Legal Writing in Plain English: A Text with Exercises


Bryan A. Garner - 2001
    In Legal Writing in Plain English, Bryan A. Garner provides lawyers, judges, paralegals, law students, and legal scholars sound advice and practical tools for improving their written work. The book encourages legal writers to challenge conventions and offers valuable insights into the writing process: how to organize ideas, create and refine prose, and improve editing skills. In essence, it teaches straight thinking—a skill inseparable from good writing.Replete with common sense and wit, the book draws on real-life writing samples that Garner has gathered through more than a decade of teaching in the field. Trenchant advice covers all types of legal materials, from analytical and persuasive writing to legal drafting. Meanwhile, Garner explores important aspects of document design. Basic, intermediate, and advanced exercises in each section reinforce the book's principles. (An answer key to basic exercises is included in the book; answers to intermediate and advanced exercises are provided in a separate Instructor's Manual, free of charge to instructors.) Appendixes include a comprehensive punctuation guide with advice and examples, and four model documents.Today more than ever before, legal professionals cannot afford to ignore the trend toward clear language shorn of jargon. Clients demand it, and courts reward it. Despite the age-old tradition of poor writing in law, Legal Writing in Plain English shows how legal writers can unshackle themselves.Legal Writing in Plain English includes:*Tips on generating thoughts, organizing them, and creating outlines.*Sound advice on expressing your ideas clearly and powerfully.*Dozens of real-life writing examples to illustrate writing problems and solutions.*Exercises to reinforce principles of good writing (also available on the Internet).*Helpful guidance on page layout.*A punctuation guide that shows the correct uses of every punctuation mark.*Model legal documents that demonstrate the power of plain English.

Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges


Antonin Scalia - 2007
    In this noteworthy book, two of the most noted legal writers of our day - Justice Antonin Scalia and Bryan A. Garner - systematically present every important idea about judicial persuasion in a fresh, entertaining way. Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges is a guide for novice and experienced litigators alike. It covers the essentials of sound legal reasoning, including how to develop the syllogism that underlies any argument. From there the authors explain the art of brief writing, expecially what to include and what to omit, so that you cn induce the judge to focus closely on your arguments. Finally they show what it takes to succeed in oral argument. The opinions of Justice Scalia are legendary for their sharp insights, biting wit, and memorable phrasing. The writings of Gryan Garner, Editor in chief of Black's Law Dictionary, are respected inside and

The Curmudgeon's Guide to Practicing Law


Mark Herrmann - 2006
    The book covers the basics of law practice and law firm etiquette, from doing effective research and writing to dressing for success, dealing with staff and clients and building a law practice. Concise, humorous and full of valuable (albeit curmudgeonly) insight, this is a must-read for every newly minted law school graduate or new lawyer.

How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking – for Students, Academics and Nonfiction Book Writers


Sönke Ahrens - 2017
    This book helps students, academics and nonfiction writers to get more done, write intelligent texts and learn for the long run. It teaches you how to take smart notes and ensure they bring you and your projects forward. The Take Smart Notes principle is based on established psychological insight and draws from a tried and tested note-taking-technique. This is the first comprehensive guide and description of this system in English, and not only does it explain how it works, but also why. It suits students and academics in the social sciences and humanities, nonfiction writers and others who are in the business of reading, thinking and writing. Instead of wasting your time searching for notes, quotes or references, you can focus on what really counts: thinking, understanding and developing new ideas in writing. It does not matter if you prefer taking notes with pen and paper or on a computer, be it Windows, Mac or Linux. And you can start right away.

Getting to Maybe: How to Excel on Law School Exams


Richard Michael Fischl - 1999
    The book begins by describing the difference between educational cultures that praise students for "right answers" and the law school culture that rewards nuanced analysis of ambiguous situations in which more than one approach may be correct. Enormous care is devoted to explaining precisely how and why legal analysis frequently produces such perplexing situations. But the authors don't stop with mere description. Instead, Getting to Maybe teaches how to excel on law school exams by showing the reader how legal analysis can be brought to bear on examination problems. The book contains hints on studying and preparation that go well beyond conventional advice. The authors also illustrate how to argue both sides of a legal issue without appearing wishy-washy or indecisive. Above all, the book explains why exam questions may generate feelings of uncertainty or doubt about correct legal outcomes and how the student can turn these feelings to his or her advantage. In sum, although the authors believe that no exam guide can substitute for a firm grasp of substantive material, readers who devote the necessary time to learning the law will find this book an invaluable guide to translating learning into better exam performance.

The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results


Gary Keller - 2013
    The One Thing explains the success habit to overcome the six lies that block our success, beat the seven thieves that steal time, and leverage the laws of purpose, priority, and productivity.

The War of Art: Winning the Inner Creative Battle


Steven Pressfield - 2002
    Pressfield believes that “resistance” is the greatest enemy, and he offers many unique and helpful ways to overcome it.

Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World


Cal Newport - 2016
    If you master this skill, you'll achieve extraordinary results.Deep work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. It's a skill that allows you to quickly master complicated information and produce better results in less time. Deep work will make you better at what you do and provide the sense of true fulfillment that comes from craftsmanship. In short, deep work is like a super power in our increasingly competitive twenty-first century economy. And yet, most people have lost the ability to go deep-spending their days instead in a frantic blur of e-mail and social media, not even realizing there's a better way.In Deep Work, author and professor Cal Newport flips the narrative on impact in a connected age. Instead of arguing distraction is bad, he instead celebrates the power of its opposite. Dividing this book into two parts, he first makes the case that in almost any profession, cultivating a deep work ethic will produce massive benefits. He then presents a rigorous training regimen, presented as a series of four "rules," for transforming your mind and habits to support this skill.A mix of cultural criticism and actionable advice, Deep Work takes the reader on a journey through memorable stories-from Carl Jung building a stone tower in the woods to focus his mind, to a social media pioneer buying a round-trip business class ticket to Tokyo to write a book free from distraction in the air-and no-nonsense advice, such as the claim that most serious professionals should quit social media and that you should practice being bored. Deep Work is an indispensable guide to anyone seeking focused success in a distracted world.

The Minto Pyramid Principle: Logic in Writing, Thinking, & Problem Solving


Barbara Minto - 1987
    Topics covered range from the difference between deductive and inductive reasoning, to a discussion of how to highlight the structure of information.

On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction


William Zinsser - 1976
    It is a book for everybody who wants to learn how to write or who needs to do some writing to get through the day, as almost everybody does in the age of e-mail and the Internet. Whether you want to write about people or places, science and technology, business, sports, the arts or about yourself in the increasingly popular memoir genre, On Writing Well offers you fundamental priciples as well as the insights of a distinguished writer and teacher. With more than a million copies sold, this volume has stood the test of time and remains a valuable resource for writers and would-be writers.

Tribe of Mentors: Short Life Advice from the Best in the World


Timothy Ferriss - 2017
    From iconic entrepreneurs to elite athletes, from artists to billionaire investors, their short profiles can help you answer life's most challenging questions, achieve extraordinary results, and transform your life.From the author: In 2017, several of my close friends died in rapid succession. It was a very hard year, as it was for many people. It was also a stark reminder that time is our scarcest, non-renewable resource. With a renewed sense of urgency, I began asking myself many questions: Were my goals my own, or simply what I thought I should want? How much of life had I missed from underplanning or overplanning? How could I be kinder to myself? How could I better say “no” to the trivial many to better say “yes” to the critical few? How could I best reassess my priorities and my purpose in this world? To find answers, I reached out to the most impressive world-class performers in the world, ranging from wunderkinds in their 20s to icons in their 70s and 80s. No stone was left unturned. This book contains their answers—practical and tactical advice from mentors who have found solutions. Whether you want to 10x your results, get unstuck, or reinvent yourself, someone else has traveled a similar path and taken notes. This book, Tribe of Mentors, includes many of the people I grew up viewing as idols or demi-gods. Less than 10% have been on my podcast (The Tim Ferriss Show, more than 200 million downloads), making this a brand-new playbook of playbooks. No matter your challenge or opportunity, something in these pages can help. Among other things, you will learn: • More than 50 morning routines—both for the early riser and those who struggle to get out of bed. • How TED curator Chris Anderson realized that the best way to get things done is to let go. • The best purchases of $100 or less (you'll never have to think about the right gift again). • How to overcome failure and bounce back towards success. • Why Humans of New York creator Brandon Stanton believes that the best art will always be the riskiest. • How to meditate and be more mindful (and not just for those that find it easy). • Why tennis champion Maria Sharapova believe that “losing makes you think in ways victories can’t.” • How to truly achieve work-life balance (and why most people tell you it isn’t realistic). • How billionaire Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz transformed the way he engages with difficult situations to reduce suffering. • Ways to thrive (and survive) the overwhelming amount of information you process every day. • How to achieve clarity on your purpose and assess your priorities. • And much more. This reference book, which I wrote for myself, has already changed my life. I certainly hope the same for you. I wish you luck as you forge your own path. All the best, Tim Ferriss

Dreyer's English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style


Benjamin Dreyer - 2019
    L. Doctorow, and Frank Rich, into a useful guide not just for writers but for everyone who wants to put their best foot forward in writing prose. Dreyer offers lessons on the ins and outs of punctuation and grammar, including how to navigate the words he calls "the confusables," like tricky homophones; the myriad ways to use (and misuse) a comma; and how to recognize--though not necessarily do away with--the passive voice. (Hint: If you can plausibly add "by zombies" to the end of a sentence, it's passive.) People are sharing their writing more than ever--on blogs, on Twitter--and this book lays out, clearly and comprehensibly, everything writers can do to keep readers focused on the real reason writers write: to communicate their ideas clearly and effectively. Chock-full of advice, insider wisdom, and fun facts on the rules (and nonrules) of the English language, this book will prove invaluable to everyone who wants to shore up their writing skills, mandatory for people who spend their time editing and shaping other people's prose, and--perhaps best of all--an utter treat for anyone who simply revels in language.

The Legal Analyst: A Toolkit for Thinking about the Law


Ward Farnsworth - 2007
    Although the tools are far more interesting and useful than the rules, they tend to be neglected in favor of other aspects of the curriculum. In The Legal Analyst, Ward Farnsworth brings together in one place all of the most powerful of those tools for thinking about law.From classic ideas in game theory such as the “Prisoner’s Dilemma” and the “Stag Hunt” to psychological principles such as hindsight bias and framing effects, from ideas in jurisprudence such as the slippery slope to more than two dozen other such principles, Farnsworth’s guide leads readers through the fascinating world of legal thought. Each chapter introduces a single tool and shows how it can be used to solve different types of problems. The explanations are written in clear, lively language and illustrated with a wide range of examples.The Legal Analyst is an indispensable user’s manual for law students, experienced practitioners seeking a one-stop guide to legal principles, or anyone else with an interest in the law.

The Tools of Argument: How the Best Lawyers Think, Argue, and Win


Joel P. Trachtman - 2013
    If you are a law student or new lawyer, a business professional or a government official, this book will boost your analytical thinking, your foundational legal knowledge, and your confidence as you win arguments for your clients, your organizations or yourself.  For more information, go to toolsofargument.com.

Designing Your Life: Build a Life that Works for You


Bill Burnett - 2016
    Now in book form for the first time, their simple method will teach you how to use basic design tools to create a life that will work for you.Using real-life stories and proven techniques like reframing, prototyping and mind-mapping, you will learn how to build your way forwards, step-by-positive-step, to a life that’s better by a design of your own making.Because a well-designed life means a life well-lived.