The Grade “A” Checklist

Writing is a pain-staking craft, often taking years to master. But here are some shortcuts:

Is my paper double-spaced? ____________ and a doc, docx, rtf or PDF?__________

Did I italicize all case names? Riley v. California ______________ and then subsequently refer to the case simply by its first party, Riley ___________

Did I Capitalize and spell out the amendments and laws? __________ First Amendment, Affordable Care Act

Did I capitalize names and titles? ___________ The United States Supreme Court, Chief Justice Roberts, State of Texas

Did I avoid random or inconsistent capitalization? __________ Supreme court or supreme Court

Did I avoid inconsistent singular and plural? __________ WRONG: Defendants lives in San Diego. They was leaving… RIGHT: Defendants live… They were… [He she or it “is”]

Was I consistent with my verb tenses (past and present)? _________ WRONG: The suspects were under arrest, but run away. RIGHT: Either say are and run, or were and ran.

Did I read it aloud, or even better, have a friend read it to me? __________ If it doesn’t sound right (listen carefully), it needs more editing.

Did I use Paragraph Breaks to organize my thoughts? __________ New idea = new paragraph.

Did I omit long, run-on sentences? __________ They are confusing and hard to follow. If you must, use commas to clarify your thoughts. Try using some two to four word sentences. “Jesus wept” says more than some entire paragraphs of prose.