Common Mistakes in Law Essay Writing
April 15, 2011 | Law Essay
A law essay writing involves good reasoning and a persuasive writing style. There are many ways expressing ideas in law essays. The main reason why there are many writing styles for law essay is to create ways of presenting ideas for law essays. Since law essays are legally difficult to understand by a regular individual. The main task of the writer is to write legal terms into simple words that are understandable to the general readers.
Here is the common mistakes that law essay writer does:
1. The use of tautology
Tautologies are very common in law essay. This is the main reason why law essays have more tendencies to become wordy compared to other essays. Writing law essays must be controlled in some ways in order to prevent wordiness. A tautology is a kind of repetition that reinforces the meaning of the word but sometimes may be taken as an exaggeration. Examples are: free gift, final conclusion, wrong mistake. The use of tautology is never advisable in law essays. This will just exaggerate the ideas you put in the law essay.
2. Prefer the active voice and action verbs
Action verbs and the active voice help your readers to easily understand the ideas you present in the law essay. Action verbs aid your subject to be the doer of the action and it animates your subject. This means that you are putting energy to your subject. On a bigger picture, action verbs make your law essay crisp to read. On the other hand, the use of the active voice often suggests straightforwardness of idea presentation. This is very advantageous in your law essay since you do not bore your readers with what you are trying to say.
3. Use foreign words and phrases sparingly
Law essays often use foreign words and phrases like Latin maxims and quotations. This may be acceptable, but if you want your readers to understand what you are trying to say then it is better to omit these foreign words altogether. Instead, use an English translation to your Latin term. Take note, however, that Latin maxims coupled with its English translation will just make your law essay tenuous and indefinite. You may want to sound scholarly but it is never proper for effective communication.
Many law essay writers fall into the trap of exaggerating the presentation of ideas. If you want to be an effective communicator, you should prefer simplicity over wordiness in writing law essays.
