Category Archives: Grammar and Punctuation

Do I have to teach grammar?

I learned a lot of grammar in middle school. We had to diagram sentences. I did it and did it well enough to get a good grade. We also learned about the parts of speech and other grammar matters in high school. I suppose most people do.

But when I became a law student, then a lawyer, and later a legal-writing teacher, I had to re-learn a lot of the grammar information I had supposedly learned in middle school and high school. I bet the same is true of many of my students. They learned grammar before they got to my legal-writing class, but they have to re-learn it now—meaning I have to teach it.

Why?

I have a theory.

1. When I learned grammar in middle school and high school, I was learning it just to spit it out on a test or fill it in on an exercise. It was just abstract information, necessary to get a good grade. Once I got the grade, I forgot it.

2. Forgot it? Really? How? You need grammar knowledge for the rest of your life—whenever you speak and on every writing assignment from high school through college.

Actually, no, you don’t.

3. If you are fairly intelligent (like my students here at Texas), you’ll make only a few mistakes on your papers right through the end of college, and you’ll never need to actually know what an independent clause is, what a dangling participle is, what coordinating conjunctions are, and so on.

4. Besides, my teachers in college were much more concerned about content and self expression than they were about fine points of grammar. They corrected only the most glaring mistakes I made, and I didn’t make many. Again, I assert that for fairly intelligent people like my students today, it’s possible to write high school and college essays and get good grades without a detailed knowledge of English grammar.

5. But law school is a bit different, and law practice is very different. For most lawyers, and this was definitely true for me, law practice requires more writing than anything before. For me, law practice easily required 10 times more writing than I’d ever done before.

I was doing a lot more writing, and naturally I had lots more opportunities to make writing mistakes.

6. And once you’re in law school and in law practice, you’re writing on subject matter that is more complex than anything you’ve written about before—so your writing naturally suffers because your brain is struggling to master the content.

My writing had more mistakes than ever before—mistakes I almost never made before.

7. Finally, in law school and law practice, your writing is subject to much more scrutiny than ever before. Accuracy, precision, correctness, and form matter a lot more than before.

My writing was scrutinized at a level I was unaccustomed to.

7. So I needed to know what a conjunctive adverb was. I needed to know the difference between a dependent clause and a phrase. I had to master a set of comma rules. I had to know how to use a semicolon. And so on. All the abstract, “useless” grammar stuff now became relevant. I had to re-learn it.

How did all this look to my legal writing teacher or the lawyers I worked for?

“Young people these days just don’t know grammar.”

“I’m surprised someone who went to Cornell would make mistakes like that.”

“We’re dealing with a generation of semi-literate lawyers.”

So yes, I do have to teach or re-teach grammar, and I’m not going to be cynical about it.

Run-on sentences

Do you perpetrate run-on sentences?

Probably not. And it’s not a crime. But perpetrating a run-on sentence sends a message about you: You’re less than fully literate or you don’t proofread well. In this post I’ll define terms, highlight types of run-ons, and offer suggestions for fixing them.

A run-on sentence isn’t just any long or awkward sentence. A run-on sentence results from improperly joining independent clauses. An independent clause is a group of words that could be a grammatical sentence by itself. For example, these are both independent clauses:

I understand there must be rules.
Many forms of writing have rules.

A true run-on sentence joins independent clauses without punctuation or a conjunction:

I understand there must be rules many forms of writing have rules.

I almost never see this in legal writing.

But it’s also incorrect to join two independent clauses with only a comma. When you do that, you create a type of run-on sentence called a comma splice:

I understand there must be rules, many forms of writing have rules.

I do see comma splices in legal writing, but rarely. To properly join two independent clauses, you could use a semicolon, a comma with a coordinating conjunction (and, or, for, nor, but, yet, so), or a period (creating two sentences).

I understand there must be rules; many forms of writing have rules.
I understand there must be rules, and many forms of writing have rules.
I understand there must be rules. Many forms of writing have rules.

There’s another type of run-on sentence. It results when you join two independent clauses with a conjunctive adverb and a comma. For example, this is a run-on sentence:

Itemizing and attaching bills, therefore, constitutes prima facie evidence that medical charges were necessary and reasonable, however, there is still an issue of material fact to be considered.

The text contains two independent clauses:

Itemizing and attaching bills, therefore, constitutes prima facie evidence that medical charges were necessary and reasonable.
There is still an issue of material fact to be considered.

But they have been improperly joined—or spliced—with a comma and a conjunctive adverb: however. I do see this in legal writing—the example is from a brief filed in federal court—but it is, in fact, a run-on sentence and is improper in standard English.

As tempting as it may be, don’t treat conjunctive adverbs like coordinating conjunctions. If it helps, think of coordinating conjunctions as mere connectors and conjunctive adverbs as creators of transitions. In fact, they are often called “transition words.” Here’s a partial list of conjunctive adverbs:

accordingly

certainly

consequently

finally

furthermore

hence

however

indeed

likewise

meanwhile

moreover

namely

nevertheless

nonetheless

similarly

specifically

still

subsequently

therefore

thus

To fix the “conjunctive adverb” run-on sentence, you have several options:

Use a semicolon:

. . . charges were necessary and reasonable; however, there is still an issue . . .

Use a coordinating conjunction instead:

. . . charges were necessary and reasonable, but there is still an issue . . .

Make two sentences:

. . . charges were necessary and reasonable. However, there is still an issue . . .

(Yes, you can begin a sentence with however, despite Strunk & White.)

By the way, there’s a second conjunctive adverb in the original sentence, and it’s set off with commas and yet is correct:

Itemizing and attaching bills, therefore, constitutes prima facie . . .

Using the conjunctive adverb in this way is correct because it doesn’t join two independent clauses. In short, “Itemizing and attaching bills” could not be a sentence by itself.

Learn to spot and fix run-on sentences, both the basic comma splice and the equally improper “conjunctive adverb” type.

Random thought: comma splice

I received this fortune in a fortune cookie today:

“Your mind is filled with new ideas, explore them.”

Now, this is a tricky comma splice because the second half of the sentence lacks a subject. The phrase “explore them” is actually in imperative mood, or what we might call “command form.” The subject (you) is said to be understood, thus making the second half an independent clause, and thus making the use of a comma insufficient.

Other options:

Add a coordinating conjunction:

Your mind is filled with new ideas, so explore them.

Use a semicolon:

Your mind is filled with new ideas; explore them.

Make two sentences:

Your mind is filled with new ideas. Explore them.