16 C. Effectiveness (persuasion)

Legal writing must move a reader to act or decide: 1. Lead with the conclusion (BLUF — bottom line up front): "The appeal should be allowed on limitation alone." 2. Strong verbs: the section prohibits, not "a prohibition is contained in" the section. 3. Parallelism: "The tenant neither paid, nor repaired, nor vacated." 4. Rhythm and end-focus: land the new, decisive point at the sentence's end. 5. Earned emphasis: bold/italics/caps sparingly — documents that shout everywhere whisper nowhere.