Professor Bainbridge...on law, politics, religion, culture & food

The problem with teaching writing in general is that most books on “good” writing focus on lists of grammatical rules.  There are few theories of what makes writing clear.  The exception that I have found is that of Joseph Williams books on the subject, which I recommend to anyone interested in the subject.  This is not a master theory—there can be none because practically every “rule” will be broken by a good writers with confidence.  But it is a workable theory of what makes writing more understable for most people, most of the time.

I’m sure I’ll get some agreement from the ex-clerks and judicial interns in the audience that style matters way more than Bluebooking.  Of course, style can be taught badly (as the example quoted above shows), but that doesn’t mean it should be deemphasized in favor of teaching more rote memorization of rules - if you’re competent to get into and get passing grades in law school, you should be competent to look up a Bluebook rule here and there.  The same logic doesn’t hold true for clear, convincing, effective style, and thus some emphasis in any legal writing course should be given to these matters.

There’s a similarly dreary adherence to the active voice in journalism. As a general rule there, it’s not a bad one, but as Orwell wrote in “Politics and the English Language,” it’s better to “break any of these rules soon than say anything outright barbarous.”

It all started with the fetishizing of Hemingway and Strunk & White (I say with tongue only partly in cheek)--none whom are particularly good writers, in my humble opinion.  To me these are like a literary version of the Olive Garden--if you can’t cook go competent bland so as not to offend anyone.  If you can’t write, adopt Strunk & White (or the Bluebook) as your Bible to be mindlessly adhered regardless of the circumstances.  Give me Dumas any day!