Written Communication

Think of the last time a WhatsApp message in your family group was misread — a short “ok.” taken as anger, or “come fast” taken as an emergency. In speech, your tone and face would have fixed that in a second. On paper, nothing can. For a lawyer the stakes are higher: a notice, an application or a complaint is read when you are not in the room, and it may be kept for years. So what makes writing work when the writer is absent?

In two minutes

Written communication is the sending of a message through words fixed on paper or screen; because the reader cannot interrupt to ask what you meant, it must be planned, clear, complete and correct, and in legal work it also becomes a permanent record.

The rest of this chapter

The full explanation, the cheat sheet, every previous-year question at every mark weight, the quiz and the answer skeletons are part of English – I on LexBlox Semester. Sign in to unlock the subject, or read Module 1 of Legal Language and Writing free.