Garner's Guide to Making Briefs More Persuasive: Tip 4 - Start Your Brief With a Nonlinear Outli

Here's another tip from Bryan A. Garner's The Winning Brief: 100 Tips for Persuasive Briefing in Trial and Appellate Courts.

Garner recommends the use of a nonlinear outline - you are not always finished with one concept, before you move onto the next concept. Branching outward from the center allows you to easily retrace your steps.

When preparing an outline this way:

I. -----------------------

A. -----------------------

B. -----------------------

II. -----------------------

A. -----------------------

B. -----------------------

C. -----------------------

III. -----------------------

IV. -----------------------

Ideas which are best placed under the heading I, may end up under heading IV.

In the 'madman' stage of brief writing, Garner recommends creating a whirlybird outline that looks like this:

Ideas can branch off from the lines that radiate out from the center. When composing the propositions that your argument depends on, write them down in complete sentences.

A nonlinear outline can help avoid rambling briefs which are internally inconsistent.

Garner's Guide to Making Briefs More Persuasive: Tip 3 - When first working on a writing project

Here's another tip from Bryan A. Garner's The Winning Brief: 100 Tips for Persuasive Briefing in Trial and Appellate Courts.

Take copious notes while trying to come up with imaginative approaches to conveying your argument.

In this third tip, Garner gives examples of attorneys who began briefs in particularly creative ways.

1. With a simile - an appellant who awaits a decision on his appeal in an asylum case is like the cosmonauts who rocketed up to the Mir space stations as Soviet citizens, but came down as citizens of Russia. His home country is a different place than it was when the case began.

2. With an erudite metaphor - a Court is said to have conducted a Renaissance by rediscovering ancient texts and using them to justify a bold new view of real property law.

3. With a play in which the characters lampoon the impact of a decision construing an antitrust law as preventing predatory pricing, without establishing a coherent test for determining when such pricing is taking place.

Garner cautions that only very good writers can get away with employing such techniques. When trying to generate ideas about how best to make a point, try to think of good illustrations, analogies, or diagrams. If something works particularly well, use it!

It's common to get frustrated in trying to find the right approach, but sooner or later a breakthrough will come.

Garner's Guide to Making Briefs More Persuasive: Tip 2 - Plan every writing project by breaking

Here's another tip from Bryan A. Garner's The Winning Brief: 100 Tips for Persuasive Briefing in Trial and Appellate Courts.

In his second tip, Garner recommends writing a brief in stages. He references the 'Flower Paradigm' - advocated by Betty S. Flowers in her article, Madman, Architect, Carpenter, Judge: Rules and the Writing Process.

1. The madman - take notes on possible approaches to a problem.

2. The architect - makes connections between the madman's idea and generates a linear outline.

3. The carpenter - builds the draft. Garner recommends that he write rapidly, leaving holes if necessary.

4. The judge - a critic with a sharp eye who doesn't create anything - don't think about him until the end of the process. The judge will perform quality control on the draft, looking to improve optimal work choice and so forth.