Is it ok for me to bore you to death with an example of bad writing when all you probably want to do is read your blogs in peace without getting grammatical heartburn because you are all out of Tums?

In my legal writing class, I'm learning about drafting office memoranda for the purpose of examining legal questions that may come up in practice. Here's an example of how my book recommends drafting legal questions:

"Were Arkin's defamatory statements about Dr. Hall privileged when he made them while giving an unfavorable job reference to prevent Dr. Hall from getting a job because he knew a patient had died after being operated on by Dr. Hall?" (The Little Book on Legal Writing, Dworsky, p. 122).

How's that for writing? Looks pretty good if you like run-on sentences. Glad I paid $13 for this garbage.


P.S. I've now read that example sentence several times, and still can't tell you what it's asking.


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