Choice of Words

Is there a science in choosing words? We choose words in an effort to ‘fit in’. Sounding odd is a sure way to be left out. The audience decides the choice of our words. That’s the reason we don’t care about political correctness while writing on napkins. One fundamental truth I reheard recently: Words have meaning. So why not promote the words which give the better meaning. Why not choose clarity over correctness. Now for the question: when you need directions (yep, we need directions all the time), which word would you use: would you ask for the ‘toilet’ or the ‘restroom’? Apart from how these words sound and how they are perceived, do their hidden imports affect their usage? Some toil, some rest.

Maxim # 9/99: There are No Rules

There are no rules here. Just signposts or what I call ‘maxims’. They are short, pithy and ease to remember. Take it, break it, remix it, adopt it, fine-tune it and do anything else with it that can make your writing experience better. I find it amusing that despite the great amount of writing our legal careers demand, there is no structured way of how to do it. Writing can be stressful if you operate under a strict set of rules. Little does mean that we can operate without any discipline (Well, there’s another maxim for that). For some undisclosed reason, we will try to have only have 99 of them. That’s it. Will either stop the maxims at 99 or resurrect them as something else. And for no reason, they will appear as they like, when they like and in the order they like. So here's the ninth maxim first. There are no rules.

Why Write? (The Purpose of Scholarship)

If the purpose of writing has not troubled you, consider yourself blessed. You can then, I would assume, write without worrying why you are doing what you are doing. That's bliss for some writers. But others like Professor Stephen Carter have diverted their academic energy not only in advancing their scholarly pursuits but also to introspect on how they did it. In Academic Tenure and "White Male" Standards, Professor Carter discusses the value of scholarship and puts a high standard on the why of writing. For him, the purpose of scholarship is to increase human knowledge. Inspired by his teaching of Patent Law for many years, he comes up with a standard to gauge scholarship (on what makes it good or bad). So, here are the two very basic requirements of scholarship:

(a) Domain Knowledge (The scholar must know the field of his writing);
(b) Novelty and Non-obviousness (Good scholarship should not only do something different from what past work has done, it should also make claims that are not obvious in the light of past work).

That's a hard ask. Professor Carter admits that it may not be possible to do this all the time and doesn't claim to have done it himself. But his insight provides the critical link between the purpose of scholarship (the advancement of knowledge) and evaluating the quality of scholarship.

There is a chat-room analogy (akin to Professor Carter's standard) on how to have a smart (scholarly?) persona on the web. Given the anonymity that the internet provides, you can do this by two ways. Enter a chat-room you know. Open your mouth when others can't.