brycewang-stanford Writing Style (ylj-writing-style)
YLJ prose is read by a generalist legal audience: scholars in other fields, judges, clerks, and
practitioners. The house standard is clear, confident legal writing where the text carries the
argument and footnotes carry the support. This skill polishes voice and readability; citation form
lives in ylj-sources-and-bluebook and structure in ylj-argument-structure.
When to trigger
- The argument is sound but the prose is dense, hedged, or jargon-heavy
- A subfield reader follows it but a generalist editor would stall
- The footnotes have swallowed the argument (text is thin, footnotes are essays)
- Final polish pass before submission or before the Forum's faster turnaround
House-style priorities
- Text-first. The argument must be followable from the text alone; footnotes support and elaborate but never hide a step the reader needs. If a key move lives only in a footnote, promote it.
- Generalist legibility. Define terms of art on first use; don't assume the reader lives in your doctrine. A clerk in a different field should follow the through-line.
- Plain, confident voice. Prefer the active voice and concrete subjects. State the claim; don't bury it under "it could be argued that." Hedge only where the law is genuinely uncertain.
- Topic sentences that argue. Each paragraph opens with the claim it proves, not the subject it touches. A reader skimming topic sentences should get the argument.
- Footnote discipline. Substance belongs in text; footnotes hold cites, qualifications, and genuinely tangential material. A footnote that is a second article competing with the text is a YLJ-specific tell of an undisciplined draft.
Sentence and paragraph craft
- Cut throat-clearing ("It is important to note that"); start with the subject and verb.
- One idea per sentence; break the 60-word doctrinal sentence into two.
- Signpost transitions with logic ("Because…," "Yet…," "If that is right, then…"), not filler.
- Use defined short forms for repeated case/statute names; don't restate the full caption every time.
The footnote-to-text balance (a YLJ pressure point)
| Symptom | Fix |
|---|---|
| 40% of the page is footnote | Promote argument to text; cut footnote essays to cites + key qualifier |
| The reader must read footnotes to follow the argument | Move the load-bearing reasoning up into the text |
| A footnote runs longer than its paragraph | Split: keep the cite; relocate substance or delete |
| Stacked see also with no parentheticals | Trim; add explanatory parentheticals only where they earn space |
Checklist
- Argument followable from text alone; no load-bearing reasoning stranded in footnotes
- Terms of art defined on first use; generalist can follow
- Active voice and concrete subjects predominate; hedging only where warranted
- Topic sentences state claims, not topics
- Footnotes are support, not parallel essays; no footnote dwarfs its paragraph
- Length within the track's encouraged cap (Article < 25k / Essay < 15k / Forum < 10k)
Anti-patterns
- A "great footnotes" draft where the text is a skeleton and the argument lives below the line
- Subfield jargon and undefined acronyms that lock out a generalist editor
- Passive, over-hedged prose that never commits to the claim
- Topic sentences that announce a subject instead of advancing the argument
- Padding to hit a perceived "Article length" — over-length weighs against acceptance
Output format
【Voice】active + confident? generalist-legible? Y/N
【Text-first】argument followable without footnotes? Y/N
【Footnote balance】any footnote dwarfing its paragraph? fixed? Y/N
【Length】within track cap? Y/N
【Next】ylj-placement-strategy (where/when to submit) → ylj-submission
Supplementary resources
../../resources/worked-examples/01-introduction.md— a dense intro rewritten for generalist legibility../../resources/official-source-map.md— YLJ length / style facts