Texas Bar Practice Blog |Passive Voice: When to Avoid It and When to Use ItWritten byLexi ClidienstMarch 11, 2025Share this PostThere are many seemingly arbitrary grammar rules that can make or break the readability of your writing. Avoiding passive voice, for instance, may seem unimportant, but it’s a rule for a reason. Using an active, rather than passive, voice can go a long way to make your writing more professional and easier to understand. Active vs. Passive Voice: What’s The Difference? Essentially, active voice means that the subject is performing the verb: “The mother picks up her crying baby.” Passive voice means that the subject is the recipient of the action: “The crying baby is picked up by her mother.” Although the second sentence is technically grammatically correct, the first is more succinct, making it clearer and stronger. Also, the first sentence follows our most common and logical sentence flow—subject, verb, object—while passive voice typically makes the object (in this example, the baby) the subject. The “By the Monkeys” Rule: How to Distinguish Between Passive and Active Voice In many cases, you should try to write in active voice. If you’re having trouble distinguishing whether a sentence is in active or passive voice, an easy trick is to shorten the sentence to …

Texas Bar Practice Blog |How to Avoid Typos: Proofreading Tips to Improve Your WritingWritten byLexi ClidienstMay 14, 2024Share this PostEveryone remembers a time they made an embarrassing typo. You quickly write an email and hit send. Later, you realize you misspelled something that, although trivial, makes you cringe.   But how do you go about avoiding typos?  Unfortunately, typos can make even the most polished work look unprofessional and distract the reader from your argument. For legal writing, it’s paramount that your tone and communication are clear. Thus, it’s important to thoroughly proofread your work.   Ironically though, the more you read something, the more you grow accustomed to your own voice and miss small errors like misspelled words. Despite technological advances, autocorrect and spell-check can’t catch every mistake. In this article, I’ll share some of my favorite proofreading tips to avoid typos.  Tip #1) Use Another Set of Eyes When possible, it’s always best to use another set of eyes. Like I mentioned before, the more you proofread something, the harder it becomes to spot errors. If you’re writing something important, passing your work to an editor or coworker is typically one of the most effective proofreading strategies, as they can identify any typos you’ve gotten used to skipping over. Tip #2) Read Out Loud …

Texas Bar Practice Blog |How Many Spaces Go After a Period?Written byLexi ClidienstOctober 9, 2023Share this PostParenthetical content is a word, phrase, or sentence that functions as an aside, briefly departing from the main discourse. The punctuation normally used to separate parenthetical content from the main text is, of course, parentheses, but parenthetical commas or em dashes may also be used. Setting off text with parentheses usually de-emphasizes it, setting off text with commas usually carries neutral emphasis, and setting off text with em dashes usually emphasizes it: John brought a stray dog (a bull terrier) to grandma’s house. John brought a stray dog, a bull terrier, to grandma’s house. John brought a stray dog—a bull terrier—to grandma’s house. When parenthetical text falls at the end of a sentence, omit the closing parenthetical comma or em dash, but include the closing parenthesis: John brought home a stray dog (a bull terrier). John brought home a stray dog, a bull terrier. John brought home a stray dog—a bull terrier. Note that, as with the comma, parentheses and the em dash have uses other than just setting off parenthetical content. I won’t get into all of that here. As a general rule, parenthetical text shouldn’t …