfortable with
•Pay attention to what people are reacting when you are saying stuf

37. How do you make your writing good?
•Talk through your ideas and get feedback
•Writing from conversation
•What’s interesting
•What’s confusing
•What’s boring
•What 20% they will reject

38. How do you make your writing good?
•Don’t write and Edit at the same time
•Editing is crucial but it gotta come later
•Hard rule-Edit 3 times to get the best of your writing
•Lenient writing, Stringent editing

39. How do you make your writing good?
•Not everybody is going to like what you write and that’s the point
•A small amount of too much changes the whole thing about it
•What is the right amount of dosage
•3 times repetition- is it worth on all cases?
•What is the right amount of dosage? Never let your audience getting
bored

40. Let’s wrap it up
Let’s start
Let’s take the first step
•First, You write a sentence- and then another and another and on and on
•First drafts seldom become a masterpiece
•It is perfectly okay for the first draft to be bad
•Writing gives us rewards and eventually one day writing will be the reward
•Writing is not just to teach, but to learn