Helpful Books on Legal Writing

Posted: June 22nd, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Usage Guides, Helpful Books | No Comments »

 

Books of General Interest for Legal Writers (in my order of preference)

  • Plain English for Lawyers, by Richard C. Wydick,  Carolina Academic Press, 2005 (The best source for sentence-level editing; contains excellent exercises for curing awkward constructions and wordiness within sentences).
  • Writing to Win, by Steven D. Stark,  Main Street Books, 1999 (A modern, clean approach to legal writing).
  • The Elements of Legal Style, by Bryan A. Garner, 2nd ed., Oxford University Press, USA, 2002 (A very readable guide by the leading proponent of plain English and the legal profession’s leading word maven).
  • Typography for Lawyers: Essential Tools for Polished and Persuasive Documents, by Mathew Butterick,  Jones McClure Publishing, 2010 (The best source on designing clean, crisp documents and for answering all your word-processing questions.) Also check out Butterick’s website at: Typography for Lawyers, http://www.typographyforlawyers.com.
  • The Lawyer’s Guide to Microsoft Word 2007, by Ben M. Schorr, American Bar Association, 2009 (a practical guide to Word 2007, tailored to legal writing).
  • On Writing Well, by William Zinsser, 30th Anv. Ed., Harper, 2006 (a classic reissued).
  • All books by Edward R. Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, 2nd. ed., Graphic Press 2001; Visual Explanation, Graphics Press, 1997; and Envisioning Information, 4th ed., Graphics Press, 1990 (beautifully produced commentaries on effective chart making by the DaVinci of quantitative information; Tufte’s books are essential tools for anyone who works with data).
  • A Plain English Handbook, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Montezuma Publishing, 2004 (The SEC’s guidebook).
  • Briefing and Arguing Federal Appeals, by Frederick Bernays Wiener,  4th printing, The Lawbook Exchange, 2001(an authoritative and detailed source on this art form).
  • The Mother Tongue, by Bill Bryson, Harper Perennial, 1991 (A humorous collection of trivia, tidbit and history, which will persuade you that our language is still evolving and leave you laughing at its mighty power to define, betray, and ennoble us. This book is a death knell to prescriptivists – otherwise known as They Who Think They Must Be Obeyed.)
  • The Elements of Style, byWilliam Strunk and E.B. White,  5th Anv. Ed., Longman, 2008 (the classic, also recently reissued, but some sections are considered outdated).
  • The AMA Handbook of Business Writing: The Ultimate Guide to Style, Grammar, Punctuation, Usage, Construction and Formatting, by Kevin Wilson, Jennifer Wauson, g, American Management Association, 2010 (yet another useful usage guide; easy-to-find alphabetized entries)

 

Usage Guides (also in my order of preference)

  • The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage, by Allan M. Siegal and William G. Connolly,  1999 ed., Three Rivers Press, (Clear alphabetized answers to the nitty-gritty questions you’ll face at the keyboard—an essential resource. Every writer should own this book).
  • The Associated Press Stylebook, 3rd Ed, Basic Books, 2009 (same format as The New York Times Manual—choose one or the other. The Associated Press Stylebook, frequently cross references from one entry to another, so I prefer The New York Times Manual.)
  • Woe is I, by Patricia T. O’Connor,  2nd ed., Riverhead Trade, 2004 (a relaxed, funny and workable approach to usage issues.)
  • The Elements of Legal Style, by Bryan A. Garner,  2nd ed., Oxford University Press, USA, 2002 (A very readable guide by the leading proponent of plain English and the legal profession’s leading word maven.)
  • On Writing Well,  by William Zinsser, 30th Anv. Ed., Harper, 2006 (a classic reissued).
  • The Elements of Style, by William Strunk and E. B. White, 5th Anv. Ed., Longman, 2008 (another classic, also recently reissued, but some sections are considered outdated).
  • Bryson’s Dictionary of Troublesome Words, by Bill Bryson,Broadway Books, 2004 (in Bryson’s own words, “A Guide to Everything in English Usage that the Author Wasn’t Entirely Clear About Until Recently”).
  • Lapsing Into A Comma, by Bill Walsh,  McGraw Hill, 2000 (another grammar guide; the most thorough discussion of compound and hyphenated words; targeted to the newspaper industry).
  • The Careful Writer, by Theodore Bernstein,  Free Press, Atheneum, 1995 (A particularly helpful resource for ESL students because it shows which prepositions go with various verbs).
  • A Writer’s Reference, by Diane Hacker, Bedford St. Martin’s, 6th ed., 2006 (excellent, practical handbook).
  • Eats, Shoots and Leaves, by Lynn Truss, Gotham, 2006 (A best seller in Britain and the USA; more a commentary on the importance of punctuation than a how-to-punctuate book; some funny punctuation jokes but the book itself often differs from standard American usage).

What do you think?