21 | December | 2009 | Advocate's Studio

: Image by Andy Kiel via Flickr

If you practice in the Minnesota Bankruptcy Courts, you may want to pay some heed to Judge Robert Kressel’s rules of the road for proper Order writing. His PDF guide to writing Orders can be found here. Sure, there is a bit of common sense at play. Obviously Judge Kressel doesn’t believe in the concept “it goes without saying”, most likely due to his personal experience. Some practices to watch out for: proper use of articles; excessive capitalization; alternatives like “and/or” or (s) after singular nouns; banning the use of “undersigned”; making sure your nouns and verbs agree; proper use of “it’s” and “its”; and, making sure you actually ask for what you want. Seems simple enough in theory, but then there is that pesky practice …

Hat tip to Legal Writing Prof Blog.

Parts of Speech – Adverbs (slideshare.net)
Attention Grammar Nerds: We’ve Found You a Compatriot (mediabistro.com)
Back to School Grammar Basics to Kick Start the School Year (prweb.com)
Grammar Nazis: Useful Language Experts, Or Elitist Snobs? (techdirt.com)

Not so much law, but still exceedingly cool from the curated information perspective , is this fabulous tip from two of my fav research resources, ResearchBuzz and ResourceShelf – a digital archive of comics created by the U.S. Government about government-related topics. Hit the jump here to browse the collection. Everything from Sprocket Girl, to Captain America Goes To War on Drugs, from Snoopy to Blondie and L’il Abner. Comics are shown gallery style, with attributing information, prompting hours of time-wasting fun. You can even download the entire comic as a PDF!