Print and Read Your Memo Before Hitting "Submit"
I teach a legal research and writing course, and I recently finished reviewing my students’ closed memo assignment.
If you’re not familiar with a closed memo, it’s a legal document that presents a detailed analysis of a specific legal issue (in my students' case, they examined the validity of an inter vivos gift). A closed memo is called “closed” because I gave the students all the statutes, case law, and facts they need to complete the assignment. The purpose of a closed memo is to simulate the real-world legal analysis process, where a lawyer must apply relevant law to specific facts.
Since this first major assignment in the course limits the resources students can use, I expected them to spend additional time on the writing and proofreading aspects, as the research component is somewhat controlled. Also, I expect legal documents, including educational assignments like closed memos, to adhere to high standards of accuracy and professionalism.
But, for whatever reasons, I discovered lots of careless writing mistakes like typos, misspellings, grammatical mistakes, and formatting errors—all issues that could have easily been discovered with a bit more proofreading.
One piece of advice I gave to students is to print out their memo and read it aloud before submitting their final work product.
Good proofreading often involves printing out the paper and reading it aloud for several reasons:
First, reading words on a printed version instead of in an open Word file can help students notice things they might not have discovered on the computer screen. The change in format and the physical act of holding paper can provide a new perspective and highlight errors that might not have been evident as they were spending weeks drafting the memo on the computer.
Second, reading printed text can sometimes be easier on students’ eyes than computer text, thereby reducing eye strain and making it easier to catch small errors.
Third, reading aloud from a printed copy of the memo can help students catch errors or awkward phrasings that they might not notice when reading computer text silently. Reading the memo out loud can be especially useful to determine whether the use of a comma is or is not necessary within a sentence. (I’m finding that students overly use the comma, leading to an abundance of comma faults in the memo and hindering the tone and flow of the arguments being made).
Fourth, printing out the memo allows students to mark errors on the physical copy and gives them the opportunity to evaluate those changes before committing to those changes on the computer version of the memo.
While technology has improved students’ ability to proofread on the computer or a tablet, the old school techniques of printing the memo out and reading it aloud remains a very effective way to catch mistakes and errors before hitting “submit” to upload that final version for their professor to grade.
