MAGA: Make Acronyms Great Again!

Helpful Resources

Before we address some helpful acronyms and initialisms, though, there a few “old school” resources (somewhat the antitheses of acronyms) that are indispensable for effective writing:

• The Elements of Style: The classic that never goes out of style. No serious writer should be without a well-worn copy of this book.
• The Chicago Manual of Style: Many law firms follow AP Style — likely, because that's what most publications use — but Chicago is a more complete guide and a bit more elegant in its approach.
• Associated Press Stylebook: AP is more streamlined than Chicago, focuses more on the basics and is geared toward editorial-style writing.
• Harbrace College Handbook: Best little (physically) grammar book around. Great for quick referencing and checking your grammar.

One other very important key to being — or becoming — a first-rate writer is that you should read. Everything. The more you read, the more you will develop the rhythms in your head that help you write clearly and concisely. It doesn't matter what you read, but the more variety of things you read, the more well-rounded your writing voice will be. It sounds trite and tired, but the more you read, the better you write.

The Acronyms

COPE: Create Once, Publish Everywhere

COPE is a philosophy that encourages you to think about how to use one piece of content and repurpose it across various platforms and outlets. Given the increasing importance of content, using one piece and working with it to use in different formats and in different media allows you to extend both the life — and the legs — of your original piece.

For example, you could take a long piece (such as an article) and break it up into smaller pieces for blog posts. Or, post a link on social media to a client alert after it's been sent to clients. One caution: Depending upon the type of piece you've written, you need to ensure that you are not infringing on copyright law. Some publications that accept bylined articles retain the copyright. So, in order to repurpose the article in toto, you may need to garner approval from the original publisher, or even pay a copyright fee of some kind.

KISS: Keep It Simple, Stupid

KISS is one of the most important concepts for being a good writer and clear communicator. Working in a law firm and with lawyers, it's easy to let your writing end up being convoluted and complicated because lawyers are taught in law school to include every single fact and detail in briefs, etc. This approach can often make writing dense and hard to understand. One caution: KISS doesn't mean make your writing simplistic, it just implies you should keep your writing clear, straightforward, and unpretentious.

RUE: Resist the Urge to Explain

RUE travels well with KISS. It's not necessary to explain every single detail. Your readers, believe it or not, are relatively smart, so you can leave out some of the details. Also, having someone else read behind you before it's published, posted or sent out will help you figure out if you've left out some important details. In addition, in this age of the Tweet, attention spans seem to be shrinking, so the more focused and succinct your writing, the more likely your reader will read the entire piece — and retain more.

SCOPE: Spelling, Capitalization, Order of words, Punctuation, Express

SCOPE (the E standing for Express clear thoughts!) is a mechanism to help you remember all of the important things to check as you proof your work. The more you write and the more you work on your writing, the more SCOPE becomes instinctual and second-nature to your process.

SWOT: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats

SWOT, generally thought of as a marketing tool, is useful for evaluating what you are going to write about. Using a SWOT analysis will help you organize your thoughts, ensure that you are covering material that you can confidently write about, and help you include details and information that demonstrate your subject matter expertise, and strengthen your piece overall.

WID: When In Doubt

WID is an old editing acronym meaning if you are in doubt about the spelling of a word, how to punctuate a sentence or how to properly make a subject and verb agree, then look it up in a dictionary, style guide or grammar book. Only if you are “morally certain” you are right can you proceed without looking it up.

The Initialisms

POV: Point Of View

To make a piece of writing compelling and interesting, it is critical that the piece have a point of view. Anyone can recount the facts, but providing analysis and taking a position on a particular issue is what makes a piece useful and memorable. This is often a hard sell with lawyers, as they are sometimes uneasy about taking a position or a side in a piece of writing. Litigators are great at taking a side once they're hired by a client, but in the abstract, they often shy away from putting a stake in the ground.

SVO v. OVS

SVO, Subject Verb Object v. Object Verb Subject, is sentence structure in the active voice. This is generally more punchy, and gets your concept across is a stronger way. Using the passive voice (OVS) can be useful — but be careful with it, as it can weaken your piece and slow the reader down. Sometimes, the passive voice is perceived to be more nuanced or more “legal” sounding and so often shows up in lawyer prose.

WDTMTM: What Does This Mean To Me?

WDTMTM is especially important in connection with client alerts or short pieces geared to clients. As with POV, anyone can present the facts of a particular case, but what the reader wants to know is “So, what does this mean to me?”

Lawyers often hesitate to make predictions or to provide specific guidance (unless they are doing specific work for a client), but to make the piece relevant and useful to the reader, they must explain what is important and, even better, what to do.

Conclusion

Even with all these tricks and tools (and there are many, many more), nothing replaces age-old practice. Just as with reading, the more you write, the better you write. The more variety of pieces you try your hand at (articles, blog posts, tweets, client alerts, etc.) the more nimble you become at pumping out good quality content. And, working alongside your lawyers will make you — and them — more effective communicators as well.

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John J. Buchanan, a member of Marketing the Law Firm's Board of Editors, is in private practice in San Francisco.