Writing a great legal article is truly amazing and beneficial for a crowd including the writer. Not only it will be published in a good, well-known website or blog, thereby increasing your brand value and visibility, but also be read by many people who are in need of that information. It may help litigants, researchers, other lawyers or a reporter to understand the state of the law and many more things on which they are researching.

However, the best part is perhaps that you learn to think systematically and strategically when you write article after article. It is a fantastic exercise for a lawyer, a student, or other people to write about practical legal problems continuously. It keeps your knowledge sharpened, arguments ready and reputation strong.

And one more thing is that not only when you write an article or a legal article but also when you perform your moots, files or write a blog or any other activity you perform in law field you must know how to write impressive and good content so that it could be easily understandable by the crowd hearing you or reading your matter. So in this  article I am going to give you some tips to write a legal article and will also suggest to avoid some mistakes everyone often makes while….so let’s begin….

Before writing an article, you should keep in mind the few things that I have written below:-

• Method: First create a structure, give your article a skeleton. Identify one or two important questions you will answer in the article. Around this structure develop a body. Information should be crisp and to the point so that the reader gets what he wants at one glance. Beating around the bushes frustrates the reader and he will switch to something better. Use Google docs for the writing instead of microsoft word, it helps to get other people to edit or comment on your article later, and there is no possibility of accidentally deleting the content.
• Headings and subheadings: The entire article must be broken down according to headings and subheadings. The headings and subheadings should be complete and not partial or indicative. For example if you are writing an article of habeas corpus, and you have to write a subheading for a paragraph where you are writing which courts you can go to for getting this writ issued, the heading or subheading should be:-     “Which courts may issue the writ of Habeas Corpus and  not “Which courts can issue.     this writ” or “courts with writ jurisdiction” etc. If the focus is on habeas corpus then try and.      ensure that it is directly written and  mentioned in most of headings and subheadings.

• Always ask people: Whenever you don’t know the practical issues involved in a topic, ask someone. Call up lawyers who specialize in that subject and ask. Call up your teachers and ask. Ask people intelligent questions and learn real life practical insights and then write those in a lucid, simple language. Asking the right people is probably the quickest way to learn the real stuff, but it is also the most undermined legal research technique. Let it be your secret weapon. Cultivate a bunch of people you can call for information, insights and inside scoop. This is a big asset for a legal blogger.

• Length: Aim for at least 1500 words excluding footnotes and citations,  more is fine. This is because Google gives more importance to long form articles in search result as opposed to very short articles. However, make sure to break down your article in many small paras with multiple headings and subheadings. Length: Aim for at least 1500 words excluding footnotes and citations.  More is fine. This is because Google gives more importance to long form articles in search result as opposed to very short articles. However, make sure to break down your article in many small paras with multiple headings and subheadings.

• Language: Simplest possible language, must be very easy to read. Use simple sentences instead of complex sentences and easy words instead of difficult words. Only in school and college people get rewarded for using a difficult language, everywhere else, in real life, using difficult, complicated language results in being penalized and ridiculed. Please write in as simple language as possible.
  
  What makes your article valuable is quality of information and insights, how rare or useful the information or insight you are providing is, how easy it is to understand and read, and how nicely the content is flowing from one issue to another. Provide bullet points and tables everywhere possible. That will make your article stand out and valuable. Provide formats, samples, examples and practical advice wherever possible. Do not just write about sections and case laws.

• Structure:- To make your article impressive and easy, try to write it to the point and use bullet points, numbers and change paragraphs whenever necessary. Give your article some space same as you do in cv so that it can take breath, ensure not to write excessive only in one paragraph, divide it into small ones so that people can read what they really want to know about. Content should be easy to read and understand for the people out of the field too so that a number of people can read and understand the matter written in  your article.

• Research: Research for the article writing, blog writing or any other content writing is very necessary, without researching one cannot write an amazing article or any content. So the research for content writing should be done sufficiently. Should not only rely on Wi-Fi or network, websites but also on books for acquiring proper knowledge on the topic.

• Do not write lengthy introductions and conclusions: No one cares. Just get to the point quickly. Imagine that you have to write an article on licenses required for hydropower generation. Now many law students will start this article by writing what is electricity, what types of electricity are used in India, what is the percentage of hydropower use in India and pros and cons of hydropower and ramble on before coming to the point of if licenses are required and what licenses are required and how to get them. That is crazy. Never write an introduction that is longer than 4-5 sentences. Same goes for the conclusion. One exception is if you have a great story to tell in the introduction which will hook the reader’s attention, go ahead. Only tell relevant stories.

• Title: The document should be saved with an easy to understand, direct title. Many people are taught to write creative, convoluted, witty titles. These are counterproductive as you lose out google traffic due to this. Try to keep the title similar to how the reader will think of it or type in google when they search for it. Fancy titles are not helpful for the reader. Write a simple title, maybe in form of a question that the article answers.

• Grammar: Your work reflects your image. It is necessary that grammar is absolutely correct. Publish or submit for publication only after writing check for spelling, grammar and language errors.  You can use free online tools for this purpose. If you can afford it, for about INR 5000, you can buy a good software for this as well otherwise you can take the help of google as well by typing your sentence you are having doubt in.

• Headings: The headings and subheading should be linked with Styles -> Heading 1 and Heading 2 of google document. Google search always prefer documents with the linked style instead of normal text.

• Explain the technical terms: General public is not familiar with technical legal terms. If is absolutely necessary to use big legal jargons then simplify them for readers who come from non-legal background.

• Citation style: References should be cited properly through a hyperlink. Wherever possible, use hyperlink instead of footnotes.

• Scan ability: Most of the readers skim through the article to see if it is worth a read. So add more subheadings, bullet points and paragraph breaks and inserting tables and meaning full pictures will worth as will attract the readers and will give the to the point information to the readers.

How to make research for article :-

Few steps and procedure you should keep in mind and also should follow while writing a content are,

1.     Deciding what is your research question and recognize what does not fall in the scope :- Decide the exact question you are going to answer in your article. There cannot be more than 2 questions you answer in one blog post. If there are more relevant questions, no problem, write another article to address the same later. Note it and focus on the current article only. Try to clear one or two broad questions in an article and not too many. It will consume time as you will not spend much time on answering many questions in a single article.

2. Identify your headings and subheadings :-  Identify what are the smaller questions that you need to answer in order to answer the bigger question. For this, you may have to read up a bit. Don’t read everything, don’t read into great details. Read just enough, maybe scan through material just to understand what are the smaller questions you have to answer in order to answer the bigger question.Think of a question or two more by yourself. These questions will eventually become the headings and subheadings.

3.     Make the skeleton structure :- Write down all the headings and Subheadings as a skeleton structure and then fill it by creating body in the form  of content around the skeleton like headings and subheadings.

4.     Populating the skeleton :-  creating body around skeleton when it is ready, you can start filling up the blanks with answers to these specific questions. All your research will now be directed to answer these limited questions. Remember that there can be more questions added to any skeleton with unlimited possibilities. It is possible to write a book on any topic However, your job here is to just write enough to cover 1500-2000 words. If you want to write more and answer important questions, do so in another article. When you are done with answering all these questions, you are done with your article.

5.     Review and edit :- Many people skip this critical step. They never become amazing writers. First run your article through spell-check and grammar check. There are excellent softwares. If you can’t afford one please get a friend or a mentor to do so. Ask them what is good about the article and what is it’s weakness. Add, remove, edit content with the objective of polishing your article. Do not overdo it though, ship it     quickly. Not more than 24 hours after finishing in any case.

Some important tips :-

• Answer a few very important questions in your article, and provide a lot of valuable information that will help the readers.

• Try to answer many short questions in the long questions so that reader can. Can get the unit information of the big question you are going to answer in the article.

• Always read your article, blog or any content before submitting it , and before and after editing so there will be less chances of mistakes in it.

• Please do not start to write or aimlessly research till you have your skeleton structure in place. This will save time and make you a structured thinker.

• Always use a pen and paper after researching in various books and websites and then star writing your views you on that and then start to write it in laptop, pc, or mobile.

• Copy , paste the researched information from various sites in various notes so that it will be helpful to you as well and will not create a mess like situation.

• If you are not getting ideas even after reading article after article, research after research so you should change the place and many times surroundings should also be changed which will surely help to get ideas. Like personally I choose to go to cafeteria for writing articles so that I can get some peace out and can write.

• Many times situation arises like we are getting idea after ideas and when we start to write, then we forget all the things that came in our mind. So in that case, we should keep a diary with us so that whenever we get an idea, we can write it there in a single line but diary is not possible everywhere and anytime with us but the mobile can, so one can write the ideas in the notes too for further help.

So these are few tricks, tips, suggestions and procedures from my side for writing impressive content, hope you worth reading it, Thanks for giving your precious time.

Aishwarya Says:

I have always been against Glorifying Over Work and therefore, in the year 2021, I have decided to launch this campaign “Balancing Life”and talk about this wrong practice, that we have been following since last few years. I will be talking to and interviewing around 1 lakh people in the coming 2021 and publish their interview regarding their opinion on glamourising Over Work.

If you are interested in participating in the same, do let me know.

Do follow me on Facebook, Twitter  Youtube and Instagram.

The copyright of this Article belongs exclusively to Ms. Aishwarya Sandeep. Reproduction of the same, without permission will amount to Copyright Infringement. Appropriate Legal Action under the Indian Laws will be taken.

If you would also like to contribute to my website, then do share your articles or poems at adv.aishwaryasandeep@gmail.com

We also have a Facebook Group Restarter Moms for Mothers or Women who would like to rejoin their careers post a career break or women who are enterpreneurs.

We are also running a series Inspirational Women from January 2021 to March 31,2021, featuring around 1000 stories about Indian Women, who changed the world. #choosetochallenge