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Presentation for 2 nd AIJA Magistrates Conference. Judgment Writing Justice RG Atkinson. The Purposes of Writing a Judgment. To clarify your own thoughts To explain your decision to the parties To communicate the reasons for the decision to the public
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Presentation for 2nd AIJA Magistrates Conference Judgment Writing Justice RG Atkinson
The Purposes of Writing a Judgment • To clarify your own thoughts • To explain your decision to the parties • To communicate the reasons for the decision to the public • To provide reasons for an appeal court to consider
The Purposes of Writing a Judgment • To clarify your own thoughts • To explain your decision to the parties • To communicate the reasons for the decision to the public • To provide reasons for an appeal court to consider
Structure • F for facts • L for law • A for application • C for conclusion
Style • Avoid the use of clichés • Be precise and to the point • Use the active voice rather than the passive • Be particular rather than vague • Try not to use language that excludes • Use simple and direct prose rather than abtruse wording • Avoid obvious errors
Some Obvious Errors • Subjects and verb always has to agree. • Make each pronoun agree with their antecedent. • Just between you and I, case is important too. • Being bad grammar, the writer will not use dangling participles
Some Obvious Errors • Join clauses good, like a conjuction should. • Don’t write run-on sentences they are hard to read, you should punctuate. • Don’t use no double negatives. Not never. • Mixed metaphors are a pain in the neck and ought to be thrown out the window.
Some Obvious Errors • A truly good writer is always especially careful to practically eliminate the too frequent use of many adverbs. • In my opinion, I think that an author when she is writing something should not get accustomed to the habit of making use of too many redundant unnecessary words that she does not actually really need in order to put her message across to the reader of what she has written.
Some Obvious Errors • About them sentence fragments. Sometimes all right. • Try to not ever split infinitives. • Its important to use your apostrophe’s correctly. • Do not use a foreign term when there is an adequate English quid pro quo.
Format of Judgments • AIJA Guide to Uniform Production of Judgments • Coversheet • Standard Format • Style Guide
Conclusion • Fair • Clear • Interesting • Just resolution of conflict