Thread by @Zenpersuasion

I’m an appellate court judge.

I’ve read thousands of briefs.

Here’s what no one told you about persuasion and how to win. Thread.

Judges check page length before reading a word.

• Long brief? We read faster and with less attention.
• Short brief? We slow down and pay closer attention.

Brevity signals confidence. Most lawyers have it backwards.

Adverbs sometimes destroy the arguments they’re meant to strengthen and protect. I call them badverbs.

1. Intensifier adverbs: Used to pump up weak arguments (“Clearly,” “Obviously,” “Outrageously”).
2. Hedge adverbs: Used to cushion shaky arguments (“Arguably,” “Apparently,” “Fairly strongly”).

Researchers studied U.S. Supreme Court briefs and found something striking: the more intensifiers a brief used, the more often the party lost. Example below.

Appellate judges do it too — but for a different reason. We reach for them in dissents, when the issue is a closer call.

For an example of hedge badverbs, we pull from the news.

Sam Bankman-Fried, facing federal fraud charges, wrote 250 pages defending his character. On honesty he wrote:

“As a general matter, I don’t lie. It’s something that I believe fairly strongly in.”

Fairly strongly. One adverb draining the life from another. All credibility gone.

He was trying to sound honest, but his words scream guilty.

Hedge badverbs don’t soften an argument. They kill it.

Kill zombie nouns. They carry tail markings and shackle verbs into noun forms. Examples: -tion, -ance, -ence.

• “Conducted an investigation” → Investigated
• “Made a decision” → Decided
• “Provided a justification” → Justified

Zombie nouns add weight without adding value. Find them. Kill them.

Your reader is not in the room when you write.

She can’t raise her hand, ask a question or stop you mid-sentence to say she’s lost. By the time she reads your brief, you’re gone.

Before you write a single sentence, ask:

“What does she need to know, and when does she need to know it?”

The best briefs answer questions before the reader knows to ask them.

Vary sentence length.

Short sentences hit hard.

Longer sentences build pressure, carry nuance and reward readers who stay with you. The contrast makes music.

Stack sentences of the same length and the reader goes numb.

Give it rhythm.

Most writing rules carry a hidden asterisk.

• Nominalizations may capture a complex and dynamic thing in one word, which helps regulate cohesion and flow. And certain nominalizations are so imbued in our lexicon that they’ve permanently remolded into honest nouns.

• A long brief sometimes earns its length.

• A hedge adverb sometimes signals proper caution.

• An intensifier adverb sometimes earns its place after the point is proven.

Rules tell you what to do. Wisdom tells you when to do the opposite.

The best writers I’ve read knew both.

The best briefs are clear, concrete and concise. No wasted words. No noise. No pretense.

Every word earns its place or gets cut.

I spent three years turning this into a book.
Zen and the Art of Persuasive Writing— published by the ABA. Link in bio.

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