a hand-out on hobgoblins

Judy Fischer at the University of Louisville has written a bar journal article that would make a helpful handout for 1L legal writing students, perhaps sometime toward the end of the first semester: Dismiss Those Sixth-Grade Hobgoblins, 69 Kentucky Bench & Bar (May 2007).  As Judy says in her abstract:

"Legal writers may have internalized false rules about writing. For example, they may believe the myths that a sentence cannot begin with a conjunction, that it is incorrect to split a compound verb or an infinitive, that a word should not be repeated in the same sentence or paragraph, and that one-sentence paragraphs are always incorrect. Writers should dismiss these hobgoblins when they are obstacles to writing clear, idiomatic English."

(spl)