Set in Style

First, spend a minute or two with Twitter, an on-line service that lets people write and publish short entries (for all the world to read).

An entry can be about anything (many use it to say what’s happening like “I’m getting ready for dinner,” or “the Mrs. awakes; she’s in a good mood; it’s gonna be a good day”) but it can be no more than 140 characters long: about 20 to 30 words.

Go ahead and write an entry. Write a response to Twitter’s essential question — “What are you doing?”

Here’s a fair response:

Right now, I’m reading an article that discusses whether Twitter can help turn you into a better writer. Actually, I’m reading two articles about Twitter.

Oops! You can’t publish that because it’s 14 characters too long.

So, you start cutting.

Right now, I’m reading an article that discusses whether Twitter can help turn you into a better writer. Actually, I’m reading two articles about Twitter it.

And then you publish your 138-character message:

I’m reading an article that discusses whether Twitter can help turn you into a better writer. Actually, I’m reading two articles about it.

Now, suppose you want to say something more significant. Suppose you want to say you agree with the article that claims using Twitter (writing Tweets) can make you a better writer, and you disagree with the other article that says writing Tweets has no such benefit.

Then you must do more than cut; you must revise.

Right now, I’m reading an two articles that discusses whether Twitter can help turn you into a better writer. Actually, I’m reading two articles about Twitter.

With that revision, you have 29 characters to spare:

I’m reading two articles that discuss whether Twitter can help turn you into a better writer. I believe it can.

Let’s suppose you want to identify the two articles; you want to include links to those articles.

First, you shorten the links. You use an on-line service like TinyURL to turn:

http://www.thecomplexlitigator.com/post-data/2009/1/20/do-the-benefits-of-using-twitter-include-better-writing-for.html

into:

http://bit.ly/TTG6u

And you turn:

http://socialmedialawstudent.com/twitter/using-twitter-to-become-a-better-legal-writer/

into:

http://bit.ly/18wErp

You could further revise your entry like so:

I’m readingThese two articles that discuss whether Twitter can help turn you into be a better writer. I believe it can.

With that revision, you have 50 characters to spare:

These two articles discuss whether Twitter can help you be a better writer. It can.

Add the shortened links and some spaces, and you have a Twoosh, a 140-character Tweet:

http://bit.ly/18wErp        These two articles discuss whether Twitter can help you be a better writer. It can.        http://bit.ly/TTG6u

____________
More about how Twitter can improve your writing tomorrow.

Sources:

Using Twitter to Become a Better Legal Writer

Do the benefits of using Twitter include better writing for lawyers?  No.

I’ve got three recommendations.

The first is a list of blog posts you must read. The list is published by the three intrepid law geeks who run3 Geeks and a Law Blog.

Here’s an excerpt from the #1 post, written by Chuck Newton, the man who first claimed that, “information becomes the main material for workers, each of which are only loosely affiliated”:

By these measurements, traditional law firms are designed (intentionally or by happenstance) to handle a certain degree of capacity.  In other words, it can handle so many cases or clients with the infrastructure it has.  If the cases and clients are increasing, a law firm can find itself running to catch up.  This would represent undercapacity.  You see this a lot in Big Law on the grow. 

The second and third were authored by Honorable Gerald Lebovits; both appeared in the journal of the New York State Bar Association.

In these two articles, Judge Lebovits advises attorneys on the basics of typesetting and page design. He likens the importance of looking good in print, to the importance of looking sharp in court.

Document Design: Pretty in Print — Part I

Document Design: Pretty in Print — Part II

Consider this intro to an attorney’s biography:

So & So has been with the firm since 1963. His primary areas of practice include litigation and lobbying.

He has also had considerable experience in eminent domain and election law.

Now, consider the phrase:

He has also had . . . .

What’s wrong with that phrase?

____________
Several things:

1. Like the two sentences before it, it’s simple. Readers quickly tire of a succession of simple sentences.
2. It’s got more words than necessary. The phrase He also has works better, and contains 25% less copy.
3. Present perfect tense is too formal and indirect. A potential client is (presumably) looking for an attorney who has experience, rather than one who had experience.

This post is really about another (“I Hate My Website,” written by New York personal injury attorney Eric Turkewitz). But, first . . .

____________
It’s the better part of a year ago, and I’m in a courtroom. (Not to worry; I’m sitting in the gallery.)

The judge looks like a million bucks. If Alan Shore appeared in her courtroom, he’d have a new goal in life — seduce justice!

The defense attorney looks so impressive. With his silver hair, golden cufflinks, and expensive garb, he looks as if he’s very experienced and successful.

But the prosecuting attorney doesn’t look so sharp. He sports a cheap, crumpled suit; he needs a haircut, and a new pair of shoes.

The case is about whether the accountant for a small business embezzled money from her employer.

I’m in the gallery with several dozens of others; we’re the jury pool.

The judge introduces the players — the accountant and her counsel, and the prosecutor.

In short order, the jurors form some impressions of the players.

____________
Have you ever heard of Thin Slicing? That’s our tendency “to find patterns in situations and behavior based on very narrow slices of experience.”

It’s a key factor in how we form “hunches, snap judgments, emotional reactions, and first impressions – in short, instant responses to sensations.”

It affects jurors. And it affects a potential client’s decision to select you, rather than another attorney.

____________
When it comes to getting into Harvard, winning an election, or promoting your firm, first impressions are key. Make a bad first impression on those who decide whether you get what you want or not, and you’re looking at an uphill battle. Make a good first impression, and the battle could be effortless.

Studies show that we begin to form our impressions of others before they’ve had a chance to say one word. We rely on non-verbal cues (demeanor, dress, etc.) to inform us first. According to those who study such things, we size others up in an instant; they say it has to do with evolution.

From the Handbook of Interpersonal Communications:

Evolutionary and biological imperatives probably required humans to develop the mental shortcuts, or heuristics, that encourage us to construct relatively complete judgments about objects from limited amounts of information. Whereas internal characteristics become more important when individuals are transforming impressions into relational knowledge, initial judgments rely upon readily accessible cues that make such judgments akin to viewing others as objects. This imparts primacy to visual nonverbal cues in initial interactions.

The Handbook also reminds us what we all (or should) know — first impressions can be lasting:

First impressions based on nonverbal cues tend to be highly persistent, even in the face of subsequent contradictory cues (Burgoon & Le Poire, 1993; Kenny et al., 1992). People are biased toward seeking information that confirms first impressions, and this serves to solidify and perpetuate those impressions.

____________
If you have a blog or Web site, potential clients (and, in some cases, jurists and jurors) aren’t so likely to form their first impressions of you based on your appearance or demeanor; they’re likely to form their first impressions from your blog or Web site. That’s what they see first.

And those first impressions don’t begin to form when they read what’s written at your site; they begin as soon as they see your site’s appearance. Before they read, they see, and then they develop some sense of what sort you are — smart, or stupid; sharp, or sloppy; trustworthy, or not.

In 1993, researchers put Thin Slicing to the test. They had college students watch 10-second, silent video clips of teachers giving lectures. Based on just those clips, the students were asked to rate the teachers on a wide range of characteristics: did the teachers seem attentive, supportive, optimistic, competent, confident, etc.

Those ratings were compared to end-of-course evaluations by students who had taken courses with those teachers, and there was a great correlation (0.76). And the correlation remained strong when the silent video clips were reduced to five seconds, and then two just seconds!

Since then, further research has shown how powerful Thin Slicing is. In one experiment, subjects were asked to rate surgeons according to 20-second audio clips of the sounds of their voices. And guess what? A great correlation was found between how the subjects evaluated the surgeons’ voices and how often the surgeons had been sued for malpractice!

More recently, researchers have found that subjects formed their impressions of Web sites in just a tiny fraction of one second.

____________
Now, why does Eric Turkewitz hate his Web site? Because 1) in order to attract clients, he has to toot his own horn, even though he was taught not to, 2) in order to be noticed, he was to repeat key words over and over again, even though that ruins his prose, and 3) tooting his horn might not sit well with some jurors.

So the juxtaposition of these three elements — clients, search engine optimization and jurors — creates an unsolvable riddle for me. One possibility is to create a 2nd website, and have that swapped out with my real one when I am on trial so that jurors are not offended. But that doesn’t take care of the conflict between potential clients (where good writing is beneficial) and SEO (where poor writing is beneficial).

I’d like to end by saying that I’ve have solved this riddle. But I haven’t. Nor have I seen any other personal injury website solve it, even those written by “professionals.” Many of us do the same thing when it comes to our content, repeating the keywords for Google, listing past results and hoping that we can find a happy middle ground. Many of the sites appear to be oblivious to the potential for juror backlash.

If anyone does know the magic bullet — and it seems to me that this is a job for a copy editor not a marketer — I’d love to hear about it in the comments or on your own site. It must exist in some form.

Turk’s right — a copy editor can help an attorney write copy that satisfies search engines and prospective clients.

But a good designer — now that’s the bomb (as they say).

____________
For further information:

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
In this essay from the New Republic, Richard Posner of the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals reviews Blink.
First Impressions Count for the Web, BBC
Snap Judgments Work!, by Harbour Fraser Hodder
first impressions, edited by Nalini Amaday, Ph.D., and John Skowronski, Ph.D.
Thin Slices of Expressive Behavior as Predictors of Interpersonal Consequences, by Nalini Amaday and Robert Rosenthal
Half a Minute: Predicting Teacher Evaluations from Thin Slices of Nonverbal Behavior and Physical Attractiveness, by Nalini Amaday and Robert Rosenthal
First Impressions Through Visual Web Design, by Luke Wroblewski
First Impressions Count in Website Design, by Andrew King of Website Optimization, LLC
Attention web designers: You have 50 milliseconds to make a good first impression!, by Gitte Lindgaard,  Gary Fernandes,  Cathy Dudek, and J. Brown
Tips for Search Engine Optimization, Google

Would you like to write an op-ed for The National Law Journal, or an article for Corporate Counsel magazine?

Wouldn’t that be good?

Of course it would.

Getting an article published in a well known, well respected, and widely circulated periodical is a wonderful thing to do if you want others to know who you are and what you do.

Now, you’re quite a good writer when it comes to legal matter. But you never studied journalism; you’ve never written for a magazine; but you want to do it, and you want to do it right.

Have you ever considered working with a ghostwriter?

Probably not. You probably think that ghostwriting is (at best) unethical or (at worst) a serious violation of the rules.

Not so if you hire Janet Ellen Raasch, who’s been ghostwriting for attorneys for many years now. Before becoming a ghostwriter, Raasch was marketing director for several law firms. Before that, she taught journalism at Marquette University College of Communications.

I asked her about the work she does, and about how attorneys can attract new business by publishing articles:

Could you tell us what a ghostwriter does, and how she works with clients? What’s the process?

A ghostwriter works with professionals who know their stuff, but perhaps lack the time or the ability to put their “stuff” into words in a way that will be persuasive to a potential client in a targeted print or electronic publication.

Often, an author commits to writing an article and then runs out of time as the deadline approaches. Often, an author is so schooled in “Blue Book” style that he or she has a hard time switching gears in order to write in a style that is acceptable to the mass media and useful to the average reader. In both of these cases, a ghostwriter can help. Think of us as facilitators and translators.

The ghostwriting process begins with a conversation that covers the standard questions of journalism –who, what, where, when, why and how. Who is the target audience? What is the theme? What is the “news peg” that makes the theme relevant? Where will the article appear and what are the editorial guidelines? When is it due? Why is it important to this audience? How will this article solve problems for readers?

Once the theme is selected and approved, I move on to research based on background materials provided by the author as well as Internet searches on the subject area. Once the research is complete, I develop interview questions and set up an interview with the author. All good articles are based on stories; I will devote a good part of the interview to eliciting good stories from the author — stories that can engage the interest of readers and illustrate the values and problem-solving ability of the author.

After the research, I prepare a rough draft, send it to the author, and solicit feedback. Most authors find it much easier to react to a drafted document than to create a document from scratch and the input at this phase is valuable. I incorporate changes, smoothing them out so that they fit smoothly into the rest of the article. It usually takes a few iterations before we arrive at “final” — a document that captures the knowledge, the experience, and the “voice” of the author.

What about the ethics of using a ghostwriter? Doesn’t that violate the rules of most bar associations?

I am often asked about the ethics of lawyers using a ghostwriter. Is this misrepresentation? Not if it is done right.

The information included in the article is provided by the lawyer; I simply translate this information into a form that is acceptable to the media and more useful to readers.

Many legal and business publications routinely edit — sometimes extensively — the legal articles submitted by lawyers. Partners often rely on associates to draft legal documents and articles for legal publications. As long as the partner has read and “accepted” this work, it usually appears under his or her name. The ghostwriting process is no different.

You help attorneys “bridge the communications gap that often exists between” them and potential readers. What does that involve? And what are the benefits.

When faced with questions about writing style, lawyers tend to turn to The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation. Professional communicators, on the other hand, turn to well-worn copies of The Associated Press Stylebook.

Each of these style guides contains a wealth of information on subjects like punctuation, capitalization, abbreviation, use of numerals, use of bold and italics, titles, venues, geographic terms, dates, and citation of documents – in print and electronic formats.

The Bluebook is the definitive source for citation and style in legal documents and law journals. Its precise rules help bring order to the complexity of legal concepts and documents and fine-tune the nuances of the legal process. To a lawyer or a judge, this format clarifies and saves time. To just about everyone else on the planet, however, Bluebook style presents a giant hurdle to readability.

Is it any wonder that the comment “this looks like it was written by a lawyer” has come to be synonymous with prose that is boring and virtually impossible to comprehend?

The style followed by journalists, editors, and public relations has a different set of goals — to give people the information they need to know to make decisions about their lives, using language and style that informs, interprets, and persuades. This is the writing style that lawyers should adopt when they are writing for a consumer audience rather than an audience of their legal peers.

How can an attorney get an article published?

The media are not in the job of providing publicity for lawyers; they are in the job of providing useful information to their readers. The way to get an article or an opinion-piece published is to tie it closely to a newsworthy event or trend. One particularly valuable tactic is to offer a local or regional or industry slant — using local or regional or industry examples — on a national news story.

Another way to get an article published is to submit it in a form that already follows The Associated Press Stylebook and the publication’s guidelines so it is “ready to go” and the publication does not need to set it aside for editing.

Check the editorial calendar of a publication and try to tie your story idea to the theme of the week or the month. Never waste your valuable time writing a story before you have a publisher. Start with a short query that states the theme of your article or opinion piece and how this theme would be useful to the publication’s readers. Then, write to meet the publications guidelines, using a ghostwriter if necessary.

What’s it like to work with law firms/attorneys? How is it different from working with any other type of firm/professional?

Working with law firms and attorneys is always interesting and intellectually challenging. The biggest challenge is project management and sign-off. Working with an individual attorney on an individual, free-standing article is easy. Working with a “firm” on a “firm wide” project like a Web site can be extremely difficult.

Most law firms are still organized as partnerships where each partner has an equal voice, which can make it very difficult to create one strong theme and apply it to every lawyer and every practice area at the firm. To keep everyone happy, you often end up with a very watered down product. The most market-savvy law firms are acting more like businesses where one person (or a small committee) has final say over style and content decisions. That makes it much easier to reach decisions and to convey a strong, unified message.

How does your journalism background affect your work? What about your teaching experience?

I hold a Master’s Degree in Journalism from Marquette University, where I also taught journalism, persuasive writing, and graphic design. Because of my background in journalism, I understand two important things.

First, I understand the definition of news (as opposed to self-promotion) — and what the media find acceptable and unacceptable in an article or opinion piece. I understand the need for a news peg.

Second, I understand the difference between the Bluebook style (for the legal system) and The Associated Press Stylebook (for the mass media) and can translate one into the other. I like to think that I teach my authors as I am helping them write an article or opinion piece.

What is an “attorney’s on-line reputation” and how important is it? How can it be controlled?

Reputation or “thought leadership” has always been important to any attorney. In the past, reputation was built on publishing in traditional media and speaking in traditional venues, and networking face-to-face –usually within a narrowly defined geographic area. Today, reputation is built on publishing and speaking in electronic media, and networking on social networks. Physical location is much less relevant. My articles are as likely to appear in Hong Kong publications as in Denver (where I am based) publications.

An attorney’s online reputation equals his or her first page of Google results. The first thing that a potential client will do is Google your name to learn more about you. An attorney must “own” this first page of results so that everything that shows up enhances his or her reputation. The best way to do this is by posting a steady stream of useful content on Web and social media sites and solid profiles on social networking sites.

How important is the appearance of what an attorney’s name appears on? What’s the value of good design?

Graphic design is always important — whether print or electronic — and should reinforce the attorney’s position in the marketplace. Design must be consistent throughout a “suite” of communications tools –from business cards to brochures to Web sites to social media sites to YouTube videos. A design that looks good on paper might not work online, and vice versa.

The biggest mistake I see is big grey chunks of copy. This is hard to read in print, and even harder to read online where people want to skim. Use short sentences, short paragraphs, lots of subheads, and lots of white space to enable skimming.

You taught persuasive writing for ten years. What are the elements of effective persuasive writing?

According to Aristotle, persuasion requires three elements: good sense, good values, and unselfishness. Lawyers know how to use all three in the courtroom. It is surprising that they forget to use all three in their marketing materials, including articles.

When a lawyer uses good sense in the courtroom, he or she uses examples and stories as evidence. When a lawyer uses good values in the courtroom, he or she tries to show that the client is a good person or organization. When a lawyer uses unselfishness in the courtroom, he or she tries to show that a decision in their client’s favor will benefit not only the client, but further justice and benefit society as a whole.

Lawyers and law firms need to add these elements to their marketing materials in order to persuade potential clients to make the connection.

What’s your advice to a young attorney starting her career? How can she best use her writing skills to promote her career?

Young attorneys enjoy a wealth of new opportunities for developing their reputations and building their practices. I know of young associates who have gone from unknown to the front page of national publications in just a year by creating and using blogs and other social media tools.

Make sure that your well-written profile appears on social networks like LinkedIn and Facebook (especially within legal issue and alumni groups). Make sure that your profile is professional and career-oriented. Make sure that your well-written content appears not only on your own Web site, but also on social content sites like JDSupra and LegalOnRamp. Contribute content to the user-generated sections of traditional sites like the iReports sections of CNN.com. Post professional photos and video on Flickr and YouTube. Launch a blog in a niche area and keep it current. Comment on the blogs of others. Use these tools to “own” your first page of results on any search engine.

What’s your advice to a partner looking for new clients? How can she promote her practice through publishing?

A partner can use the same tools as an associate. In the case of a partner, however, it is likely that he or she already has some “traditional” materials lying around. These should be re-purposed for the Internet. We used to talk about “copy.” We now talk about “content.”

Who’s your ideal client, and what’s your ideal project?

My ideal client is a lawyer or other professional service provider who wants to position him- or herself as a thought leader in a particular area of the law – and wants to create and use original content to accomplish this goal.

I particularly enjoy working closely with lawyers and consultant to create interesting, useful articles for business and trade publications. I also help lawyers ghostwrite books. I work on Web sites, where I emphasize the use of case studies that demonstrate how a lawyer solves problems for clients and bios that include not only facts but values (in the form of personal quotes) and community involvement as well.

What’s the best part of your job?

The best part of my job occurs when an author calls to say, “What you’ve drafted sounds just like me – only better!” Another “best part” is when a client calls to say, “I’ve gotten great feedback and new work because of the article we crafted together.”

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For further information, visit Janet’s blog: Constant Content

I just learned my name is attached to something flawed. 

My goal is to change that.

____________
Here’s the story:

Six months ago, I sent this article to Law Practice Magazine, a popular ABA periodical about law practice management. The article was set to run in the January issue, which focused on marketing tactics for attorneys.

That issue was advertised like so:

PRACTICE DEVELOPMENT SPECIAL ISSUE:
BRANDING YOURSELF ONLINE

For some reason, the article didn’t appear when it was supposed to.

Via Twitter, I recently learned that the article (actually, a draft version of it) was published at a sister ABA publication, Law Practice Today. 

____________
Now, one bit of advice I offer clients is this — whenever your article is published, review it again. Make sure it doesn’t suffer some production error.

Following my own advice, I read the article. Right away, I thought there must be something wrong. It sounded like a draft of what I submitted for publication, rather than the final.

Indeed, it must be a draft, because there’s an editor’s note in it identifying a chunk of copy to be set as a side bar. But there is no side bar; just a note to someone in production.

This needs to be fixed!

____________
Let’s see what happens. I called the production house (around 9:30 am) and left a voice mail. After I post this, I’ll send an email. And I’ll get this error resolved as soon as I can . . .

. . . because that’s my name at the top of it. 

Let’s see how long it takes to set things right.

Update #1

I haven’t heard anything from the production house, but I just (9:45 am) sent an email to the the publisher, the ABA (lpm@abanet.org).

Update #2

Good news. I just (1:55 pm) received the following message from the ABA:

Good afternoon, Mr. Thorne:

Please contact me at your earliest convenience so that I may correct any problems with your article.

Thank you,
Aaron

Looks like we should have things resolved after a round or two of phone tag.

Update #3

More good news (@ 8:30 am on 20 May). I just spoke with Aaron, and he’s more than happy to help. I’m going to take the published HTML, revise it as necessary, and send it to Aaron.

Update #4

It’s now 9:00 am (on 20 May) and I’ve just sent the revised HTML to Aaron. He says it’ll take a few hours before the revision appears.

Update #5

It’s now 9:40 am, and Aaron responds. He wants to be sure he knows what copy goes in the sidebar. It’s a quote from David Adams, a partner at Venable; it’s his advice on how to write a notable essay, one worthy of appearing on the Op-Ed page of the New York Times.

I send the quote to Adams for review. It’s been so long since he offered it. The article was supposed to be published in the January issue of Law Practice Magazine. It just appeared yesterday (I suppose). Why didn’t anyone at the magazine tell me it was just published?

Final Update

This just in (at 10:00 am):

Excellent! Thank you for clarifying.

I made the changes, and they will be live this afternoon.

Have a great day, and thank you again for allowing us to use your work in Law Practice Today!

Aaron
 

Update Final +1:

At 3:45 pm, a reader makes a comment. At 4:30 pm, I notice the comment. I check the article. The reader is right. A new error has been introduced.

This is a reminder to follow an old rule — if you wish to change just one thing, don’t change others.

After you make one change, check to be sure.

I send Aaron a new message:

Aaron:

Someone just pointed to a new error. In the very first line of the article, there’s a misspelling!

saes

should be

sales

Thanks.

Only a few large firms have dedicated editors on staff. 

That’s likely to change.

Why? Because of the growing importance of the written word — motivated by the growing use of social networking tools — to attract clients. That’s why.

Don’t take my word for it. Those in the know say social networking will be more and more important in the promotion of professional services, including legal services.

Consider some of what they say:

The Legal Case for Web 2.0

A Fresh World for Attorneys

Social Networking Goes Professional

Social Networking for Lawyers

Since social networking relies so much on what we write . . . .

My faith in the growth of social networking is like my faith in global warming — if everyone says it’s happening, it’s happening, right?

. . . especially when it comes to the number of words you require your readers to read.

Consider this opening line to a recently published client alert:

On April 17, 2009, the Obama administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) issued two proposed findings regarding the following greenhouse gases (“GHGs”): carbon dioxide; methane; nitrous oxide; hydrofluorocarbons; perfluorocarbons; and sulfur hexaflouride.

That stands like a giant warning to readers: be wary — “the author is garrulous; he doesn’t value your time.”

Let’s suppose the author seriously wanted the alert to attract new clients. He wanted it to be read not just by a few GCs, but by a much larger and broader audience. Then he could use an editor.

____________
What would a skilled and experienced editor do with that intro?

Why, he’d start by cutting the fat:

On April 17, 2009, the Obama administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA“) issued two proposed findings regarding the following greenhouse gases (“GHGs”): carbon dioxide; methane; nitrous oxide; hydroflourocarbons; perflourocarbons; and sulfur hexaflouride.

An editor might tell the author:

“The audience for this alert consists of people interested in ‘federal efforts to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.’ Why waste their time telling them what EPA stands for, or who it belongs to? (Newspapers assume their readers know terms like EPA, IRS, and SEC; they don’t define those terms for the public, so why should you define EPA for people who would be interested in this alert?)

“Don’t write the alert like it was a brief for a court, because that’s not what it is; it has a different purpose, and it’s for a different audience.

“A client alert is not a merits brief, and shouldn’t be written as if it was. If you want to attract a broad audience, write for that audience.”

An associate advises me to read an article titled “10 STEPS TO EFFECTIVE WRITING.”

OK. But, I wonder, who would use numeral ten in place of word ten – especially at the start a title? Definitely not Kosher.

I favor this line in the article’s intro:

At one extreme, there’s a “give-it-to-the-intern” attitude that leads to costly and embarrassing mistakes, like confusing “their” and “they’re” in a mailing targeted to corporate attorneys.

I continue reading the article, written by “one of the smartest editorial professionals” there are is. But then I stop at this (since corrected):

In addition to using clear, unaffected language, lead your reader from topic to topic so that all they need to do is keep moving their eyes across the page.

I wonder, is it right for a smart editor to include a singular/plural disagreement (reader/they) in her advice to writers? I think not.

I ask the author about this, and she wonders what’s wrong. “I’m not following you,” she writes. “Is there an error?”

____________
It’s become so common to use they to refer to one in casual discourse. (Heck, presidents who advocate better public education even use it in their speeches.)

But there’s no need for an editor or an attorney to put it in writing. None at all.

“Just change reader to readers,” I advise her. “Then the problem is all gone.”

“Oh!”

____________
Not long after that, I’m reading this client alert titled “H1N1 FLU CONCERNS: WORKPLACE PRIVACY AND EMPLOYEE ILLNESSES,” and I stumble upon this:

How do you balance the privacy concerns of the sick employee and their family against the health interests of co-workers?”

I’m surprised that a great big law firm — one that claims to “demand and offer professional excellence” – would let a mistake like this out the door. “If they is so demanding, why don’t they hire a proofreader?”

Nine times out of every ten, it’s so easy to eliminate this sort of error with a quick revision, like so:

How do you balance the privacy concerns of sick employees and their families against the health interests of co-workers?”

If it’s so easy to do, why not bother to do it (especially if you want people to think you is so demanding)?